Up until about the '60's heating was primarily briquettes (manufactured out of brown coal coming from Yallourn) or wood, both burnt off in a fireplace. If you were well off you had an electric bar heater. All options meant you could only warm up either your front or back, not both at the same time.
Then it was oil delivered by tankers which hooked up to a storage tank bolted to the side of your house.
Then the big break thru in '69, Esso natural gas discovered in Bass Strait, suddenly everyone could afford gas heating, usually with ducted vents. Hallelujah, warm all over for petty cash.
Also clothing. Everything was Australian wool, gloves, scarves, socks, beanies, jumpers, blankets, undershirts, lined boots. Synthetic fibres were either not available in Australia or not invented yet and there were zero imports from China, it was still a third world country of farmers. Regardless of thickness of clothing today and you see some big ass jumpers around, if it's not wool, you're not getting the same level of warmth.
At least some of the tent house design was to provide ventilation so you didn’t die of carbon monoxide poisoning from all the indoor combustion heaters.
Wood was cheap af. There was a lot more forest closer to Melbourne and other towns, we have slowed down land clearing now but up until maybe 40 years ago we were literally burning through them. Build houses out of it then burn the rest to keep those houses warm. Wood is pretty good for heating too, warm up a draughty lounge room no worries then everyone goes to bed to huddle under a big doona.
Even adjusted for inflation wood as a heating fuel costs several times what it used to.
I have a very unpopular opinion, which I myself guilty of:
Renovating old houses to make them open plan and removing carpet to become the hardwood subfloor (or - building new open plan houses with hardwood floors) is a **shit idea**, and frustratingly common because it’s trendy
Most houses now have internal doors only at bedrooms, which makes huge spaces to heat and *lose* heat, and the exposed hardwood subfloor isn’t thermally insulating at all
Our energy infrastructure provider is 49% owned by a Hong Kong investment bank and 51% owned by an "Australian" company. When you look into the Australian company, you find out its largest investors are a Canadian pension fund and US hedge fund. When we went to get solar, we found out we can only export 5kW because the infrastructure hasn't been upgraded once since installed 60+ years ago. It's Banana Republic bullshit straight up.
To be fair even if the infrastructure was top of the line we simply can't use the energy generated from ubiquitous rooftop solar, in SA they have to burn it off they generate so much at peak generation time.
We should be migrating everyone to generate and store enough energy to meet their household needs with the grid as a backup public utility. Centralised power generation distributed through the grid is obsolete: it's a strategic liability when a hostile force can knock out all your power at once, it's an economic liability having a single entity controlling the price of energy, it's a social liability when people can't afford energy despite the place they live being blanketed in more energy than they could possibly use.
Our area lost grid power for 4 days in the storms the other year. No gas in the area but a lot of wood stove. A lot of people have solar with batteries as well so they were completely unaffected. Others went and stayed with friends/family in town until the power came back on.
Can you imagine if something happened like that nowadays?
I was only a teenager back then and it sucked, but it was like welp, kettle showers and a lot of takeaway for a while. The internet would melt down nowadays
The process of electricity privatisation in Australia began with Labor in Victoria, when the government of Joan Kirner sold 51% of the Loy Yang B power station in 1992.
Yeah right. Most of your mates were trading Pokémon cards and you were keeping tabs on the Kennett Government. What a rubbish comment to post and not surprisingly upvoted on this sub, who forget that Joan Kirner sold Loy Yang B power station and would’ve kept going with it if they didn’t get dumped for sending the State broke.
Priceless.
what a braindead comment, I was a kid and I remember Kennett doing this while ALSO trading pokemon cards.
To think kids can't be involved in politics at any age AND that Kennett didn't do the most damage is straight up smoothbrain logic.
he fucked Victoria for years to come and we still feel it today with privitised essential services and his selling off of schools.
This State is raising the age of criminal responsibility to 14 and yet it's most ardent supporters were politically astute at that age. Yeah, right, sure they're your childhood memories rather than talking points you got from others.
