Central Heating

[Follow Me Through]

Just heard that winter has officially started in the RAF. As we have been enjoying such a great October the heating is now on 'Full'. Just like it was in May!

Apparently there is a new fangled contraption called a Fermostat that makes the heating come on only when needed. Can this be true or possible? Please send details if you know what it is or how it works.

OC Heating and Budgets

[BEagle]

The laws of physics have always eluded the Ministry of Works, Ministry of Public Blunders and Wonders, Dullards of The Environment, Pretty Stupid Ar$eholes, Zqirkmvv or whatever the latest stupid name is for the fools who allegedly fettle the primitive heating systems on our stations. Hence we measure temperature with a calendar, not a thermometer.......... Especially now that the Shirko civvies can whinge to their unions if the temperature is .1 deg below some obscure statutory limit, up sticks and bug ger off!

Perhaps it's just a way of making the poor $ods who've been stuck in their desert prison for the last few weeks feel at home when they return to civilisation......??

[Tonkenna]

Up here in sunny Scotland they where winging about the heating weeks ago. I think they get hacked off, cause I leave my window open in the office (I think the radio annoys them as well). When it didn't work (the heating that is) it was fixed in hours, not in weeks like the good old days when it was all RAF.

Tonks

[Cy Nichol]

We've got about 6 PCs in our office, heating which we can't control but 2 air conditioners to cool the room down so that's ok isn't it?

[OldBonaMate]

Nothing seems to have changed, does it? It was always one of the sad facts of life that the heating went off on a particular day in April or May which immediately preceded an unseasonal cold spell; and on again on a particular day in October right in the middle of a wonderfully warm Indian summer.

Have these guys got computers yet? Or are they still working with ledgers?

:confused:

[Jackonicko]

Wax tablets and whatever the plural of 'abacus' is......

[oldpinger]

Gotta love the Southern hemisphere.... nice pleasant 23 degrees today and only going to get warmer! :D :D :p

[Samuel]

Why isn't it controlled by a simple programme that operates from sensors which are preset so that you don't get heat when you don't need it? I have such a system in my home, though it is rarely activated, though I think we actually had a frosty morning once, about three years ago!

Not quite 23 (Celsius)today, but 18 according to the thermometer nailed to the magnolia in my front garden!It is but a Spring day!

[henry crun]

Similar events used to happen in the southern hemisphere.
One could almost guarantee that on the spring day it was decreed KD (shorts and lightweight short sleeved shirts) would be worn the temperature would immediately drop to brass monkey level.
Remember that Samuel ?

[Samuel]

Henry, me old mate, I can recall wearing my working blue jacket over KD at RAF Eastleigh early in the morning, (when the 5.600 feet altitude rewarded one with the most magnificent sunrise imaginable)having earlier wondered why the RAF insisted I take it to a country on the equator! The powers that were always got the changeover from blue to KD wrong in NZ also!

Nothing to do with this thread, though nice to remember!

[ 30 October 2001: Message edited by: Samuel ] (twice, due to typos)

[ 30 October 2001: Message edited by: Samuel ]

[FJJP]

Used to wear desert boots when in Akrotiri in the hot weather - inc the pratt CO. Did the same when working at a Sicilian base (same temp) and promptly got an earful. Logic from a pratt.

I'm told that these days the 'Energy Efficiency Manager (EEM)' doesn't use the calendar any more. They talk to the met men and get a forecast of temp trends for the next few days and decide accordingly. Too bad, though if you're office is in the north-facing side of a hangar. That doesn't count, apparently.

I have these amazing things attached to my radiators at home called fermostats (or something) - apparently you can have the radiator on in one room and off in another! Whatever will they think of next?! Far too advanced a concept for the EEM to grasp. 'Sides, the cost of installation versus the savings in heating fuel is far too complex mathematics for the poor soul (or is it something to do with different budgets)?

:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :confused:

[Al Titude]

Remember at Linton not so long ago that the beancounters decided letting the studes control the thermostats in their rooms was costing too much money.
As a result a company was paid a large amount (will keep secret but it was in the thousands) to design a peice of plastic to cover the thermostats so they couldn't be changed.
Result, thermostats set too high and then 'blocked' so windows were left open heating N. Yorkshire. (Didn't help the fog problem though.) Due to this the heating bills rose even further.
The only solution was an (old style) aircrew knife put to use against the offending peice of plastic. After all this and a long struggle of studes v Officers Mess the plastic blockers were removed, and no money whatsoever was saved in the exercise.

Another pointless ex by the beancounters that ultimately cost thousands, not to mention the man hours involved!

:cool: :cool:
Edited for crop spooling

[ 30 October 2001: Message edited by: Al Titude ]

[Bervie]

Ahhh the endless hours spent battling that annoying plastic thing, remember it well!
Seeing the heat haze eminate from all the open windows on a chilly january morning was probably not the sight the bean counters wanted to see. It was a welcome sight to come home to after LSE in winter though!
:cool: :rolleyes:

[the funky munky]

Down in sunny Somersetshire the powers that be have this thingumygizmo called forced air heating that heats the offices up based on the temperature 2 days ago. Sounds good but they only switch it on Oct - May and sometimes you do get a warm spell....

[ 30 October 2001: Message edited by: the funky munky ]

[Gravity Selected]

I have a funny white metal grill thing about 3.5'x2.5' bolted to my wall. I believe that it is one of these 'Fermostats' that people are talking about. I stick my toe out from under the duvet and touch it in the morning and it tells me the OAT/room temperature (one and the same). Handy device the bean counters may be interested in? :rolleyes:

[Fortyodd]

Have you learned nothing?? Of course the heating has to be switched on at the end of October.....How else can they turn it off in the first week of December for three weeks for it's annual maintenance? :D

[BEagle]

'They' did actually turn the whole heating system off at RAFC over Christmas and New Year in 1973 when the country was having the 'winter of discontent'. Some of us had to come back a couple of days early and found that the whole place had cold-soaked. There was no hot water, no heating, no food. The idea was to save money! We used to drive around for a couple of hours in the morning and afternoon with car heaters on max in the freezing fog to keep warm. Eventually 'they' turned it back on and we had burst pipes, water streaming down the walls, carpets ruined..... Allegedly the repairs cost well over twice what it would have cost 'them' to have keep the heating system ticking over!

Big picture....blah....different budgets....blah....I hear what you say....blah....purple jointery....blah blah!!

[Art Field]

Beagle, I seem to remember that at the famous secret Oxfordshire base they did indeed put stats on the radiators. Trouble was they were a job lot, probably GPO suplus, went wrong all the time and had to be constantly mended and were finally removed. No saving, erratic heating but it kept the plumbers in beer cos that is the object of the exercise isn't it?

[murphee]

'Fraid I've got to agree with old pinger, even though I'm still a touch inside the Northern Hemisphere, it's a lovely 29 deg at the mo, and it's only 7 in the morning!!!!

Yours

Murph x x x

[tony draper]

Draper installed a CATV sytem in the accomodation blocks at the heavier than air machine base at Dishforth,with full interface for Satellite in every room, one trusts this is still functioning ok.
Seemed like a nice enough place, wern't many of them airoplane thingies knocking about, much to Drapers disapointment. ;)