I have been meaning to write this post for some time once summer ended and we turned the gas back on. Then fall came upon us with the new school year and all that entails for us. Now fall has turned to winter! and I still have not written about our experience with living without running hot water.

It started due to me not paying the gas bill in time and the service being turned off. I thought, rather than have it turned back on right away, why not see if we could live without it, at least for the summer? At the very least it would lower our overall gas bill for the year and we would learn some valuable lessons. My husband thought initially that it would show me that it’s not so easy to live a hardcore, back-to-nature, green life without such a basic amenity. Turned out we were both right.

The kids, who at first weren’t very concerned about the hot water being off because they practically live in Lake Erie during the summer, sometimes felt aggrieved when they wanted hot water right away and had to wait for it to heat up on the electric stove. We also chose to heat water sparingly so as not to increase the electric bill. Other times they went weeks with a carefree attitude about it, remarking that they didn’t even miss it.

The biggest lesson we all learned was just how much we had previously consumed natural gas, namely due to daily long showers or baths, and frequent clothes washing. You might be surprised at how quickly you can shower when the water is cold! and you come out just as clean. Before we had the gas turned back on we brainstormed ways to use less. Some of these ideas can be found on my lower your heating bill post, including:

- We take shorter showers
- We take less showers
- We keep the heat at 60 degrees & turn down to 55 at night
- We wear warm clothing indoors

Overall I am glad we did it, but we will probably not repeat this again. While we still consider running hot water to be a basic amenity that all people should have, we now also see that it is the luxury and privilege that it actually is. We will continue the family discussion on this and come up with ways to heat our home and water in as green a way as we can. The primary focus being using less energy.

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