arkon

It's so cold here and the first time I've been truely cold since I was a kid. The house is way too big to heat and not worth heating anyway as the lack of insulation just means I end up warming the garden up.

Last night I made the mistake of retreating to the study and closing the door with a fan heater on. Nice and toasty warm until... I had to leave the room to go to bed. The rest of the house felt like it was sub zero!

What I would give for my 2 up 2 down semi with central heating and double glazing.

Hutch

Yes. Freezing my bollocks off.

Sleeping Beauty

...........mmmm, and if i hear one more person saying, "but you should be used to this weather coming from the UK...............", i will strangle them with my scarf and winter tights

Nu-Shooz

Hello Arkon.
Yeah mate it is quite cold in my house too. I have no insulation in my house so it is like a freezer.
Infact it is warmer outside.
Like you say, these lousy little fires don't heat the large rooms up. So why bother wasting gas. Glad i have a couple of woolly jumpers

mpkadudes

yes, sat here with the heater blowing, 'mouse' hand frozen !

mpkadudes

gonna go have a coffee outside, warmer there !!

arkon

When I was packing to come here, my Australian family told me not to bother with fleeces, coats hats gloves etc as they brought all theirs and have never got them out of the suitcases in the 20 years the've been here.

Well, that turned out to be complete rubbish. I've never been so cold. As soon as the outside temperature drops below 20 the house temperature plummets to that of the inside of my fridge. I can't seem to heat the place either. Well that's not totally true as I have some wall heaters that take the edge off it, but I can't afford to run them. If I switch them on the electric meter spins so fast I thing it's trying to take off.

I think I'd I was content and going to stay here I'd spend the money on double glazing and insulation and add a wood burning Arga.

My biggest problem is I can only program and solve complicated maths algorithms if the temperature isn't too cold, as soon as my fingers seize up my brain does too!

northernbird

Will your missus not help you warm them up love

meelie

All I can say is THANK GOODNESS that Oz sells electric blankets and bed socks! Oh and flannellette sheets as I have been using them for a few weeks. I've had many an aussie laugh at me cos I feel cold, cos they believe I shouldn't feel it cos Im a pom. Hmphhh!

ub40fan

I have just put the electric blanket on the bed, and were off to buy a heater tonight!

Been doing ok with extra clothes and blankets so far, but I don't always want to look like the michelin man walking round my house. It seems stupid to put on extra clothes when you come inside

arkon

I know what you mean. Because the house is all that fandango open plan stupidity, there is a servere lack of doors. So it's not really worth trying to heat it. I've been doing a bit of anal research here with my electric consumption and discovered that it costs me $1 to heat the house by 1 degree for about 2 hours max. The maximum I can raise the temperature by is 2 degrees, so today the inside is 14 degrees and not worth heating as it would only get to 16 and I'd still be frozen stiff but considerably less rich.

I'm wearing 3 layers, 2 of which are fleeces! Cant wear gloves as I can't type with them on.

My next house will be the size of a Barratt or wimpy home. 2 story with a small footprint. Double brick skinned and fully insulated with just one window tripple glazed.

northernbird

That is why I love my house. It is very english inside, separate rooms with proper doors on, easy to keep warm.

arkon

What they don't seem to understand is that a cold country like the UK builds it's houses to suit the climate, so are mostly heatable and cosy, or if not can be made nice and warm. By contrast the houses here seem built only for a part of the year, the hotest part!

arkon

Where abouts are you? The houses I saw near the CBD in Melbourne seemed much more like a UK house. Smaller and better built, definately warmer.

Hutch

My sister lives in the Southern Highlands (where it gets *really* cold) and I was advised to bring all my winter stuff which, with the exception of a duck-down Schott jacket (which it never got cold enough in the UK to wear) I did. We're lucky in as much as our house isn't open plan and we can close doors, but the office is only heated by a single electric/oil heater which is on full blast. I just went to the shop to get some milk and it was so cosy in there that I'm thinking of relocating.