Water Heater Musings

So, remember our water heater? It hangs from the ceiling in the kitchen. It's electric, and it doesn't have temperature control.

See the little green light? That means it's all heated up. When the light turns orange, it means it's in the process of heating. If the light is orange, we know not to run the electric kettle, the stove, and/or the oven, because the combination will (and frequently does) blow the fuse.

I like the little sticker next to the green light. It tells you what to do if something bad happens.

No light equals sad face. Telephone arrow fat guy with wrench! 

Several people (notably our landlord and the people who rented this apartment last year) have suggested that we can save energy (and save on our energy bill) by turning the hot water heater off during the day (when electricity is more expensive) and turn it back on at night. The tank holds enough hot water to allow for our showers and dishwashing, so there's no problem there.

The problem, as Maggie discovered with a little online research, is that shutting off electric water heaters lowers the tank's water temperature enough to encourage the proliferation of a bacteria called Legionella, which can cause Legionnaire's Disease. (Heaters using fossil-fuels are not at risk, for whatever reason.) Legionnella mostly seems prevalent in non-municipal water systems, and can only be eradicated if the tank temperature is set to 140 degrees Fahrenheit or higher. This creates another problem, since 140 degrees can scald pretty badly. Our water is certainly municipal, and Legionella seems mostly to affect those with already-compromised immune systems. So it's hard to tell just how seriously dangerous it is to turn off our water heater.

For now, au cas où (just in case), we're keeping the water heater on. But we'd love to hear from anyone who has experience with this kind of thing, or happens to know anything about the issue.

Hard Water

I'm always one to defend municipal water. Coming from NJ, there has always been much to defend. It's cheap, it's good for you, it doesn't waste plastic and you're already paying for it with tax dollars, so why throw away a few bucks (or worse, euros) on a bottle of "mineral" water? But this isn't about my distaste for bottled water, which is shared by many. This is about an indefensible aspect of water here in Paris: too much calcium.

Consider our average cup of tea. Notice the cracked "surface," the gunk accumulating on the sides of the mug. Both are indications of hard water, which usually means too much calcium or magnesium. It's not unhealthy, just kind of gross looking. It also means that soap doesn't easily lather, and that soap scum easily forms. Our water may not be hard enough to cause frequent soap scum, but what you see above is pretty normal for hot tea, and calcium is clearly building up on the shower doors.

Thank goodness they sell "anti-calcifying" solution in the stores here (a clear sign other people have the same problem). Also, it turns out you can run a solution of 1-part distilled vinegar, 1-part water through whatever appliances/dishes need cleaning, et voilà! Problem solved.

Still, it'd be better not to have to deal with hard water at all. And that's one reason we'll be glad to get back to Boston, which has (along with the rest of the Northeast) some of the softest water in the country.

Cold Snap

As Maggie mentioned, we're in our first cold snap of the winter. By Boston standards, it isn't much: highs in the low 30s, at night it gets down into the low 20s, and if we're lucky we might even see some snow showers.

It turns out, though, that a difference of 10 degrees (the winter average high for Paris is about 44) is both seen and felt in Paris. For instance, those gutter gushers seem to have been turned off. Finally! It makes sense: this morning, on my way back from walking Panda in the park, I saw the frozen trickle of one that had been left on a little too long. I even stopped to take a picture (imagine Panda straining at the far end of the leash, me trying to hold the camera steady with one hand, both of us shaking from the cold). Unfortunately the picture didn't look great, but it inspired some conversation - a woman standing a few feet away asked why I had taken a picture, and I got to rant (live! in French!) about the city's wasteful street-cleaning techniques. I pointed out that they have to turn off the spigots when it goes below freezing because otherwise there'd be ice everywhere, and the spigots would probably break. The woman admitted she'd never thought about any of it before, and I walked away proud that I'd helped her see the light.

We notice the temperature difference in our apartment, especially, since we've finally been forced to turn the heaters on. No, that wasn't a typo - each room has a separate thermostat that runs a single electric radiator, which doesn't quite warm a whole room like baseboard heating, and especially not like central air heating. Oh well - it's not like it's going to be like this all winter. Forecast for Christmas: high of 48. Balmy!

Water Conservation, or a lack thereof

You know what really grinds my gears? Street cleaning. In Somerville, I hated street cleaning because it was clearly just a racket to raise revenue for the city - and because I never felt  like the streets were really all that clean.

In Paris, I hate street cleaning because it seems like a colossal waste of natural resources and manpower. Now, it's weird to associate Paris with "colossal waste of natural resources" when the double-flush toilet is standard.

Press the right half for small flushes, the left half for larger flushes. They just started installing these as "energy/water saving" devices at Harvard, but they've had them in Europe since right after the Bubonic Plague.