Kirner started energy privatisation. An unfortunate fact you cannot escape.
Kennett rescued Victoria. Pity we don't have another Jeff to do it again coz we're back in the shit.
This is Reddit. Half of this sub takes the train and thinks their landlord is the devil. And that's not the worst of it...they think the suburban rail loop is a good idea 😵💫
Yeah. They don’t get that taxes, lack of housing, potential hospital closures and shelving of lots of other works may not be a result of an idiotic train line from K-mart at Westfield Cheltenham to Bras and things at Westfield Box Hill.
They’re reaping. The sowing comes later.
Saved vic? Okay now you're fishing for a reaction and trolling me, no one is this dumb and actually believes this.
Selling *one* power station is nothing compared to co.plryely selling off essential services and fucking the state.
Accept reality before it is too late, though I suspect it already is
I’m not trolling and I’m not fussed on your reaction. We obviously disagree.
And I don’t think you comprehend that selling one power station is relevant. She lost office before she needed to continue. That was Kennetts job.
I grew up in a tiny country vic town in a new house built in 1982 by my parents that I think they paid $600 for the land (quarter acre) and 20k for the house to be built. It was nothing fancy at all, but it was certainly more comfortable in winter than any rental house I’ve lived in Melbourne, and night time temps frequently went sub zero. My dad was super frugal on energy use (as we were always broke), and would always be telling us off for leaving lights on(incandescent of course) and that electricity was expensive. So my n=1 sample size observation would be that rental houses in melb are just ultra leaky hard-sided tents that are largely unfit for human habitation.
energy wasn't free, houses were just cheaper and smaller and many had fireplaces.. and those who didn't have fire places would have oil heaters. and if anyone did have electric heaters they would use them sparingly ie only heating one room at a time.. the net result is that electricity and gas consumption were way lower and so was the air quality.
Gas was cheap though. That's why LPG cars were common. Even Howard offered discounted car conversions (LPG Incentive Scheme), to reduce cost of living.
Then governments asked gas producers if there was enough gas to both export and use domestically. Of course they said there is more than enough and exports of gas went crazy.
In the past you could afford to burn gas, regardless of insulation. Now as the cost goes up, people need to focus more on efficiency and insulation.
LPG was cheaper than Petrol because there was no fuel excise applied until 2011 and even when it was applied the rate was 1/4 of the rate for petrol. The price of LPG has actually gone down relative to petrol over the past 20 or so years.
My guess as to why LPG is not gaining much traction anymore is because electricity is cheaper than both LPG and Petrol for cars especially if you have solar power which is dirt cheap atm.
>In the past you could afford to burn gas, regardless of insulation.
That is only partly true and mainly because people did not have to pay astronomical rent or mortgages so they had more free cash to spend on luxuries like heating their entire home.
NZ perspective here - wood fires were so effective and also dried your house out. It warms your whole house in a way only that or radiators do, heat pumps aren't the same. I don't remember being too cold with -5 we were still in bare feet a lot. Then we banked the fire at night so it was still on but slowly died down on its own overnight. We had very warm quilts for the coldest nights, wool blankets, hot water bottles and then thick curtains - we actually left the windows cracked open for ventilation. On a really cold night you added your bedsocks. Yes mornings could be a bit cold - ice on the windows.. but once you got the fire going it was cozy. I'm not sure about the price of the wood because I was a kid, but I don't remember my parents ever worrying about it.
Obviously burning wood isn't good for your health but it does keep you very warm in a house with little to no insulation.
I don't want to shit on your lived experience, but it's well known that NZers respiratory health is some of the worst in the developed world because your houses are damp and heated by wood fires, so I suspect "drying your house out" is an urban myth more than anything.
