Daily Archives: 19/03/2017

The cupboard under the stairs

We don’t actually have a natural cupboard under the stairs. We have one created in the 80s; it was originally meant to be an open space. So we do have a space under the stairs which resembles a cupboard. Without a door. 

The doorway (which seems briefly to have had a door in the mid-80s) is around five seven high. Which means I need to duck when entering the space to access the fridge or freezer (we don’t have anywhere else to out them). 

So moving the freezer deeper into the depths of the under the stairs/cupboard under the stairs space might not have been the best idea. 

The end result is that, to access the freezer, I must now stoop to a degree which is wholly unacceptable for a man of my age. 

I don’t actually use a lot of stuff from the freezer. Linda McCartney sausages for hangover Sunday morning sandwiches (with a liberal amount of brown sauce), a loaf of bread, or the occasional leftover chilli; that’s about the limit of my freezer mining (I should have said, it’s a chest freezer). 

I’m left with two options:

1. Wear a cycle helmet while attempting to access the freezer.

2. Avoid the freezer.

Oh, I forgot about the mandatory work option:

3. Do nothing.

Ceiling

It looks a little rough, but the two ceilings are now fully joined. 

A full coat of plaster is next. I have to admit to some nervousness; I’ve not previously undertaken such a larce ceiling. 

£618

After submitting meter readings a few days, we’ve received a new energy bill. The previous readings/bill had reduced our monthly electricity and gas costs to just £34. While it was clear that the new stove would have reduced our energy costs, we realised that a drop from £120 a month was unrealistic. 

So, I’d intended to pay above the £34 to avoid a sharp increase after another winter. However, that didn’t happen, and so I’m now faced with another change in payments. A drop to £25 a month. 


Taking into the cost of firewood, that means our last year’s energy costs have been an impressive £618. Better still, taking into account the new decrease, that could be around £510 for the next year. 

Pre-stoves, our annual costs were around £1,440. Which gives us a saving of at least £798 over the past year. I’d not actually anticipated saving anything overall, so this is a nice bonus. 

Of course, this has been a mild winter, so we`ve needed only six tons to firewood. But it does mean that the new stove has already paid for itself. 

And, since wood is a carbon neutral fuel, our environmental impact is looking pretty good.