Thursday, November 13, 2008

Life ON the Grid

My brother and his girlfriend would never have this problem. They live pretty much off the grid. Yep solar & all, the real deal.

We, on the other hand, are dependent upon Amerigas & Dominion Power to keep us warm and basking in the luxury of our appliances & electronics.

Last night, my Mom mentioned she had to take a shower with cold water. What??? So, I figured the hot water heated had died. However, the other hot water heater was also cold. Neither the stove was working, nor the heat. (Our heating system - Apollo- runs off the hot water heaters. If there's no hot water, there's no heat.)
It seems the propane had run out.
We've been here five and a half years, and this is the first time it happened. We have the service with the gas company, such that they automatically deliver when it gets low, but somehow we fell through the cracks with that system. The after-hours line said someone would call me this morning, first thing, to set up a time for a delivery today. The catch is we had to be home, because the gas man would have to come inside to check all the propane-using appliances.

Great, gotta postpone Mom's dr.'s appointment.

It only got to 60 degrees (F) in my bedroom, so that wasn't too bad. Since I get too warm often, a little cool is fine by me. We have a space heater for Mom (she's very cold natured) so she was comfortable. One helpful feature of having propane is that when the electricity goes out, we're still able to use the stove, and take hot showers. But this was the gas.
As of 9:30 this moaning, I'd heard nada, so I rang them up. After 3o minutes of being put on hold and transferred, we got a delivery set up. Typically on a cool fall day (48 degrees midday today) by mid morning we'd get some warming in the house, thanks to the passive solar provided by the plethora of windows on the south and west sides of the house. But today, it's cloudy and raining, so no warmth from the sun.
The gas man cometh and now goeth, and we are 'cooking with gas' again. And I can run the dishwasher! Woo-hoo! And take a shower, praise God.
Oh yeah, and the gas company owes us a whopping $25 for this inconvenience. Wow, I can hardly wait to get that.