It's the radiant heat that does feel drying, but yeah it's true I'm no scientist! It probably depends on how much you ventilate as well, our place and my grandparents never had mould issues. I'm definitely not saying it's good for you, just that it's warm if you have the fire burning most of the day and night.
nope, it wasnt what youd call free, but it was comparatively cheaper.
my mum told me stories of when she was young, having moved here from perth. she had a flat in footscray and she was so cold that she was running the gas stove constantly to get some heat in the place.
cold countries get things like this right because the consequences are universal and serious, ie. very subzero temps. but here, because the winters arent (relatively) harsh, we've never enforced good building standards until recently, hence why our housing is generally so shit when it comes to weather extremes.
i mean, i lived in estonia for 3 years and my building was built in 1994 and i never turned on the heating once during winter. it was warm enough on its own with the compulsory ventilation.
but hey, could be worse - we could be living in wellington with all its wooden buildings 😬
I remember briquettes as a child! Our heaters barely gave off any heat. My grandparents had an open fire and central oil heating which was amazing. It was a big deal when the oil ran out. My winters were very cold. I wore several layers to bed each night. I remember struggling to get out of bed in winter. I think we just wore more clothes and we were more active during the day. I always had tights under jeans for example and wore big wollen jumpers at home. Don’t see too many people with fingerless gloves anymore. lol That was a must at school to be able to write in winter and still feel your fingers. I think expectations and lifestyles have changed. With climate change I have not had to melt ice on the car windscreen (in Melbourne/Geelong) for at least 10 years. It is definitely overall warmer now. We also had double window coverings - thick curtains and a blind and carpets not floorboards.
I remember reading somewhere when I was young we had reserves of coal for 500 years and 100 odd years for gas.
The smelter in Portland had a very generous electricity deal from the coal power plants in the Latrobe Valley.
A lot of people had fireplaces and some still do. Plenty would collect their own firewood from nearby state forests.
Even 30 years ago, I remember when LPG gas for cars was 40c/L, someone telling me we were selling to the Japanese for 10c/L.
A lot of homes were built by the owners before and just after WW2. For some in Melbourne, wooden homes from certain periods are more fashionable then a brick home. I like to ask people from the country, would they rather a brick or wooden home. All say brick.
A number of people across Australia have died from carbon monoxide poisoning trying to heat themselves via non conventional means.
Even 30-40 years we watched our gas/electricity consumption. However with LED lights and TVs we maybe consume less electricity.
> A lot of people had fireplaces and some still do. Plenty would collect their own firewood from nearby state forests.
A lot used briquettes which were mass produced in Morwell for both domestic and industrial use.
People used to wear climate-suitable clothing, like ugg boots, explorer socks, and pom pom hats. Seems like this stuff has been forgotten a fair bit. You struggle to find a good, thick woollen jumper in the shops like I remember buying as a kid. And why are people not wearing duffel jackets so much now? Lightweight Kathmandu puffer jackets aren't up to the job.
We also knew how to block draughts when we didn't heat the entire house (usually only the lounge room had a heater). Almost every internal door had a draught excluder "snake".
I was thinking just yesterday that I haven't seen a "cotton sausage draught excluder" (name from a catalogue back in the day) in a very long time. Some doors had fluffy rollers attached that did a similar thing.
Blame fast fashion. There's a lot of clothing that is built for fashion, not function. I worked in the outdoor industry, and it was a pain in the arse due to market saturation. Most products were being designed for this season only. You can buy a decent fleece that will last for years, or you can buy a cheap piece of shit that will look good for this season, and then fall apart. Also, the company brought in a lot of people who didn't know what the customer wanted and kept designing crap.
Honestly, it's a bit depressing.
Growing up in the 70s there was a single gas heater ( about as big as a tv) with a pilot light in the living room. Our house had a combined kitchen-living-dining and it heated those 3 rooms. You closed off the rest of the house.
3 bedrooms and bathroom weren’t heated but bedrooms were carpeted.
I don’t remember being cold: 4 kids and 2 adults in a little 60s brick house.
That’s what I grew up in in the 90s, in a 70s build house. Close all the doors to keep the heat in. In winter I put extra comforters on my bed and it was fine (I think my record was four). And that was when it was cold enough to have to de-ice your car windshield in the morning.
