Knowing how to change a UK light bulb may not seem like an essential vacation skill, but if you’re renting a flat or cottage, knowing how things work can save you from embarrassing disasters.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: taking a holiday rental (or as we say self- catering holiday ) in the UK is a great way to live like a local, an inexpensive way to take the whole family on a holiday in the UK and often the chance to occupy excavations with the kind of fairy tale character you’ve dreamed of.
That’s fine until you try to turn up the heat and nothing happens. Or you get ready to cook dinner for your big anniversary gathering in a big country house and you can’t make the head or tail of the brands in the oven. Trust me, I know. I once incinerated a 26 pound turkey in less than two hours and filled Laura Ashley’s entire upholstered home with a weird stranger with greasy smoke because she couldn’t adjust the oven.
And something as simple as changing a light bulb can be a minefield.
In the interest of helping my North American readers avoid such embarrassments and have a stress-free holiday in a British country house, here are some of the basics you need to know about how things work in your UK vacation rental. United.
Heat and hot water
If the house you are renting has gas or oil central heating, luckily. It will work in the same way as the one you are used to at home. There will be radiators, an on / off switch somewhere, and a thermostat or some way to regulate the heat. The rental agent of the house, or an information pack that you have left, should provide you with all the information to find these things and press the corresponding buttons. But rental cottages rarely have such direct arrangements. Once when I was staying in a rather grand private home, the host’s daughter went from room to room asking if anyone wanted a “hottie.”
No, she did not offer herself, but handed out hot water bottles to warm the sheets and shoes of the guests. Even if the house you rent is relatively well heated, it never hurts to have a fence. They are sold in most local pharmacies.
This is what you can find:
- A stove – don’t confuse this term with something you cook on, it’s never used that way. A stove is a solid fuel burner of some kind, wood or coal, installed in the fireplace. In some rustic properties, it may be the only source of heat, so make sure your fuel supply is supplied with your rental.
- A back boiler – Some open fireplaces or solid fuel stoves are equipped with a heat exchanger that uses heat from the fire to heat the water. That water can circulate around the cabin, but nowadays rear boilers in vacation rentals are generally only used to supplement other hot water heating. If you’ve had a good fire all night and want a late-night shower, after the central heating system has shut down, a rear boiler connected to a well-insulated hot water tank will do the trick.
- An Electric Storage Heater – I’m afraid these are the bane of the vacation tenant’s life. Although they are phased out in most private homes, they are still fairly common in self-catering properties. The heater looks a bit like a radiator. It may be dimpled, or have a columnar design and will be roughly the same size as a radiator, but that’s where the similarities end. Inside, it has a thermal material that retains heat. At night, while you sleep and electricity rates are cheaper, this material will heat up electrically. Then throughout the day, it releases heat in the living areas.
There are two problems with this. First, the higher the temperature, the faster you will run out of juice. So if you have a really warm and cozy morning, you could end up with a frosty afternoon. Second, and most important to vacationers, most of the stored heat is radiated into the home while you are sightseeing. Unfortunately, the most interesting character properties often have this kind of heating. They do not have cavity walls, so there is no place to run the pipes needed for the radiators. Electric heating is the most expensive type, which is why homeowners choose the storage heater solution to take advantage of the lower costs overnight. If you stay up late or have cold feet, bring warm clothes and a hot water bottle.
- Air conditioning – Fagehddaboudit. Air conditioning is almost unknown in most UK homes. It’s almost never hot enough to need it anyway and in most cases a fan will. Ask the landlord to supply one if you are renting in July and August. The good news is that the solid stone, brick or lathe and plaster walls of rural properties stay cool in the summer and warm in the winter, so you probably won’t need them. .
In the kitchen
The names of things and the variety of ways to identify cooking temperatures are usually the sticking points (see my Thanksgiving mess mentioned above). First of all, you must learn the names of things.
- That Thing You Cook In – Brits have several words for what you might call a stove and none of them involve cooking. If you’re faced with a single unit that has burners on top, an oven underneath, and possibly also a rotisserie or broiler element, that’s called a cooker. If the burners are separate from the oven, they are called a hob and the broiler is universally known as a grill.
- The Kettle : An electric kettle is a basic piece of kitchen equipment in all British kitchens. It’s probably because the tea only requires boiling water. Although most people also drink a lot of coffee these days, the electric kettle is still de rigueur .
- The Aga or Range – My mother used to call our gas stove “the gas stove.” In the UK the term ‘range’ as applied to kitchen equipment is only used to describe a large, highly specialized and currently highly regarded appliance that is part of the best and most traditional farm kitchens. The range (Aga is the most popular brand) heats the water and supplies at least part of the central heating, as well as for cooking. It has an oven (usually two) and several hobs, with heavy insulating covers for when not in use. Once turned on, an Aga is always on. And adjusting the temperature of your two ovens is a kind of inaccurate art. The bottom line of a rental with an Aga (and I was really surprised to find quite a few) is to make sure that you’re also supplied with more conventional cooking media. Because unless you know how to use an Aga, it can be like trying to captain a super yacht with your rowing skills.
- And a word about temperatures: your recipes may be in Fahrenheit, but you’ll have to master Celsius, or Celsius as it’s now called, and Gas Marks to use an oven in your UK vacation rental. Electric oven temperatures are indicated in degrees Celsius on the controls. But if you are cooking with gas, the controls will indicate Gas Marks. UK recipes always give Celsius and Gas Mark temperatures. This handy chart will help you navigate the different grades of cooking:
Cooking temperatures in Fahrenheit, Celsius and Gas
Description of Fahrenheit Celsius gas brands
225 ° – 250 ° 110 ° -120 ° 1/4 – 1/2 Very cool
275 ° – 300 ° 140 ° 1 Cool
300 ° 150 ° 2 Cool
325 ° 160 ° 3 Warm
350 ° 180 ° 4 Moderate
375 ° 190 ° 5 Quite hot
400 ° 200 ° 6 Hot
425 ° 220 ° 7 Hot
450 ° 230 ° 8 Very hot
500 ° 260 ° 9 Very hot
And don’t forget those bulbs
What could be easier than changing a light bulb, right?
Incorrect.
The UK and Europe have yet to solve many standardization problems. One of them is the way the bulbs fit into the fixtures. Lamps and bulbs from continental Europe have screw fittings, much like what you are used to in North America. UK bulbs and fixtures are bayonet mounted. The bottom of a bayonet bulb is a smooth cylinder with two short pins protruding from the sides, diagonally facing each other. Left in the image above.
The problem is that you can have lamps in your rental that have any type of light bulb. Chances are, the more modern and stylish the fixture looks, the more likely it is French or Italian and requires a special light bulb. And if you try to unscrew an installed bayonet, you could break the bulb or the connection.
The simplest thing: If you don’t want to be the butt of a “How many Americans does it take to change a light bulb …” joke, ask the rental agent or a neighbor to show you what to do? .
