Listen, Listen, Listen

Listen, listen, listen and then ask strategic questions.

~ Lululemon

So I've listened. For the past year or so I have strained my ears to hear the comments of the local Kiwis and I concluded that there has been barely a peep of protest from them. I don' get it. Everyone appears to be rather content with their lives and homes just the way they are with no one significantly making progress to change. Perhaps I've just been hanging around people that have newer houses.

For a while there I was starting to think that it was just me. Or maybe, the effects of everything weren't as bad as what I anticipated them to be. That thought came crashing down today when I got my monthly statement from the electricity company only to find that in the last 30 days my usage for electricity appears to have skyrocketed. Perfect. It was just what I had feared.

Obviously I anticipated some sort of increase in my electricity bill now that we have entered Autumn and Winter is on the horizon. The days are cooler and the nights are frosty - it's all well and lovely until my house enters the equations. True to Kiwi-style, my house was built with the classic "she'll be alright" mentality. There are visible gaps around the outside doors that let a continuous stream of warmish-air out while the cold air fights its way in. Many of the windows to entirely close all the way - again, the airflow is constant. There is only single-pane glass on all windows and the only insulation to speak of that I know about is what has been slapped up in the ceiling space, all loosely lying there for the mice to build their homes.

Heating? Well, forget the classic central heating system that I am used to from Canada. There is a wood burner and as nice as it is to sit in front of the fire each night (I frequently am within an arm's reach away), it takes nearly half a day before it is able to heat the entire house to a level that my feet don't feel numb. The only way to speed up the heating process is to turn on a draft system built into the ceiling (apparently no one thought through the basic principle of heat - it rises - which makes it doubly difficult for the air to actually heat the room) to which the hot air from the wood burner is sucked through the ceiling and then blown out various faucets around my house.

This is the way of the Kiwi. And those that have discovered the simplicity of double-glazing and fitting doors/windows properly so there are no gaps are astounded at the amount of warmth that stays in the house (even at night!) and the fact that their energy bill is greatly decreased. There's actually commercials interviewing people on this. For the rest of us poor buggers who either have no idea of how life could be so much more warm and energy efficient or simply do not have enough money to upgrade their house, we continue to sit in our three layers of clothing (even though it's still +10 degrees outside) surrounding the wood burner as though it is our life source.

I vaguely remember the good old days back in Canada where my energy bill would be somewhere in the realm of $40/month over the coldest months - cold the Kiwi's here can't even begin to fathom and yet I was still able to keep the lights on all day and was toasty warm in my little flat. Here? I sit in the dark to save electricity, pile on the clothes and turn off every electrical outlet I possibly can just to save energy. And yet my bill has still hit the $90 mark. Brilliant.

Sure, my energy bill has still yet to see the effects of me getting rid of my TV and such, but I reckon winter is still going to be a time of reading books by the light of the fire as I burn through yet another forest of trees trying to keep the house warm enough to not be catching a cold every other week.

Maybe one day Kiwis will catch onto the idea that if they built their houses to suit all weather to begin with, they'd end up saving a heap of money, time and effort. They would no longer need a gas or electric heater in every room. They would no longer need to "prepare for winter" by purchasing an electric blanket for every bed (yes, they still use those here) -- there would be no need for the hot water bottles or insulated window curtains (no lies). People would be able to sit inside their homes comfortably without having the wood fire going full blast 24/7. They would rest assured that their electric bill would be a reasonable and affordable amount to pay each month.

In the meantime, I will sit huddled up in my house built back in the 1950s (or whenever) and try to stay warm as I think of how I can possibly cut down even further on my electricity bill in the future - there IS only me here. It seems ridiculous to be spending that amount of money on a bill - I might as well be letting my money fly through the gap under my front door along with all the hot air.