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| source :: we heart it |
the australian government has introduced this initiative* where you can offset your electricity bill by installing solar panels and feeding your energy back in to the national grid, partly at the government's cost (read: the taxes people have already paid). quite a good idea when you think about it. my dad had has used solar panels to energize his whole man-shed/cave-type metal box 'thing' he has had in their back yard for years, so, why not save a bit of money at the government's expense? not an offer than comes along every day really, is it? so, i guess because of this initiative, there are a ton of solar panels going up atop the roofs in the outer suburbs. not only that, but to save on electricity and make use of the summer's natural light, more and more skylights and 'roof windows' (i know, creative right?) are popping up.
it's something that's been totally natural for me; having grown up in a house with at least three sky lights and now multiple solar panels, i've never really noticed them enough to have an entire conversation about them. yet... here we are. as i sit here in my dimly lit, third-floor flat in london's outer suburbs, with rain bucketing down and the sun god knows where, i wonder... why don't we utilize the natural light up in here? as the days grow shorter it becomes increasingly difficult to take decent photos in my house due to the lack of natural light that makes in up the stairs, and hell - my bathroom doesn't even have a window; all the light in there is completely false! all we need is a well placed skylight in there above the bath tub, and voila! day-round light!
the other thing boyfriend noticed a lot that made me laugh (a lot), was the use of window shutters. not that traditional white-painted, filigree or delicate wooden shutters, like... electronic, block out shutters. he called them 'window gates'. mum and i explained to him that - despite the weather we'd been having, australia gets bloody hot. because of that, there's a necessity to keep the sun out of your house. and, dear god, curtains will just not cut it. no no. block out blinds won't even do the trick. it comes down to literally needing to block the sun and it's ever discomforting heat, out of your house. i still don't think he gets it.
sun light, eh - it's a funny old thing. it's like... totally good and bad for you, in equal measure. many thanks to boyfriend for pointing out these silly little things that are totally boring and yet have allowed me to write some five hundred words on.
*do not claim to know anything about the australian government. this is my understanding of the initiative as explained to me once by my mother. i probably wasn't listening properly, or whatever.
*have you entered my prairie charms giveaway?*