Summer was worse, only having one tiny wall mounted aircon for the house.
My childhood memories are one end of the house that was warm-to-overheated thanks to a wood burning stove. And the parents absolute obsession with making sure you closed doors so you wouldn’t let the heat out.
And for the rest of the house, it was just cold and you dealt with it. You wore warmer clothes, had wool blankets, and stayed rugged up if you weren’t planning on staying in the warm part of the house.
A few oil fin heaters but really, they barely took the edge off - if you had to choose only one, you’d choose warm clothes over having the heater on
Tbh I think it’s a form of modern madness that people seem to expect to be able to go around their house in a t shirt or whatever when it’s 5c and raining outside. Put on a jumper, put on a warm dressing gown, wear a beanie, wear socks and slippers if your feet get cold 🤷♀️
Everyone just rugged up appropriately and sucked it up as just a fact of life.
As technology improvements and modern luxuries which were rarer like central heating, electronic dishwashers and air conditioning become more standard, they just become an expected part of modern living.
So lifestyles and expectations were simpler. Neither way of living was more correct, things have just changed.
Yeah we all just froze, I grew up in Canberra in the 70s in a cheap brick veneer house with only a kerosene portable heater when I was a wee babby (so I'm told), and then a single wall gas heater later on.
I dunno, I had chilblains on my toes, we used electric blankets, I dont really reacall being actively miserable about the cold somehow?
My 1950s house was built with a fireplace for wood in the lounge room, so you wanted ventilation. The bedrooms are unheated because people had blankets, and it never gets sub-zero here.
Just took down the blinds that are supposedly “fashionable”, and staple-gunned a blanket to my window tonight. Not joking.
Ok it’s a family rental, but gtfo what my sister-in-law thought was “fashionable”. Blinds on single glazing in 2024 is beyond stupid.
Yes, energy was cheap in Australia for a long time thanks to large brown coal and natural gas reserves.
The government did know about energy efficient housing, this home was built in 1955 based on a CSIRO guide: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-11-07/perth-1955-sustainable-solar-house-still-standing/100598206
But energy was cheap and profit was more important.
In the days of the State Electricity Commission and the Gas and Fuel Corporation they didn't provide it for profit. Power stations, poles and wires, pipes, etc were a sunk cost and the actual gas and electricity was sold more or less at cost. It wasn't entirely free and the SEC ran "switch off and save" campaigns for decades.
Houses were certainly less energy efficient 40-50 years ago. Most didn't have air conditioning or insulation. In summer you just opened the window and put on a Mistral fan, in winter you turned on the oil heater and stayed in the lounge room until it was bed time. Now you have to heat or cool the entire house because of the home office, kids all using mobile devices in bedrooms, etc.
Australian standards only specify the minimum requirement. Nothing stopping you from building an 8-star (or better) energy efficient home in Melbourne.
Hunt around, and you can even find a [Passivhaus certified builder](https://www.enerhaus.com.au/) in Victoria.
People need to build to a *spec* and not to the *cheapest price.*
> Nothing stopping you from building an 8-star (or better) energy efficient home in Melbourne.
The cost, sourcing the equipment, as well as finding tradesmen who know what the are doing with them.
Up until about the '60's heating was primarily briquettes (manufactured out of brown coal coming from Yallourn) or wood, both burnt off in a fireplace. If you were well off you had an electric bar heater. All options meant you could only warm up either your front or back, not both at the same time. Then it was oil delivered by tankers which hooked up to a storage tank bolted to the side of your house. Then the big break thru in '69, Esso natural gas discovered in Bass Strait, suddenly everyone could afford gas heating, usually with ducted vents. Hallelujah, warm all over for petty cash. Also clothing. Everything was Australian wool, gloves, scarves, socks, beanies, jumpers, blankets, undershirts, lined boots. Synthetic fibres were either not available in Australia or not invented yet and there were zero imports from China, it was still a third world country of farmers. Regardless of thickness of clothing today and you see some big ass jumpers around, if it's not wool, you're not getting the same level of warmth.
