Just yesterday, the Australian government announced the details of the carbon tax. It was timely, as last week my household just received a gas bill for $419. It seemed outrageous, but at the same time last year it was $379 - that just didn't sound so outrageous. A little question time around the office and it seems I am not alone. Why do we all use so much gas?
Its not the stove or the hot water as they use bugger all. The only culprit can be...... the central heating.
Ok, so we live in Melbourne, and it has been a cold winter. Not globally warming you say? Actually, my friends in Auckland have had a really warm winter, so lets not jump the gun.
So its more than just all the old homes with crappy insulation that haven't been intelligently designed to capture the northern winter sun. It's about the ones who can't get out of the bed until the timer kicks in on the central heating and its three quarters the way to 22 degrees. They then spend 20 mintues in the shower purely because they don't want to turn it off and face the cold.
They really feel the cold. Their also the one that mozzies really love. This year has been even harder because the economic decline means the EXPECTED trip to Queensland may have to be changed to Sorrento. Quite often this miserable person also CANNOT FUNCTION until they have had a non-instant coffee. You let them get cold without a latte and it is so unbearable, that you ensure that this does not occur.
Yes, they have to be able to walk around the house in winter dressed in a t-shirt and a pair of shorts and of course a smiling face.
Get in the car after they have driven in winter, and the control on the heater is turned up to like 28. Yes, they were so cold when they got in that they had to turn the dial as fast and as high as they could so as it could have instant effect. For one fleeting moment, they wish the car was a large sandwich toaster. Of course it takes time because the engine is starting from cold and so for some moments, its freezing cold.
Remember when we were kids. Mum never allowed the heater to go on before school. If you inquired, you were told to go and put another jumper on. Yes, you were up and about, and off you went. The heater hadn't been on - and you lived.
A thermometer is a much more acrtacue measure of temperature than human senses. Our sense of temperature compares to whatever we just experienced before rather than to a standard. Here's a long way of explaining why our sense of temperature is not dependable. I remember going up into the attic of a new addition to make an opening between that attic and the original attic of the house, on a 100 degree day. When I cut through the old roof and made the opening, the air from the other attic felt cool, but was probably about 150 degrees. Climbing down into the room below, which was hotter than outside, it felt like stepping into a freezer.
Posted by: Addel | 05/06/2012 at 07:28 AM