Environmental Corner
Environmental Corner - by Darren Eckford
Back to index
Staying warm this winter without “freezing out” our mother earth.
As the winter months roll on and lazy days on the beach or round the family BBQ become faded watermarks in the wastelands of memories passed, many begin the frenetic battle to maintain a personal level of comfort that can only result from STAYING WARM. Being largely a child of the summer months myself I can relate only too well to anyone who has begun pulling the blankets (or your delightful Kathmandu sleeping bag if you’re on a course) over a frost bitten cranium, sporting ears which are beginning to become more reminiscent of Rudolph’s nose. This battle is one which many wage on a day to day basis but what effect is this desperation to remain ‘comfortable’ having on our environment and how can we wage this war in a manner which is empathetic to the plight of our mother earth?
“The average New Zealand house is “scarily cold,” badly insulated, has huge expanses of single-glazed glass, and is a nightmare to heat. In terms of energy efficient homes we are not very far along. It’s pretty much where the Scandinavians were in the 1960s.” Prof. Robert Vale, Victoria University
Making your home significantly more energy efficient can be a costly business. I could throw facts and figures at you around cost/benefit ratios, GHG emission levels, energy consumption versus home environmental footprint and then let you try to decide how it relates to you and run the emotional gauntlet over “am I doing enough?” but that’s not the point. I want you to think, “how can I make this irrelevant?” “how can we minimize the need for heating?”
As you all know there are numerous catch phrases at Outward Bound…. “I love wet shoes,” “down for 15,” “do it right, do it once,” all of which leave different impressions on the unsuspecting individual. Perhaps the most important ones in this case are “get active, get warm” and “layer up, stay warm.” My first experience at the Outward Bound School was in the heart of the winter months and once I stopped cursing the instructors and their knowing smiles at the start of PT, these two phrases were perhaps the most important pieces of advice I was presented with. Once your body is warm it is easy to keep it that way. The watch houses are certainly not heated, yet we all survive three weeks on course during the winter months and this is entirely due to the fact that we are doing the small things right. Yes, I am one of the ones, who have done a real Outward Bound course and loved it!
Folks, we need no form of external heating in this battle against our mate Jack Frost….we can outrun him…we can muffle his grasp with outer layers to the point where he submits to allow those lovely summer months to roll in once again. Take measures to eliminate the monetary cost to you of staying warm and the environmental costs to our mother earth.
A few ideas:
• Some form of light PT at the bedside, it never ceases to amaze
how quickly you warm up
• Take your clothes to bed with you so they are warm to change
into in the morning
• Get dressed in the bathroom after showering
• Wear thermals…no one can see them under your clothing. Striped
thermals and rugby shorts are only a fashion statement in Anakiwa
• Layer up….if you’re cold, don’t turn more heaters on…wear a jersey!
As well as warming your body up, here are a few ideas for keeping the house warm:
• Put insulation foam or strips around windows to seal the gaps
• If you have an older house and no carpet, fill gaps between the skirting
board and floor boards. Put your hand down near one - you may be
surprised how much air is coming up from under the house
• Often there are really big gaps between internal doors and the floor.
Make 'door snakes' from old fabric to put under internal doors to keep
the heat in
• Close doors, windows and curtains at night. Did you know that 20% of
the heat from a room can be lost by keeping your curtains open?
• You could also look at installing ceiling and underfloor insulation which
will help you heat your house more efficiently
• Double glaze your windows – there are ways of doing this without
having to replace all your windows. You can use clear plastic film or rigid
plastic sheets inserted on the inside of windows. Click here for more info
These are just ideas folks…the idea of this article is simply to “impel” you to consider…do I really need that heater on full bore? How can I help to ensure those generations to come get the same benefits from our marvellous natural environment?
“We don’t inherit the earth from our parents; we borrow it from our children”