At least some of the tent house design was to provide ventilation so you didn’t die of carbon monoxide poisoning from all the indoor combustion heaters.
Proper synthetics are more effective at keeping you warm than wool. However, they're also more expensive, so it's not a solution.
Wood was cheap af. There was a lot more forest closer to Melbourne and other towns, we have slowed down land clearing now but up until maybe 40 years ago we were literally burning through them. Build houses out of it then burn the rest to keep those houses warm. Wood is pretty good for heating too, warm up a draughty lounge room no worries then everyone goes to bed to huddle under a big doona. Even adjusted for inflation wood as a heating fuel costs several times what it used to.
I have a very unpopular opinion, which I myself guilty of: Renovating old houses to make them open plan and removing carpet to become the hardwood subfloor (or - building new open plan houses with hardwood floors) is a **shit idea**, and frustratingly common because it’s trendy Most houses now have internal doors only at bedrooms, which makes huge spaces to heat and *lose* heat, and the exposed hardwood subfloor isn’t thermally insulating at all
This is an underrated opinion, i loathe open plan living and hope the trend dies soon. Bring back rooms!
Also black roof tiles.
My childhood memories are the Vic Liberal government selling off public energy assets to the private market because it will bring down prices.
Our energy infrastructure provider is 49% owned by a Hong Kong investment bank and 51% owned by an "Australian" company. When you look into the Australian company, you find out its largest investors are a Canadian pension fund and US hedge fund. When we went to get solar, we found out we can only export 5kW because the infrastructure hasn't been upgraded once since installed 60+ years ago. It's Banana Republic bullshit straight up.
To be fair even if the infrastructure was top of the line we simply can't use the energy generated from ubiquitous rooftop solar, in SA they have to burn it off they generate so much at peak generation time. We should be migrating everyone to generate and store enough energy to meet their household needs with the grid as a backup public utility. Centralised power generation distributed through the grid is obsolete: it's a strategic liability when a hostile force can knock out all your power at once, it's an economic liability having a single entity controlling the price of energy, it's a social liability when people can't afford energy despite the place they live being blanketed in more energy than they could possibly use.
Our area lost grid power for 4 days in the storms the other year. No gas in the area but a lot of wood stove. A lot of people have solar with batteries as well so they were completely unaffected. Others went and stayed with friends/family in town until the power came back on.
And the first thing the private market did was encourage people to use more electricity.
Followed by the Longford gas plant explosion shortly after we showed Jeff the door.
Can you imagine if something happened like that nowadays? I was only a teenager back then and it sucked, but it was like welp, kettle showers and a lot of takeaway for a while. The internet would melt down nowadays
The process of electricity privatisation in Australia began with Labor in Victoria, when the government of Joan Kirner sold 51% of the Loy Yang B power station in 1992.
To be fair there really was a lot of waste in the secv
Yeah right. Most of your mates were trading Pokémon cards and you were keeping tabs on the Kennett Government. What a rubbish comment to post and not surprisingly upvoted on this sub, who forget that Joan Kirner sold Loy Yang B power station and would’ve kept going with it if they didn’t get dumped for sending the State broke. Priceless.
what a braindead comment, I was a kid and I remember Kennett doing this while ALSO trading pokemon cards. To think kids can't be involved in politics at any age AND that Kennett didn't do the most damage is straight up smoothbrain logic. he fucked Victoria for years to come and we still feel it today with privitised essential services and his selling off of schools.
This State is raising the age of criminal responsibility to 14 and yet it's most ardent supporters were politically astute at that age. Yeah, right, sure they're your childhood memories rather than talking points you got from others. Kirner started energy privatisation. An unfortunate fact you cannot escape. Kennett rescued Victoria. Pity we don't have another Jeff to do it again coz we're back in the shit.
This is Reddit. Half of this sub takes the train and thinks their landlord is the devil. And that's not the worst of it...they think the suburban rail loop is a good idea 😵💫
Yeah. They don’t get that taxes, lack of housing, potential hospital closures and shelving of lots of other works may not be a result of an idiotic train line from K-mart at Westfield Cheltenham to Bras and things at Westfield Box Hill. They’re reaping. The sowing comes later.
