Gas

Site of our GPL tank

No, this isn’t a white cat against a whiteboard or something similar. It’s the area, surrounded by a wall a couple of bricks high,  in which our underground GPL tank is situated. Even the yellow markers at each corner of the enclosure have disappeared under the snow which fell with renewed vigour last night.

Our main heat at the moment comes from a pellet stove, but we have a gas-fired central heating system upstairs which, in order to stay in good condition, will need to consume a certain amount of gas. This will be over and above our usual low usage for cooking.

If the manometer in the tank is giving us a correct reading (which in itself is questionable) then we are only ‘ just above the red’. We will doubtless need to fill the tank up soon, when the snow has cleared.

We talked today about looking around for the best GPL prices, and I remembered that we had some sort of restrictive contract which I thought might have expired.

I looked it up and this is what I found.

We are under contract, to the company which installed our tank, to receive our GPL supply from them for 2 years from the date of our first fill-up.

On expiry of the 2 years, the contract is tacitly renewed for a further 2 years, and so on.

We can choose to terminate the contract provided we send a cancellation letter BY REGISTERED POST (this is a standard term in most Italian service contracts and is rarely substitutable by fax or email) 3 months before its expiry.

On termination of the contract, we must repay the €550 + IVA cost of the tank, reduced by 12% for each year that the contract has been in force. It’s therefore 10 years before we’re free of the automatic financial penalty.

It doesn’t seem we have much of a choice.

A desk by the fire

Clive has been feeling the cold very badly and his trusty oil convection radiator has packed up.

Today we had the brainwave of moving him next to the pellet stove which, although not designed to give out radiant heat, nonetheless feels nice and warm.

His existing desk probably wouldn’t fit in the space and anyway would be a major upheaval to move, so we improvised one with spare timbers from the pool and blocks we didn’t use for the steps.

Clive's new desk (notice Joules underneath)

The set-up looks very cosy and the mat underneath is much in demand with the dogs even when Clive isn’t in occupation.

Problematic stove

The cheapest heating fuel in these parts is wooden pellets made from reconstituted sawdust of either softwood or hardwood or a mixture.

The pellet stove

In a specially made stove, a hopper is stoked with the pellets which then drop at the required rate into a burner. An attractive orange flame can be seen through a glass window but no ashes escape and the surfaces are never too hot to touch.

When we chose our stove 4 years ago, it was about the only model that could heat a 100 square metre room and the water for a swimming pool. In fact it was too cutting edge for its own good.

It has given us a fair deal of heat over the years, but also an inordinate amount of trouble. Practically every Error Alert in the book has occurred at one time or another.

It has flooded the floor several times.

The company which manufactured the stove and, until the guarantee expired, was responsible for its defects, refuses to speak to ‘members of the public’. Requests and complaints have to be conveyed through specially contracted technicians, and for a long time they were unable to find anyone to take on the contract in the area.

When they did find someone, he ‘fixed’ the stove for us and almost as soon as he’d left, a valve ruptured and we were sprayed with evil-smelling boiling water shooting out in all directions.

The only technician who seems to understand our stove  is the one who installed it, and he lives over an hour away with travelling expenses to match.

A brand new Error Alert occurred this evening. I finally managed to reach a co-worker of our trusted technician; he guessed that the water temperature sensor has packed up.

It sounds expensive and I’m sure it will be. Meantime we have to huddle round our infra-red electric fire.

Pellet delivery

It’s nearly time to batten down the hatches. Today we brought the tubs of plants in (cacti, a little grapefruit tree, primulas, etc) and received the first delivery of pellets.

One of the stacks of pellet sacks

These are white spruce-wood pellets in 15- kilogram sacks, to be burnt in our stove which takes nothing else.

The delivery men arranged to come, and almost as soon as I’d put the phone down, the heavens opened.  I was worried about the sacks getting wet and staying wet in their stack.

Fortunately the delivery men had thought of that, too. They phoned and suggested we cancel.

No sooner had we cancelled, than the sun came out. I phoned them back, and the delivery was on again.

Now we look like we’re in a bunker, with 66 sacks distributed in heaps 7 high behind the sofa and the armchair. We’ve put them nice and handy this year.

We’d ordered 4 tons of gravel as well. All 3 dogs thought the heap was great fun, and played variations of ‘I’m the King of the Castle’ on it for ages.