Central Heating on a grand scale

One of the joys of living where we do in Tuzla is that we have access to the Tuzla central heating system. The local industry (we think the coal fired power station down the road, but have no idea if we are actually right) produces large amounts of piping hot water which is pumped around the town into apartments, houses and our radiators.

It is really effective. Our radiators are piping hot and do an excellent job of warming up the house. The only issue we have is that the heating is either on or off. So, a couple of weeks ago when there was an unexpectedly early cold snap, the heating was yet to be turned on, and we shivered. Taking pity on us the authorities authorised an early start to the heating (it doesn't usually get turned on until October 15th) whereupon the weather promptly turned nice. The heating was then ON and everyone spent a lot of time with their windows open. Today it is chilly and the house is toasty warm inside. Perfect.

I have no idea when the heating system was installed in the town, but it is an excellent use of industrial by-products. I do have a sneaking admiration for the large scale planning that it must have taken to implement it and suspect that only a communist state would have the ability to do it. In the meantime, it is good to have a fixed price to pay for heating each month. This neatly circumnavigates the annual spat D and I have: I like to open windows and air the house every day, D mutters darkly about the cost of heating the great outdoors. Here it doesn't make a difference, a win win situation.