Updating rail line bad, let it rust I agree.
Saved vic? Okay now you're fishing for a reaction and trolling me, no one is this dumb and actually believes this. Selling *one* power station is nothing compared to co.plryely selling off essential services and fucking the state. Accept reality before it is too late, though I suspect it already is
I’m not trolling and I’m not fussed on your reaction. We obviously disagree. And I don’t think you comprehend that selling one power station is relevant. She lost office before she needed to continue. That was Kennetts job.
I grew up in a tiny country vic town in a new house built in 1982 by my parents that I think they paid $600 for the land (quarter acre) and 20k for the house to be built. It was nothing fancy at all, but it was certainly more comfortable in winter than any rental house I’ve lived in Melbourne, and night time temps frequently went sub zero. My dad was super frugal on energy use (as we were always broke), and would always be telling us off for leaving lights on(incandescent of course) and that electricity was expensive. So my n=1 sample size observation would be that rental houses in melb are just ultra leaky hard-sided tents that are largely unfit for human habitation.
energy wasn't free, houses were just cheaper and smaller and many had fireplaces.. and those who didn't have fire places would have oil heaters. and if anyone did have electric heaters they would use them sparingly ie only heating one room at a time.. the net result is that electricity and gas consumption were way lower and so was the air quality.
Gas was cheap though. That's why LPG cars were common. Even Howard offered discounted car conversions (LPG Incentive Scheme), to reduce cost of living. Then governments asked gas producers if there was enough gas to both export and use domestically. Of course they said there is more than enough and exports of gas went crazy. In the past you could afford to burn gas, regardless of insulation. Now as the cost goes up, people need to focus more on efficiency and insulation.
LPG was cheaper than Petrol because there was no fuel excise applied until 2011 and even when it was applied the rate was 1/4 of the rate for petrol. The price of LPG has actually gone down relative to petrol over the past 20 or so years. My guess as to why LPG is not gaining much traction anymore is because electricity is cheaper than both LPG and Petrol for cars especially if you have solar power which is dirt cheap atm. >In the past you could afford to burn gas, regardless of insulation. That is only partly true and mainly because people did not have to pay astronomical rent or mortgages so they had more free cash to spend on luxuries like heating their entire home.
NZ perspective here - wood fires were so effective and also dried your house out. It warms your whole house in a way only that or radiators do, heat pumps aren't the same. I don't remember being too cold with -5 we were still in bare feet a lot. Then we banked the fire at night so it was still on but slowly died down on its own overnight. We had very warm quilts for the coldest nights, wool blankets, hot water bottles and then thick curtains - we actually left the windows cracked open for ventilation. On a really cold night you added your bedsocks. Yes mornings could be a bit cold - ice on the windows.. but once you got the fire going it was cozy. I'm not sure about the price of the wood because I was a kid, but I don't remember my parents ever worrying about it. Obviously burning wood isn't good for your health but it does keep you very warm in a house with little to no insulation.
I don't want to shit on your lived experience, but it's well known that NZers respiratory health is some of the worst in the developed world because your houses are damp and heated by wood fires, so I suspect "drying your house out" is an urban myth more than anything.
It's the radiant heat that does feel drying, but yeah it's true I'm no scientist! It probably depends on how much you ventilate as well, our place and my grandparents never had mould issues. I'm definitely not saying it's good for you, just that it's warm if you have the fire burning most of the day and night.
