Humor in Heating

This saga begins when I moved into my apartment in April.  I was told that one of the radiators had a leak in it.  Also, Aben (my Kazakh dad and the man in charge of maintenance for our properties) was told by one of our neighbors that the heating doesn't work very well because we need to remove the air from the radiator lines.  So, these items needed to be fixed before October 15th.


You may wonder why October 15th is important.  Well, October 15th is the approximate day on which city-wide heating is turned on.  Yes, in Taraz we have city-wide heating.  Water is heated in a facility and then pumped throughout the city (starting in the center and moving out).  Each apartment has radiators that carry the heated water.  Houses have to provide their own heat.  There are large, insulated pipes running throughout the city that carry the water between apartment buildings.

The preparation at my apartment began during the Savva delegation in June.  Josh, Adam and Aben came to the apartment and worked to repair the leak as well as attach faucets, yes faucets, to my radiators.  Apparently, it is easier to bleed the air from the radiator if you have a faucet.  One of the radiators was especially troublesome, but after some WD-40 and a small dent in my wall, a new fitting and faucet were attached in my living room.  Now I have shiny faucets on each of my ancient looking radiators.

Usually the week before the heat comes on, it is freezing cold and everyone is complaining about not having heat.  However, it never fails that the week the heat actually comes on, we have 70 degree days and no need for heat. 

In September, several of our roads in the city were being torn up.  Apparently, it was time to repair the hot water pipes.  This resulted in different roads being torn up without warning.  I would be driving down a road when suddenly I would realize I could not drive any farther.  This just so happened to be at the same time as the city was repairing roads.  This means for a while three major streets that all run parallel to each other in the city were closed at the same time causing major traffic issues.  At one point, it took me 15 minutes to drive one block.  Thankfully, this only lasted for about a month and now most of the roads are at least open, if not repaired.  

Around October 17th they turned the heat on in my building.  Aben came over and turned off my water heater (needed when I don't have heat), fixed a new leak, and removed the air from the radiators.  A couple days later I got a call from the downstairs neighbor telling me they had shut the water off to fix pipes and the air needed to be removed again.  He suggested I call Aben and have him come over.  I told him instead that I would take care of it.  He was very concerned and asked me to be careful several times.  He was clearly not comfortable with me doing this.  Later, Aben said this was probably because if I had opened the faucet too much the faucet could have broken and there would be no way to stop the water.  Still, I found it funny that I was not trusted to turn a faucet while holding a bucket under it.  

All that to say, today it was 70 degrees out and the heat was on.  I think I am probably one of the only people in the city who will have a window open tonight in order to sleep comfortably (as most people here prefer to have their houses around 80 degrees). Next time you adjust your thermostat enjoy a moment of laughter as you think about me sleeping with an open window in the middle of winter.