For anyone who isn’t here in Halifax, it seems we finally got our due this winter for snow. Between last night (Tuesday) and today we got ~25 cm’s of snow (a foot for anyone from the states). It was bad enough they actually closed the university all day today (nice to get an extension on studying for my midterm) and there were no busses running today. I really don’t think it was even the snow that caused the problems, but it was the wind that came with the snow. Gusts up to 90 km/h, with sustained winds of 70 km/h during the storm. Even now the wind is at a constant 40 km/h.
That’s not a big deal if you live in a newer building, but man do you notice the wind when you are in an old building with really crappy windows. In my apartment, two of the bedrooms have newer windows, that do a really good job of keeping the wind out. The rest of the apartment has older windows, and you can actually feel the wind blowing in them. In addition, there is only one thermostat for the whole apartment. So my poor roommate is freezing, and I’m almost roasting at night from the heat.
I can just imaging how much oil the owners are wasting because they didn’t think to install good windows in the rest of the rooms when the windows were replaced. It’s crazy. I really think that this kind of thing is part of the problem with our energy problems, people not being willing to spend a little more money for decent windows and insulation to save on heating oil, when the investment will pay itself back, generally within a few years. Maybe it will have to jump a few more dollars a barrel before people finally start finding it worthwhile to invest in more energy efficient technologies. Scary thought.General_, Science / Tech News_
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