Phew. Rayburn man came yesterday and degunked the Rayburn, and its temperature had finally crept back up to normal. We’ve solemnly promised not to turn it down lower than ‘2′ in future (makes you wonder why they bother to have a ‘1′) and shall be laying offerings before it diligently every morning to make sure it doesn’t get angry or sick again. The writings of G***** M****** will also be excised from the Guardian and burnt (if we can ever get them to light) before bringing the paper into the house.
Actually, what this has done is prove that – as far as our little Rayburn goes at least – Mr M****** was completely wrong. If the last few days have been anything to go by, running the Rayburn actually saves us oil. Without it we’ve had to have the heating on much more (it was 12°C in the kitchen yesterday morning without it), running our inefficient boiler much longer, and even then we’ve spent most of the time huddled in the other half’s man cave with the electric heater on. Our oil gauge isn’t accurate enough to tell for sure, but we know from calculations we’ve done in the past that running the boiler for about 3 hours a day uses up 3 roughly times as much oil as running the Rayburn for 24 hours a day, so it doesn’t take much extra heating to tip the balance. Throw in all the savings on boiling the kettle, cooking with electricity and not having to run the tumble dryer or iron (in the unlikely event that we ever have to do any ironing) and I reckon the Rayburn’s positively green, in the winter at least.
And in the summer? Well if we ever actually have one, I’ll let you know.
January 21, 2009 at 1:00 pm |
So in summer is it still heating the house and making everything unbearably hot?
January 21, 2009 at 1:22 pm |
heating the house? Yes. Unbearably hot? I’m sorry, I’m not familiar with that concept…
January 21, 2009 at 3:20 pm |
The solution round these parts is called a summer kitchen. Traditional farmhouse kitchen with table chairs TV & Aga/Rayburn for winter and then a separate living room and kitchenette on/near the patio for the summer – mind you land prices have risen steeply so that use of space is going out of fashion. It has the merit of only having to clean half the reception rooms for half the year – yay – but the downside of having to have 2 fridges & 2 sinks & be willing to move utensil drawers twice a year:
As our heating is all electric we’ve toyed with the idea of a piano de cuisine, but given we only use heating from November to March, thought it too much of an extravagance.
January 21, 2009 at 3:22 pm |
P.S. We’re thinking of installing fold down beds in the alcoves beside the fireplace à la moyenne age for when it drops below -10, generally just after Xmas then again in February
January 21, 2009 at 3:59 pm |
J – stop, you’re making me jealous. The idea of being to cook/eat/live outdoors in the summer is just so tempting. As, indeed, is sleeping in the kitchen in the winter…
ps what is a piano de cuisine?
January 21, 2009 at 4:17 pm |
We have just reworked our kitchen so we can turn our Aga off for the ’summer’; we now have a hob, (bottled gas) and an basic oven (electric) it will give us a lot more flexibility. We wring every last calorie of heat out of our Aga, but the days of throwing the windows open because it’s a bit hot in the kitchen are now history.
January 21, 2009 at 4:29 pm |
that is probably the answer. We do have space for an electric cooker, so I may keep an eye out on freecycle to see if one is going spare. My worry initially was that if we had an electric cooker we wouldn’t want to bother with the Rayburn but now I’m used to it it’s no bother at all and I’d cook on it in preference to anything supposedly more sophisticated.
January 22, 2009 at 3:01 am |
Living in the deep south of the colonies (North Carolina) a summer kitchen or substantial Air Conditioning is a prerequisite. Living on an old farm the summer kitchen came with it. Ours has gas stove, and gas refrigerator both dating from somewhere around the middle of the last century, (there is also a wood cookstove, but it is even older!) still burbling along. Screened walls and ceiling fans are also necessary. As far as moving drawer stock…forget it, the summer kitchen is fully stocked with all the necessary items, including duplicates of most of what is in the normal kitchen, plus the addition of heavy duty pots and pressure cookers for canning duty.
Glad to hear the Rayburn will live to provide warmth for many more days.
Aaron
January 22, 2009 at 9:26 am |
Aaah a gas fridge – we used to have when I was a lad. What a fantastic idea – like eating yourself thin eh?
January 22, 2009 at 9:33 am |
When we lived in Swaziland we spent many happy hours in the pub theorising as to how a gas fridge might work…
January 22, 2009 at 10:50 am |
Gas fridges work on a very simple principle involving ammonia and a small gas flame, basic thermodynamics. I have seen some gas fridges over 70 years old, still working. We have found that the ones that work the best are the ones that are seldom or never moved and never shut off for any length of time. I have been keeping my eyes open for a gas fired deep freeze
Aaron
January 22, 2009 at 6:12 pm |
We’d got as far as the fact that cooling was caused by the evaporation of the gas somehow (in this case from a propane cylinder). But where the pilot light came in, and how the compressor might be run had us stumped.
Of course there was a lot of Hansa lager involved at the time so our reasoning faculties might have been a little dulled
January 22, 2009 at 9:58 pm |
Hansa lager – there’s a blast from the past – the last time I remember seeing Hansa anywhere I was drinking it and shouldn’t have been (not because lager is tasteless fizzy …. but because I wasn’t 18 – or even 15 come to think of it)
January 22, 2009 at 10:01 pm |
Forgot to say in the lager-fuelled excitement – a gas fridge is an “absorption refridgerator” so now wikipedia will probably help you
January 23, 2009 at 10:34 am |
aha. Thank you. That makes a bit more sense.
January 24, 2009 at 6:09 pm |
I missed the absorption part…oops. No compressor. They do make some very efficient fridges that have low draw compressors that are capable of being used on a low energy budget. Prime example would be to use them on a a house utilizing solarvoltics. (a foreign concept for Scotland!) LOL
Aaron