N.Z. Homes Badly In Need Of Warmth

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30737, 29 April 1965, Page 16

N.Z. Homes Badly In Need Of Warmth

In New Zealand, the modern house, which often has unseasoned, damp timber; a non-airtight roof, with walls and ceilings of low insulation value; and ill-fitting doors and windows, is badly in need of warmth.

Until the 19505, New Zealand homes were really warm only in the immediate vicinity of the hearth and the stove.

Now, it is rare for a quality house to be built without space heating, and ease of installation is causing owners of older houses to abandon or supplement the cheerful and inefficient open grate.

The house owner who seeks modern, economical, draughtfree warmth in winter has a wide choice of systems, devices and fuels. He can easily make a score-card in which he tabulates the merits and demerits of the systems, appliance and fuels that interest him.

Thus, air conditioning, generally available only to the most prosperous, would yield highest score on all but installation cost.

It gives the user the power to turn dials and obtain filtered air of the temperature and humidity he wants—cool in summer, warm in winter.

On the score-card, coal would lose points for the handling, but it must gain for economy when used in efficient devices. It would gain more points because it is a fuel which should be available freely under almost any circumstances.

Coke and briquettes have their own demonstrable merits.

Gas must score for cleanliness, for the ultra-modernity and high quality of the appli-

ances which burn it, and for being very much “a fuel of the future.”

Electricity scores well on the grounds of efficiency, convenience—switch on, switch off—and affording the widest range of appliances and applications.

Because of their modest price, considering what they do, space heaters must score heavily, whether they burn oil, gas or “solid fuel.”

Many people will give the windowed solid fuel models good marks for their cheerful appearance. Others would allot similar marks to fuel oil for ease of handling and economy when properly used.

Owners ’of bigger houses will certainly be attracted to

central heating systems small-bore water-filled pipes or air duct—fired variously by coal, oil or gas. Each claims substantial advantages.

Home builders should take advantage of the fact that advice is freely available from professional engineers on the staffs of firms making appliances and selling fuels. The home owner will waste up to half his heating expense unless he arrests heat loss through roof and walls and. to a slightly lesser extent, through floors by using insulation, of which the two most common materials are fibreglass and aluminium foil bonded to bituminous paper.

A heated house becomes a comfortable home in a Canterbury winter—a goal that many be achieved in many ways.

Systems of central heating are available in New Zealand using a fuel-oil burner below ground-floor level and delivering heated air through a centrally-heated grid in the floor of the house. With a well-designed plant, efficiency of up to 70 per cent may be obtained.