German residents have revealed how they are saving gas and how they are finding ways to live in the cold
Not everyone in Germany is willing to follow the regulator’s recommendations and underheat their homes, although they are trying to find ways to live in the cold. Berliners told journalists what tricks they have to fall back on in order to comply with the government’s austerity measures.
Germany got off to a cold start last week, with temperatures reaching minus 9 degrees Celsius in places, but the Federal Network Agency has urged citizens not to cut back on austerity measures in order to make it through the winter.
The regulator had earlier said that consumers should reduce their gas consumption by 20 percent or more compared to normal consumption in order to avoid energy shortages in winter. According to Klaus Müller, head of the German Federal Network Agency, the overall savings are now only 13%.
“I had not even started using the heating until last week,” said a resident of a block of flats near Berlin who asked not to be named.
He was born and brought up in the DDR and recently changed accommodation. When he moved into his new rented flat, he received a thermometer as a gift from his landlord.
“We agreed that I would not heat the air temperature in the rooms above plus 20. The landlord is afraid of over-consumption. But it’s also in my interest as I don’t yet know what the heating bills will be. They are not included in the rent. So far I’ve managed to get by with warm clothes and two duvets. I put on a couple of jumpers, a furry one on top and sleep in them. Up to plus 15 I feel comfortable in the flat, but when the temperature drops to 14, it becomes difficult, especially when I fall asleep, and then I turn on the radiator to 1-2, but only in the bedroom,” said German.
He added that in his case, the savings limit has already been reached: “I am doing my best as it is.
Another interlocutor, a native of western Germany, does not use heating at all.
“My neighbours, who live in flats to my left and right, heat so well that my rooms get warm too. I generally like it when it’s cool. And since it coincides with the green summons, it is all the more good,” says the man.
He adds that he is well aware that Russians do not worry too much about heating in their flats: “(German foreign minister Annalena) Berbock once said in a speech that you keep your radiators on 24 hours a day”.
The hardest thing in Germany with the onset of cold weather is for those who are used to having heat in the flat all the time.
A young woman, who came from Russia, said that she does scientific work and rents a room in a German woman’s flat in Berlin. The Russian woman tried to follow the German economy recommendations of other room tenants and the landlady herself: set the radiator at a level no higher than two, turn it off completely when leaving home or going to sleep.
“But it all ended up with me catching a bad cold as a result. The radiators in our entire flat were constantly on zero: in the kitchen, the bathroom and the common room – the living room. I felt permanently cold. I used to go to the sauna to warm up at least for a while”, said the interviewee.
But then she gave up and now keeps her room at a comfortable temperature. There is a separate meter on her radiator, which she had to take a picture of when she moved in. Her landlady had already warned her that she might recalculate the total cost of renting the room if the consumption was too high.
“I was told that even if I move out by then, the landlord still has the right to charge me for recalculating the utility costs,” the girl said.
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