Patronising advice will do little for our morale

IN this house, having a tradesman around is a fairly fraught affair. It’s not just finding a tried and trusted operator rather than a conman that’s the difficulty, but the feelings of abject incompetence they can cause.

In they swagger with their kit and caboodle asking where the water mains are or the location of the shower pump. I shrug my shoulders to indicate that I have no clue; they frown worriedly, bound upstairs to the attic door or, for some reason best known to themselves, burrow into the hot press to wrestle with the lagging jacket.

A few minutes later a triumphant voice summons me to a minimonologue on what is wrong.

Of course, things can veer off script, like the time the boiler man had to sit down to compose himself when he realised that, aside from his desultory inspections, the gas boiler hadn’t been turned off in 15 years.

Or when the plumber split his sides laughing as he showed me how to adjust the ballcock to stop the toilet running. After 25 years of house ownership, I can safely say that apart from that, the only thing I know about home maintenance is to make sure the trip switch stays down.

On the housekeeping front, I am not much better. Although I did smartly pull up my socks after the D-Doc asked for my health card details during a late-night call, causing me to take stock for the first time of the shabbiness of the sitting room.

YET for all my ineptitude on the Domestic Goddess and DIY front, there is not one of the energy-saving tips from the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) that’s news to me.

I pored over them on the RTÉ news website to see where I might be going wrong, and discover that I am on top of things for once.

I don’t make a habit of leaving the fridge door swinging open for minutes at a time, which according to the SEAI will cause the fridge to heat up so dramatically that it will need 45 minutes to cool down to its original temperature.

Nor do I leave the lights on all night long, as I find that I don’t need them once I fall asleep.

And when it comes to the tumble dryer, the greatest offender of all mod cons in terms of guzzling precious electrons, this is one occasion when my slatternly ways have stood me in good stead.

I never got round to replacing mine when it went on the blink, and since discovering that the washing line and clothes horse do the job for free, I never intend to.

But while my energy saving know-how is gratifying, it begs the question of who actually these are ‘helpful hints’ are aimed at, given how domestically, I am operating from such a low base.

Is there really anybody in this country so uneducated that they have to be told that keeping their house lit up like a Christmas tree is wasteful and will result in astronomical electricity bills?

And hands up anyone who doesn’t know that it’s a good idea to draw the curtains at night if they want to keep the heat inside, rather than have it escape through poorly fitted windows?

The generation ahead of mine grew up when energy resources were even tighter than today and frugality was second nature. Many recall the era before rural electrification was completed in the mid60s, when gas lamps lit their way and a roaring fire downstairs was all that stood between them and the bleak mid-winter freeze. These hardy souls don’t need patronising advice about not leaving the hot tap running.

As for the younger generation, the housing and rental crisis means more of them are living with their parents than ever, so presumably it’s not their call whether the thermostat is lowered a degree to save 10% on the bill, or the hot water is on full blast.

Meanwhile, those who are lucky enough to have homes of their own surely have enough demands on their income with ballooning mortgage payments or rent to not squander their cash turning on the central heating in September.

The energy crisis is understandably causing alarm across the board but you don’t need to be a genius to figure out how to deal with it. The Government has not fully decided if it will bring in more energy credits to help households cope with soaring bills or copy Liz Truss in the UK and put a cap on energy bills for a certain period.

In the meantime, most of us have to start keeping an eye on consumption and if we have cash to spare, put some aside for the inevitable bills.

It calls for nothing more than common sense, not the micromanaging and nannying implicit in the energy saving advice from companies, 99% of which is superfluous and condescending.

After the upheaval of recent years, from the trauma of the pandemic to the war in Ukraine bringing the challenge of refugees, public dismay at the energy crisis is understandable. It’s as if it’s just one damned thing after another.

But that doesn’t mean the resilience and good sense that helped us steer a course through the pandemic won’t see us through this chapter of stretched resources and – for most of us, hopefully – a manageable degree of hardship with special provisions for the vulnerable and the elderly.

The nights will draw in and the temperatures dip but, as day follows night, the sun will rise again.