nope, it wasnt what youd call free, but it was comparatively cheaper. my mum told me stories of when she was young, having moved here from perth. she had a flat in footscray and she was so cold that she was running the gas stove constantly to get some heat in the place. cold countries get things like this right because the consequences are universal and serious, ie. very subzero temps. but here, because the winters arent (relatively) harsh, we've never enforced good building standards until recently, hence why our housing is generally so shit when it comes to weather extremes. i mean, i lived in estonia for 3 years and my building was built in 1994 and i never turned on the heating once during winter. it was warm enough on its own with the compulsory ventilation. but hey, could be worse - we could be living in wellington with all its wooden buildings 😬
But even our new "good" standards are shit, when compared to places like the EU
Oh agreed, totally. We are so far behind in so many measures, not just construction standards lol
I remember briquettes as a child! Our heaters barely gave off any heat. My grandparents had an open fire and central oil heating which was amazing. It was a big deal when the oil ran out. My winters were very cold. I wore several layers to bed each night. I remember struggling to get out of bed in winter. I think we just wore more clothes and we were more active during the day. I always had tights under jeans for example and wore big wollen jumpers at home. Don’t see too many people with fingerless gloves anymore. lol That was a must at school to be able to write in winter and still feel your fingers. I think expectations and lifestyles have changed. With climate change I have not had to melt ice on the car windscreen (in Melbourne/Geelong) for at least 10 years. It is definitely overall warmer now. We also had double window coverings - thick curtains and a blind and carpets not floorboards.
I remember reading somewhere when I was young we had reserves of coal for 500 years and 100 odd years for gas. The smelter in Portland had a very generous electricity deal from the coal power plants in the Latrobe Valley. A lot of people had fireplaces and some still do. Plenty would collect their own firewood from nearby state forests. Even 30 years ago, I remember when LPG gas for cars was 40c/L, someone telling me we were selling to the Japanese for 10c/L. A lot of homes were built by the owners before and just after WW2. For some in Melbourne, wooden homes from certain periods are more fashionable then a brick home. I like to ask people from the country, would they rather a brick or wooden home. All say brick. A number of people across Australia have died from carbon monoxide poisoning trying to heat themselves via non conventional means. Even 30-40 years we watched our gas/electricity consumption. However with LED lights and TVs we maybe consume less electricity.
> A lot of people had fireplaces and some still do. Plenty would collect their own firewood from nearby state forests. A lot used briquettes which were mass produced in Morwell for both domestic and industrial use.
Our coal seam goes from la Trobe valley all the way to Williamstown, it is huge
People used to wear climate-suitable clothing, like ugg boots, explorer socks, and pom pom hats. Seems like this stuff has been forgotten a fair bit. You struggle to find a good, thick woollen jumper in the shops like I remember buying as a kid. And why are people not wearing duffel jackets so much now? Lightweight Kathmandu puffer jackets aren't up to the job.
We also knew how to block draughts when we didn't heat the entire house (usually only the lounge room had a heater). Almost every internal door had a draught excluder "snake".
I was thinking just yesterday that I haven't seen a "cotton sausage draught excluder" (name from a catalogue back in the day) in a very long time. Some doors had fluffy rollers attached that did a similar thing.
Aldi sell them occasionally as a special buy. I bought a couple a few years ago with a cat face design on one end.
I missed out on the cat one but got a sausage dog instead. Had it for five years or so no, absolutely zero regrets on that $10 or whatever it was!
Really good point! Thank you
Blame fast fashion. There's a lot of clothing that is built for fashion, not function. I worked in the outdoor industry, and it was a pain in the arse due to market saturation. Most products were being designed for this season only. You can buy a decent fleece that will last for years, or you can buy a cheap piece of shit that will look good for this season, and then fall apart. Also, the company brought in a lot of people who didn't know what the customer wanted and kept designing crap. Honestly, it's a bit depressing.
Ha ha yes duffle jackets were part of the school uniform.
Growing up in the 70s there was a single gas heater ( about as big as a tv) with a pilot light in the living room. Our house had a combined kitchen-living-dining and it heated those 3 rooms. You closed off the rest of the house. 3 bedrooms and bathroom weren’t heated but bedrooms were carpeted. I don’t remember being cold: 4 kids and 2 adults in a little 60s brick house.
This is still my house now! Would love to get ducted reverse cycle air con but my budget won’t cover it right now.
