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Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Cosy

I enjoy each season as it rolls round and that includes winter. Today it started to make its presence felt and outside it's decidedly cool this evening. How lovely it is to be cosy inside, curtains pulled in a snug warm room as the wind and rain continue outside.

In Stokes Valley, I heated the house with a woodburner. This is a deeply satisfying way to warm ones's home. Quite apart from the aesthetics - lets face it, there is nothing more lovely than flames dancing

- there are other joys to the woodburner. There's the fun of listening to others bemoan their crippling electricity bills while yours remain constantly low all year round. There is the deep satisfaction to be gained from the sight of your gloriously elegant stack of firewood.

Stacked firewood not only looks good, it smells good. There is the almost primal satisfaction in knowing you are provisioned for the big freeze to come.

This will be my second winter in Petone. While the house now boasts gorgeous fire surrounds, no flames will dance within. The heating here is gas - ghastly gas. An unappealing appliance that is all about the science of heating, with not a scrap of the art of it. It provides all the heating needed, as long as there isn't a power cut - how silly to have a non-electric fuel source entirely dependent on electricity to deliver its heat.
However, there is something to be said for arriving home, flicking a switch and having a warm room within a couple of minutes - and that's how it will have to be for quite a while to come until I can afford to put in a woodburner. 





2 comments:

  1. We had a wood burner,as you probably know, but replaced it with a free standing gas heater.
    1. Yes it does light in a power cut. They have a pilot flame! The fan may not work.
    2. Wood is enormously expensive compared to gas, $200 a trailor load, then you need kindling, fire lighters, dry light wood, dry hard wood....not to mention matches,cleaning out the grate and ash...
    3. The best thing about gas is cooking. it is so quick. Have you ever been to a restaurant where the chef cooks on an electric element?

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  2. You're lucky if yours works without power - mine doesn't. I have that silly gas infinity hot water too, so no hot water in a power cut either! My firewood worked out way less in cost than 5 months of hefty power accounts of bleating friends. My cooktop and oven are electric, but not a biggie as I'm not into cooking - have only used the oven once - to heat up something someone else cooked and brought round!

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