In hot water!
When I first arrived in Bishkek, one of the things that caught me by surprise was the arrangement for heating houses in the city center. In Britain, or at least most of it, each household is responsible for heating itself. In Bishkek, (or at least the apartment blocks in the city center), this is the responsibility of BishkekTeploSet, which pipes hot water from its heating plants on the outskirts to homes in the city.
When I grew up we had fireplaces in every room but, to be honest, we only ever had a fire in the one room where we spent most of our time. Each week during the winter months, the coalman would deliver sacks of coal, and amongst the chores that my brother and I had to perform was breaking the huge lumps into smaller ones for the fire, putting them into the fire bucket and carrying it into the house. Each evening my father would bank up the fire, and cover it with “slack”, (coal dust), so that it would simply smolder away overnight and not burn furiously. How we enjoyed sitting or standing in front of a roaring blaze.
We only had one tap, which delivered cold water. Malvern was one of the few places which had installed water meters, so instead of paying a standard charge for water, we paid according to how much we actually used.
If we wanted hot water, for making tea or cooking, for washing either our clothes or ourselves, then we had boil large saucepans on the gas stove, or in a separate boiler, a sort of early washing machine, which my mother had for “boiling the clothes”, topped with a mangle for wringing them dry before hanging them out on a clothes line to dry.
Then we installed gas central heating. The open coal fire was replaced by a gas fire, and a hot water tank, heated by a gas burner, with an electric immersion heater as a back up. Radiators were placed in every room, with thermostats so that we could control the temperature in each one separately. Oh, the luxury of a warm house and hot water on demand.
If Malvern was unusual in that water was metered, there are towns where the term Central Heating means exactly that; the heating for the whole community is provided by a central plant and piped to homes, shops and offices in the community, just as it is in Bishkek. There are several other communities that operate similar systems around the world, taking advantage of geothermal springs, rubbish incinerator plants and other forms of heating technology. These centralized systems benefit from efficiencies of economies of scale, and I well remember the conversations shortly after I arrived when locals would praise the system they had inherited from the Soviet Union, and criticizing the inefficiencies, expensiveness and wastefulness of each house catering for itself.
They forgot, although I would pleasure in reminding them, that each householder had the freedom of choice and could decide for themselves when they would turn on the heating and this gave them greater control over this aspect of their lives. Some people, for example, would turn on their heating as soon as the temperature dipped, whilst others waited until a cold spell really set in. Here, the system is stays off, no matter what the temperature outside, until the set date in November each year, and remains switched on, even during hot spells, until the set date at the end of the “heating season”.
More importantly, people could control the temperature they wanted for themselves. Here, there is no control over the temperature of the hot water coursing through the pipes and although, technically, thermostats are available, there are very few actually fitted and its questionable how effective they would be. The main technique available for “turning the temperature down” is to open the “fortichka”, a small window.
The biggest drawback of the system here in Bishkek, however, is that every year, the supply of hot water, for heating, washing and bathing, is interrupted; turned off for a month to permit maintenance of the system.
This year, in June, I received a note from BishkekTeploSet, informing me that I had to fit a water meter for the hot water system in my apartment. This didn’t worry me. As I said, back in my childhood, I lived in one of the few communities which metered the water supply, and I had lived through the debate when other communities deliberated on introducing such a system. Several of my friends and acquaintances here in Bishkek have already had meters fitted and, apart from the fact that it has to be done at the users expense, not the company’s, and the need to call the company every month to inform them of the lastest reading, I was assured that it should be to my advantage as I would almost certainly pay less for my hot water than I would by paying a standard charge.
What did upset me, however, was the fact that the notice was dated 18th March, and informed me that I had to fit the meter by April 10th. Remember, I received it at the beginning of June!
I telephoned and asked what was going on, and I was told that it was a duplicate, the original having been issued in March and apparently I had done nothing about it. I wasn’t surprised that I had done nothing about it, because it was the first time I had seen anything like this. I certainly didn’t receive a notice in March, and neither had my neighbours who also received similar notices. No-one had said anything about it when I had paid my bills in March, April and May. So it had come as a big surprise.
They told me not to worry, but to try and get the meter fitted before the hot water supply was turned back on after the annual maintenance was completed in less than a week’s time.
I called a plumber and arranged for the work to be done. In fact, because of the architecture of my apartment, I had to fit two meters; separate ones for the kitchen and the bathroom. Then they had to have seals attached, to ensure that I didn’t tamper with them. I wasn’t sure that this was absolutely necessary, as we are talking about just a few dollars a month – certainly not enough to commit a criminal offence over, had I been so inclined. However, that is the system, so we made the necessary arrangements to have it done.
The inspector who fitted the seals was very pleasant, and told me that I had to call the office every month between the 10th and the 15th to inform them of the current readings … starting next month.
So, you can imagine my surprise when, on July 1st, I received a telephone call asking me for the readings. “You need to call every month, between the 25th and the 30th”, I was told.
So, now I am wondering … just when do I make that call in July … ?
Bishkek