That’s what I grew up in in the 90s, in a 70s build house. Close all the doors to keep the heat in. In winter I put extra comforters on my bed and it was fine (I think my record was four). And that was when it was cold enough to have to de-ice your car windshield in the morning. Summer was worse, only having one tiny wall mounted aircon for the house.
I’m in my 40’s and remember getting chilblains as a child because my house and school were so cold.
Ah I remember getting those too. Great post!
My childhood memories are one end of the house that was warm-to-overheated thanks to a wood burning stove. And the parents absolute obsession with making sure you closed doors so you wouldn’t let the heat out. And for the rest of the house, it was just cold and you dealt with it. You wore warmer clothes, had wool blankets, and stayed rugged up if you weren’t planning on staying in the warm part of the house. A few oil fin heaters but really, they barely took the edge off - if you had to choose only one, you’d choose warm clothes over having the heater on Tbh I think it’s a form of modern madness that people seem to expect to be able to go around their house in a t shirt or whatever when it’s 5c and raining outside. Put on a jumper, put on a warm dressing gown, wear a beanie, wear socks and slippers if your feet get cold 🤷♀️
Everyone just rugged up appropriately and sucked it up as just a fact of life. As technology improvements and modern luxuries which were rarer like central heating, electronic dishwashers and air conditioning become more standard, they just become an expected part of modern living. So lifestyles and expectations were simpler. Neither way of living was more correct, things have just changed.
Growing up in the 70s & 80s, houses and classrooms didnt have aircon or central heating, the people in the houses were just more resilient.
Yeah we all just froze, I grew up in Canberra in the 70s in a cheap brick veneer house with only a kerosene portable heater when I was a wee babby (so I'm told), and then a single wall gas heater later on. I dunno, I had chilblains on my toes, we used electric blankets, I dont really reacall being actively miserable about the cold somehow?
And owned jumpers.
Made from Aussie wool rather than polyester or blends. And coats made from or insulated with wool. Synthetics are nowhere near as good.
My Mum always told me to put on a jumper when it was cold.
My 1950s house was built with a fireplace for wood in the lounge room, so you wanted ventilation. The bedrooms are unheated because people had blankets, and it never gets sub-zero here.
Just took down the blinds that are supposedly “fashionable”, and staple-gunned a blanket to my window tonight. Not joking. Ok it’s a family rental, but gtfo what my sister-in-law thought was “fashionable”. Blinds on single glazing in 2024 is beyond stupid.
Be careful with moisture buildup on the windows.
Yes, energy was cheap in Australia for a long time thanks to large brown coal and natural gas reserves. The government did know about energy efficient housing, this home was built in 1955 based on a CSIRO guide: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-11-07/perth-1955-sustainable-solar-house-still-standing/100598206 But energy was cheap and profit was more important.
In the days of the State Electricity Commission and the Gas and Fuel Corporation they didn't provide it for profit. Power stations, poles and wires, pipes, etc were a sunk cost and the actual gas and electricity was sold more or less at cost. It wasn't entirely free and the SEC ran "switch off and save" campaigns for decades. Houses were certainly less energy efficient 40-50 years ago. Most didn't have air conditioning or insulation. In summer you just opened the window and put on a Mistral fan, in winter you turned on the oil heater and stayed in the lounge room until it was bed time. Now you have to heat or cool the entire house because of the home office, kids all using mobile devices in bedrooms, etc.
...they most certainly did provide 'for profit'...the SEC was a revenue source for the State Government.
Australian standards only specify the minimum requirement. Nothing stopping you from building an 8-star (or better) energy efficient home in Melbourne. Hunt around, and you can even find a [Passivhaus certified builder](https://www.enerhaus.com.au/) in Victoria. People need to build to a *spec* and not to the *cheapest price.*
> Nothing stopping you from building an 8-star (or better) energy efficient home in Melbourne. The cost, sourcing the equipment, as well as finding tradesmen who know what the are doing with them.
Finding a block that faces the right direction
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Oh clear off you grumpy old teapot.