Kelso - no Gas!

[braeside]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/sou ... 758652.stm

Hope you are managing to keep warm David & Shirley.

[David Kilpatrick]

We are lucky. Along with one neighbour, we have a gas supply on a separate main not affected by the cut. We have three gas boilers and one Aga (office, house, and guest wing plus the cooker). The office and house were reconnected at 9.45pm last night, the guest wing at 10am today. Our local hardware store had, in the meantime, extracted £29 from me for a halogen heater but I guess it's useful to have around...

Others are not so lucky and remain cut off, even just a few yards away. It all depends on which of the many different gas main branches you are on.

Our house was one of the first in Scotland to have gas, around 1822. The land facing it, once an open garden, was bought up by a consortium to build a massive coal-gas plant in 1821. Blighted the area, but when decorating, we discovered the old fine lead pipes feeding fantail outlets (no mantle!) round the house.

David

[Dr. Harout]

Thinking that we had no gas and no electricity for years even in cold winter days reaching -15 up to -27 degree Centigrade...

[bossel]

Thinking that we had no gas and no electricity for years even in cold winter days reaching -15 up to -27 degree Centigrade...

Brrrr - Tonight I brought up an extra heater from the garage up to our appartment. It's now going down to +5C at night and feels really cold. Houses here are not built for these extreme weather conditions We're on the top floor (like a penthouse ) all walls facing outside but one ...
But I do remember -10C and living in snow from my younger days! It's not that bad, apart from trying to get your windscreen ice-free in the morning

[peterottaway]

Like Bossel has posted, around here houses have traditionally been designed to be cool in Summer and to open out into the garden. So when it drops below 5C and the winds start to build up you start to notice it.

I have been looking at some of the winter/snow shots with interest as it does't snow here, ever.

I'm not trying to be mean and nasty to people like Javelin, but the temperatures for November ( the end of Spring) were min from 5 to 15.5 with max from 19.4 to 34. Also he has a lot of what we lack around here, water.

[Javelin]

man you want snow pix .. that I can do. we have 2' (600mm) on the ground now and some snow drifts ..it's supposed to warm right up tomorrow .. to 5°c ! woo hOO! We have no gas (it's going to be installed in the next 2 weeks) This house never had anything except a wood stove, which I adore actually theres nothing cosier than wood heat IMHO. but it'll be nice to have a gas furnace so we can go away for a weekend in the winter. When we moved in 2 years ago I had to replace the chimney stove and all the pipes. the house was made to heat this way. with ports to allow the air to circulate. it takes 10 minutes to get the house to 22°c from 15° with the stove even when it's -30° outside. but the drawback is there needs to be someone to feed it and it can make the house too hot VERY easiily. we tried it for 2 winters so now it's time to go back. I'll say this though. I can heat the house for the winter on about 250.00 if I buy all the wood!

[peterottaway]

I agree with you that nothing provides the same quality of heating as a wood stove, it's also something of a security blanket for those living in country towns and rural areas. As the good people of Kelso have found out.

There is a push locally for people to convert to gas although the lack of population density means no one is in a hurry to build a line locally. Or, to install reverse cycle air conditioning from the gas powered baseload power stations as being less polluting. Which is fine if you aren't living near an earthquake fault line or have less erratic weather conditions.

[braeside]

In Scotland we have a lot of very old buildings that were not built to modern standards of insulation, draught-proofing, and often have high ceilings, inefficient heating systems.

I do remember the times in the 50's and 60's when we had really cold winters with ice on the windows inside the house, and that was with central heating (no double glazing).

Natural Gas was seen as the heating solution in the latter part of the 20th Century as we apparently had an abundance of it in the North Sea. Consequently we became dependent on it for our heating. Prior to that coal fires was the most common form of household heating.

Modern Scottish houses are better insulated and easier to heat, generally have much more efficient gas boilers and radiators, however they have no other form of heating, no chimneys, no coal fires or wood burning stoves. This leads to a real problem if a utility like electricity or gas fails. (No electricity means no gas heating as well, because it is needed for pumps and gas valve operation). It can be really miserable if you are accustomed to a nice 21C in a centrally heated home and then are plunged into relatively cold temperatures, with no way to get any warmth.

[Javelin]

Yes we won't give up our wood stove even after the gas heat is in. Growing up I lived in a house that was heated with coal. messy is all I can say. there was always a lot of dust around and the furnace we had was problematic. the new style wood stoves burn so clean now. there is almost no soot and the ash is a lot finer than it is with older stoves where you continue to get black chunks in the ash. It's still messy though bringing stove lengths. were always sweeping up the bark and splinters.

[peterottaway]

What has been lost on many people here because of air-conditioning is what I would describe as solar design principals. The house or townhouse group is simply dropped on the plan. No consideration is being made to maximize natural winter light or summer nightly breeze patterns. Or simply that most of the rain we receive comes from winter storm fronts and so it not a good idea to put your front door on such an axis.

And taking such things into account are the bedrooms to the front or back, or is the house placed with a north - south or east - west emphasis ? Where is the car port or garage to be placed ?

When the electricity fails many of these houses turn into ovens as opposed to the cold boxes you are talking about.

[David Kilpatrick]

Here's a crew working with a policeman in attendance as the town slowly gets its gas back - we were lucky, it seems. My local pub where I was due out tonight is shut, closed entirely, had to cancel a Christmas dinner for 30 last night with no gas to cook on. Canon 5D MkII, 50mm f1.8 lens, ISO 6400:


http://www.pbase.com/davidkilpatrick/image/106657445

ISO 6400 works pretty well on this camera (in-cam JPG). They are slowly restoring gas to the town of Kelso but many businesses have had to close, and I half think the policeman is guarding the gas engineers to prevent violence (there have been a few angry words of course, and today the gasmen were going round with teams of joiners, breaking into people's houses if needed to turn appliances off, so they could restore the gas supply street by street - some people had left their homes locked up and gone to stay with friends or family who have heating, thinking they could 'come back when the gas is back on' - but of course the gas men are unable to turn the supply back on until every single house in a street has been visited and checked for safety - hence the forced entries and the police).

David

[01af]

Here's a crew working with a policeman in attendance as the town slowly gets its gas back ...

Weird ... I always thought the cars in the whole UK are supposed to drive on the wrong side of the road. Don't they do so in Scotland?

-- Olaf

[David Kilpatrick]

They park on any side they like, in this case, regardless of whether parking is allowed - the gas crews have been able to park anywhere, no restriction. The town square doesn't really have a 'side' to the road, it is the biggest market square in Scotland (claimed, though I doubt it) and cars drive randomly between the marked are for parking, in any direction they choose.

David

[braeside]

Nice ISO 6400 from the 5D II David.

You should offer to have the pub guests round to Kilpatrick Towers tonight.