The amazing heating system

The heating system in Riga is unique. Our apartment has hot water radiators, one in each room, under the window. There is no fan or anything to circulate the heat and yet our apartment is kept very comfortable. It's a mystery to me how it works.

The other part of it is that we have no control over the temperature. I'm told that the "city" or someone turns it on in October and off in April. Reminds me of the Weber Water at home. Sometimes the pipes are almost too hot to touch (when the temperature outside hit -6 Celsius this week) or, on two occasions this week, cold to the touch. No, Spring had not arrived, and it was a temporary condition, thankfully. It certainly got my mind running to think of an alternative source of heat (there are lots of trees outside--could we cut one down and build a fire in the living room?). A better solution was that the office is heated with it's own boiler so we could always go there. Fortunately, the pipes soon got warm again and we were okay.