The property managers in my community in north Beijing decided to hoist delinquent homeowners on their own petard and inadvertently scored one for the environment.

Management's decision to end 24/7 hot water service wasn't aimed at reducing carbon emissions, it was purely financial. Too many residents, management said, were not paying their hot water bill and with no way to force them to cough up it was losing too much money.

The notice came in mid-August and gave homeowners until the end of October to come up with their own way of producing hot water.

Along with a quarter of the residents in our community, we opted for a solar thermal contraption that is installed on the roof. The water tank on stilts with slanted glass tubes heats our water basically free of cost and free of carbon.

Siding with solar seemed like a no-brainer decision as it's a way of making positive, albeit infinitesimal, contribution to fixing what ails the planet.

There are some small sacrifices that come with converting to solar hot water, but ethically and financially it feels like the right thing to do.

The water is sometimes too hot, because the water is simply gravity fed from the roof. Standing in the shower, it can be tricky to adjust water flow to avoid being scalded or frozen.