Wednesday, 28 June 2017

Cold Inside the House

this is an older post from another blog of mine, but its quite relevant again to me (having just come back from Finland... where there is a saying "as warm as houses")

One day, walking around the shopping center I saw this advert for cold and flu medicine. It reminded me of one of the mysteries of life in Australia

That while its not typically cold here during the day we get quite cool in winter overnight. A lack of thermal insulation in most homes means that the heat leaves quickly over night and the radiant insulation (usefully slowing the sun from heating the house in summer) means that in winter we tend to be cold inside our homes, despite pouring a few kilowatt hours of electricity into the home every day (and people wank on about CO2 production).

I can only assume that its a tradition we have followed from the English.

Academics ponder the issue but builders keep churning out the same designs and Aussies keep buying them.

They then sit around inside complaining about how cold it is while just having argued that "it doesn't get cold in Australia". They even defend the perpetuation of this ... Strange how its often actually warmer outside ...

Why don't we laugh at Australian chimney and fireplace design next

:-)
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1 comment:

  1. gnarlydog29 June 2017 at 11:16

    Coming from a different background (Europe) I soon realized the shortcoming of the primitive (by modern design standards) style of a typical Australian house where in winter I was more cold than I have even been inside a house in Europe, with snow on the ground!
    When it came to build my own house I opted for aerated concrete (Hebel) and now I enjoy a cool house in summer and a warm one in winter :-)
    Acceptance of the not-so-new material has been very slow where local builders still prefer to slap together a cheap (non insulated) brick veneer or fibro-board house to then just paint it "pretty pink" to have a visual appeal. As Australia has shifted heavily towards air conditioning most don't even notice the poor choice in construction anymore, they just pay a much higher electricity bill :-)

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