As I was sitting shivering through the depths of winter in Sydney, I started to wonder: why do Australian houses not embrace central heating? As a tourist, sitting baking on the sands of Bondi, thoughts about a nice warm radiator may seem far from your mind: among the roos and the gum trees, it never drops below a balmy 22 degrees does it? Oh yes it does, and let me tell you when it blows and snows in Sydney, it really blows and snows. Within a week of arriving Down Under, the main road out of Sydney and into the Blue Mountains was cut by blizzards, and this winter I’ve been regularly scraping ice off the car windscreen before my regular drive over the harbour bridge. And yet, what are called “low pressure heated water circulation systems” (or, to you and me, central heating) may dominate the UK heating market, and come to that Europe and Canada – but they’ve never found favour in Australia. Instead, plentiful coal means that electricity is cheap, and come the advent of autumn, in June or July, stores like Aldi can’t sell small electric heaters fast enough. It’s probably in bad taste to mention it, but there’s also a corresponding winter peak in careless homeowners burning their shacks to the ground. Meanwhile, electricity companies rub their hands with glee – and no doubt keep them warm beside the aforementioned fires – with cash that keeps on rolling in sackfuls. All of which sidetracking brings me back in a circle, to wondering why, after having come Down Under to the land of endless sun, I’m sitting shivering in an appalling rented house with the architectural distinction of a Twingo, any just why I don’t buy somewhere pretty – with a real fire.