Also, our water heater is in our kitchen, it's fairly small, and the water only has to travel about 10 feet to get to the shower, two sinks, and the washing machine.

Efficient!

But otherwise, it seems like Paris wastes ridiculous amounts of water in what seems to be an inefficient effort to clean the streets. Waste Type #1: Flushing the gutters.

All around the city, spigots in the curb expel as much water as they can into the gutter. The spigots appear to be on timers such that wherever you go, one is always gushing. Daytime, nighttime, clear weather, heavy rain - it doesn't matter.

Frequently, a gross piece of old carpet or a rolled up item of clothing is strategically placed to direct the flow of water. Let me stress how gross this looks - they're trying to clean the streets, and they're making them grosser. Gross.

The water flows down the street, past the balayeur's pushcart. It's the balayeur's job to sweep up (balayer) objects caught in the stream, ostensibly so they don't reach a drain and clog the city's pipes. Note: with the exception of that one time at our door, the balayeur is usually nowhere to be seen. This means that the water does not need to be flowing. Turn off the water!!!

This is what the balayeurs look like. This is also what the stream of water looks like entering a drain - which seems to be clogging nicely with the bits of trash that the stream is supposed to remove from the street, and that the balayeurs are supposed to remove from the stream. I'm confused.

Waste Type #2: Sidewalk Powerwashing.

Similar to the metal thingies that hold the spigots that gush water everywhere, there are other metal thingies in the sidewalk - just next to the curb - that also gush water. Technically, they're the refill spots for the little trucks that carry the water that's used to powerwash the sidewalks. (Sounds like Chad Gadya, right?)

Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of one of those refill spigots leaking, but trust me, they leak. Frequently. And when they're not leaking, they're spurting everywhere, kind of like this hose that Panda tried to plug:

As Obama is fond of saying, let me be clear. I like clean sidewalks. I like people whose job it is to clean sidewalks. I do not like stepping in poop. Sometimes, I can tell that a good powerwashing has removed poop from the sidewalk. But it seems like most water is not being used to clean stuff. And maybe they have more water here than they know what to do with, but I would hope they'd figure out how to use all that water in a more productive manner. Mini-hydroelectric plants in the gutters, anyone?

For the record, Panda is also anti-wasting water. Right, Panda?

Séchoir

Here's something I love about Europe: the séchoir à serviette.

Never again will your towels grow musty in humid weather. Never again will you step out of the shower during the winter and shiver while you dry off. Added bonus: it heats the whole bathroom. (Only disadvantage, but it's a biggie: the séchoir evaporates all the moisture from your towel into the air, leaving your bathroom more humid and at-risk for mildew than ever. Solution: crack the window just a touch.)

Am I getting one of these upon my return to the states? Thanks to Amazon, it's a strong possibility . . .

Utilities

As you walk in our door and turn to your left to hang up your coat, you may notice something you don't see in American households:

You're not sure what it is, but you know it's unusual. You step closer.

Ok - circuit breaker, electricity meter, two other thingies. Electricity meter!? That's what we said. What's this doing inside? How does the energy company read the meter? We still don't know. And the other thingies? They must be important, since they have "official" seals on them. If anyone has any ideas, please let us know.

One thing we do know is that we get charged less for electricity between 11 PM and 6 AM (actually, 7 now that we're out of DST). We know this not only because someone told Louis when he first called EDF to set up our electricity billing. We also know because we are reminded every single night, when the electricity meter audibly switches from "daytime" to "nighttime" measurement:

Clearly Louis finds this fascinating. (He also clearly didn't realize that the reason for the loud click is that the arrow on the meter switches from HP (J) [Heures Pleines - Jour] to HC (N) [Heures Creuses - Nuit].) Ok, maybe it's a little fascinating.

Cell Phones

I meant to post about this long ago, but better late than never. A few days into our trip, we invested in cell phones (first time I've ever done that abroad; Maggie had her first cell phone ever during her trimester in Paris in 2003!). We got the cheapest flip phones we could find - 49 euros apiece.

We could have gotten free phones with a contract - and apparently you can break contracts if you can prove you've moved abroad - but contracts started around 20 euros per month, and I was convinced we could spend less than that doing the prepaid thing. Even with what we paid for phones, as long as we buy less than 16 euros of calling time per month, we'll still save money over the calling plan.

I don't know how pre-paid plans work in the US, but with SFR (our provider) you can add anywhere between 1 and 65 euros at a time. The catch is, a 1 to 5-euro purchase is valid for only one week; a six to 10-euro purchase is valid for two weeks; an 11 to 15-euro purchase is valid for 30 days; and I'll stop there because I hope to never purchase that much call time at once. Basically, no roll-over minutes here. I've found that in order to avoid wasting calltime I've already paid for, I end up using more time than you need/want to and buying more time before the week or two weeks or month is up. Very clever, SFR - very clever indeed.