RE: UK: WINTER MAY BE COLDEST IN 1000 YEARS... (Full Version)

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Phoenixpower -> RE: UK: WINTER MAY BE COLDEST IN 1000 YEARS... (12/31/2010 1:30:36 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Prinsexx

quote:

ORIGINAL: pahunkboy

quote:

ORIGINAL: DarkSteven

Why pipes on the outside of the house, FFS?!?!?!  They last longer here on the inside.


Must be a UK thing.   LOL.


Back-to-back houses are a form of terraced house in which two houses share a rear wall (or in which the rear wall of a house directly abuts a factory or other building).. Of low quality (with only two rooms, one on each floor) and high density, they were built for working class people and because three of the four walls of the house were shared with other buildings and therefore contained no doors or windows, back-to-back houses were notoriously ill-lit and poorly ventilated and sanitation was of a poor standard. Many back to backs that escaped the Blitz of World War II still remained standing until the mid 1960’s


yep and the houses are only painted at the front side (some lucky ones at the side as well) not at the backside as there "nobody" will see that anyway [8|]



Phoenixpower -> RE: UK: WINTER MAY BE COLDEST IN 1000 YEARS... (12/31/2010 1:39:50 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: IanB


quote:

ORIGINAL: LadyConstanze

Actually a couple of my friends work for universities and they are regularly on stations in Norway that are in the arctic circle, about 5 years ago they noticed that the consistency of the snow had changed, something nobody ever remembers having seen or experienced, the ice was actually melting, even the grandparents never experienced that... As to the media exaggerating it, you must be kidding, I tend to trust scientists and they tend to think it's actually downplayed...



Here in Austria, I occasionally chat with older people,in their 60's and 70's. They all say the winters are much milder than they used to be, that there is much less snow on the ground in winter. 30-40 years ago in Vienna in their gardens, the snow covered the ground the whole winter, and they were shoveling fresh snow almost every week. These days the garden is green through the winter, and they shovel snow 2-3 times each winter.

Sure it's cold now, but it seems the cold we have now is today the exception.


Dont make the mistake to apply the weather conditions from austria with the UK. Back home (Germany) we also had stronger winters than here when I was a kid. We had regular good winters in my area (Black Forest) until I was about 12, then we had at least 2 years with too less snow to attend our yearly skiing course and I stopped skiing as I joined a different sport and wasn't interested in getting up early to go out in the cold to come home potentially with bruises or worse from accidents. At present back home winter is similar to what it used to be and in 2002 I stood knee deep in snow in the other half of my county whereas my parents havent had much snow. So back home we have still some years in between with good amount of snows.

However, here in the UK snow isn't quite the norm which is why they are't always that great in handling it...



RapierFugue -> RE: UK: WINTER MAY BE COLDEST IN 1000 YEARS... (12/31/2010 1:41:46 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Phoenixpower
yep and the houses are only painted at the front side (some lucky ones at the side as well) not at the backside as there "nobody" will see that anyway [8|]

I quite like seeing the bricks, personally. I'm not a fan of painted houses :)

I lived in just such a "hovel" as a very young child. An outside toilet too, would you believe; it took me a while to get used to having such an item inside the house when we moved to more modern housing. Seems unbelievable now, but there you are.

But it was always scrupulously clean (the house I mean, although the same could be said of the toilet) - my mother and grandmother kept their places so clean that "mess" was seen as the enemy. It's also worth mentioning that, although such social housing was far from luxurious, it was a huge step forward compared to what had previously been in use.



RapierFugue -> RE: UK: WINTER MAY BE COLDEST IN 1000 YEARS... (12/31/2010 1:49:15 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Phoenixpower
However, here in the UK snow isn't quite the norm which is why they are't always that great in handling it...

Exactly. The figures being bandied around recently have suggested that it'd cost somewhere in the region of 1.5-3 billion pounds per annum more to equip the UK to a similar degree as, say, Sweden, than it cost on worked days lost, etc. That's not a good spend, IMHO.

Although I did see a piece on a Scandinavian airport (Finnish, IIRC) which said that they hadn’t lost a single flying day through bad weather in over 50 years of operation; given the conditions I was hugely impressed. I was also a bit boggled by the tale of Russian (I think it was Russia, from memory) winter motoring, where you have to park your car in a garage every night (no leaving it on the street), and plug its core heater (an electric heater wired into the car’s metal engine block) into the mains, or (regardless of anti-freeze, etc) you wake up to find a car that's frozen solid and going nowhere. I’d be bound to forget, sooner or later, so it’s as well I don't have to contend with such conditions.



Phoenixpower -> RE: UK: WINTER MAY BE COLDEST IN 1000 YEARS... (12/31/2010 1:52:01 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: RapierFugue


quote:

ORIGINAL: Phoenixpower
yep and the houses are only painted at the front side (some lucky ones at the side as well) not at the backside as there "nobody" will see that anyway [8|]

I quite like seeing the bricks, personally. I'm not a fan of painted houses :)

I lived in just such a "hovel" as a very young child. An outside toilet too, would you believe; it took me a while to get used to having such an item inside the house when we moved to more modern housing. Seems unbelievable now, but there you are.

But it was always scrupulously clean (the house I mean, although the same could be said of the toilet) - my mother and grandmother kept their places so clean that "mess" was seen as the enemy. It's also worth mentioning that, although such social housing was far from luxurious, it was a huge step forward compared to what had previously been in use.



And who said that a house wouldn't be clean due to the fact that it usually isnt painted at the back side [8|][8|][8|]

And you don't need to tell me about things like a toilet outside, I know many folks who had that when I was a kid [8|]

Apart from that I don't mind to see a house in brickwork...but when it is just half done to safe the costs for doing the whole house due to the believe others don't see the backside anyway, then it does made my eyes roll.

I am pro house in its natural state, back home a friend of mine have their house completely made from wood, but don't expect from me to consider it as being pretty when the work is typically half done [:D]



RapierFugue -> RE: UK: WINTER MAY BE COLDEST IN 1000 YEARS... (12/31/2010 1:58:41 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Phoenixpower
And who said that a house wouldn't be clean due to the fact that it usually isnt painted at the back side [8|][8|][8|]

Given that most such houses were in highly industrialised areas, keeping them clean back in the day was significantly trickier than for more rural housing.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Phoenixpower
Apart from that I don't mind to see a house in brickwork...but when it is just half done to safe the costs for doing the whole house due to the believe others don't see the backside anyway, then it does made my eyes roll.

Eye rolling seems to be your default state :)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Phoenixpower
I am pro house in its natural state, back home a friend of mine have their house completely made from wood, but don't expect from me to consider it as being pretty when the work is typically half done [:D]

I actually think it's logical - if you're trying to save money, as councils were (and are), it made good economic sense. Such houses weren't built to be "pretty", they were utilitarian abodes, built as social housing.



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