Nice People Thread No. 15, a Cyber Summer

silvercar

LydiaJ wrote: »

You can log into your account with a computer and delete that phone from your tado account. Or just add another phone. You can have several phones linked to the same house if several smartphone-users live in the same home. It turns the heating on if any of them are home. I don't bother with that. My kids like it cold, so they don't mind if the heating's off if I'm out and they're in. If it really gets too cold for them, they put the thermostat in the fridge, which always make the heating come on and stay on until you take the thermostat back out of the fridge and put it in some part of the living space.

Our Hive can be manually overridden from the thermostats on the walls.

Pyxis

GDB2222 wrote: »

Before going to the vet, I checked the symptoms online, and there's no good outcome listed. The possible diagnoses range from a large tumour to heart failure. The only not-quite-so-serious one listed was asthma.

The mutt is late MIL's mutt, so the kids are very fond of her partly because she is a link to grandmother. Two of the kids came along to the vet.

The vet said the mutt is very ill, but not in pain. Not sure what's wrong, but not asthma. We can have lots of tests done, but there's not much point.

Vet suggested that maybe we should 'part with' the mutt there and then, but the kids were not ready for this. I also felt "there's life in the old dog yet". So, she has a reprieve, and we'll have another look at her in the morning.

I've made an appointment with the vet for Friday afternoon, so it may not be a very long reprieve.

Funnily, the vet said not to make the dog walk, because of the breathing difficulties, so we carried her from the vet all the way to the park. Whereupon, she ran around happily sniffing things. So, I think we made the right decision.

When we got home, the mutt ate some cheese, which is her favourite food. But she left the wet dog food in her dish, which normally she would wolf down.

Just some food for thought, GDB.

It may be worth having some tests done, especially if you are insured.

Something similar happened to my dog, and when I asked about options, my vet referred me to a canine heart specialist, who put her on a regime of medication, including digoxin. The original prognosis was 6 months, but with the medication and me hand-feeding her some special food, she lived another two years.

When I suspected she may have had enough, she spared me having to make the decision one day, and went, just like that, at home.

michaels

silvercar wrote: »

Yes OK but why not switch the heating off during the day? Anyone wanting to warm up can add layers of clothing/ exercise/ go to somewhere with free heating (eg library).

I think it is a reaction to always being cold when I was growing up (frost on inside of windows, lots of putting on extra layers/watching tv under rugs) but a warm house is my one luxury and so denying it to dw and dks when they ar home and I am out seems a little unfair...on the other hand perhaps if the house were freezing dw might think about getting off the sofa in front of Jeremy Kyle and getting a job....

SingleSue

michaels wrote: »

I ran the figures through when the deal started and was horrified that the current best deal is about 35% (£500) more than we are paying on our fix which ends in October. Ouch!

A lot of our bill comes from heating not hot water as we heat all day so we see a huge variation depending on the outside temperature. This year for a couple of months the SE was colder than normal (although not snowy) but then March and April were milder than last year - I think overall the 6 months to the end of April were very similar to the year before (December 15 was a real mild anomaly).

That's more than my entire gas bills for a year!

What on earth do you have your thermostat set at?

SingleSue

michaels wrote: »

I think it is a reaction to always being cold when I was growing up (frost on inside of windows, lots of putting on extra layers/watching tv under rugs) but a warm house is my one luxury and so denying it to dw and dks when they ar home and I am out seems a little unfair...on the other hand perhaps if the house were freezing dw might think about getting off the sofa in front of Jeremy Kyle and getting a job....

I grew up with that too but instead of making me want to put the heating on more, I just carried on with the things we used to do when we were children and just put more layers on.

What also made me conscious of our usage was when we had a prepayment meter (the scary gas monster as I used to call it), that thing could eat credit for breakfast and at times it felt like I was constantly feeding it. I got so paranoid about running out at the wrong time (i.e when the bank account was empty) that I became ultra conservative in our usage and found extra ways to save that little bit extra.

silvercar

michaels wrote: »

I think it is a reaction to always being cold when I was growing up (frost on inside of windows, lots of putting on extra layers/watching tv under rugs) but a warm house is my one luxury and so denying it to dw and dks when they ar home and I am out seems a little unfair...on the other hand perhaps if the house were freezing dw might think about getting off the sofa in front of Jeremy Kyle and getting a job....

If the kids are at school, would it be cheaper to treat dw with a coffee at costa and turn the heating off?

PasturesNew

LydiaJ wrote: »

...it automatically turns the heating off when I go out and back on when I come home, without my having to think about it or do anything...

My system does that. It works on the basis of:

System is set to Snowflake on thermostat.

I open the door and walk in, sort myself out and if I think "bit nippy", then turn the dial above the snowflake until I hear a "click", then move it another 1-2mm upwards.

silvercar wrote: »

If the kids are at school, would it be cheaper to treat dw with a coffee at costa and turn the heating off?

Or just sit in the driveway in the car for an hour until all the car residual heat has gone.

Pyxis

My 'extravagance' is not caring how much I pay for parking!

Some people I know who loathe paying for parking will drive around streets to find a free spot, or park a good walk away from where they want to be.

That's fine if you're not going to be carrying anything, or don't mind getting wet if it's raining, or don't have some breathing problems and jointy issues, and don't get hot, sweaty and red on exertion, or don't live in a hilly place.

I didn't get my first car until I was 40, and had lugged babies, children, pets, shopping bags/trollies on/off buses, up hills in all weathers, stood shivering for ages at bus-stops, been restricted in where I could go, etc. etc., so to have the ease and convenience of parking close to where I want to be is my version of leaving the heating on!


What's everyone else's 'extravagance'? It would be interesting to know!

PasturesNew

michaels wrote: »

.... on the other hand perhaps .... m... t... a... g... o.. t.. s... i. f... o. J.. K... a.. g.. . j....

*does the Muttley snigger*

chris_m

Pyxis wrote: »

Some people I know who loathe paying for parking will drive around streets to find a free spot, or park a good walk away from where they want to be.

I love it when people drive miles to fill up at the cheapest filling station - but forget that they've spent more in extra burnt fuel than the saving they made in replacing it