Expensoheat

We have now been in our ‘new’ house for four months. This one still does feel a little ‘new’, being only 5 years old. It even incorporates some radical features (for New Zealand): proper insulation, double glazing (though I note that the frames are still aluminium) and well engineered drainage from what otherwise would be […]

Continue reading

Weather records

I came across the following on the BBC website  "Australia's summer broke 205 records…" It draws from the recent Climate Council report. The BBC article doesn't list them all 205 of them, but does pull out the most impressive – the hottest summer on record for Sydney, Brisbane and Canberra,  and the wettest on record […]

Continue reading

A lot of huffing and puffing

While there is some great fiction out there, one really shouldn't try to learn much physics from it. One case in point, which I am forced to listen to over and over by the youngest member of our house, is the story of the Three Little Pigs.  I'm not talking here about the relative merits […]

Continue reading

A load of rubbish

I've been reading through a student's report of his summer work placement. He  had a project on improving the performance of a heat exchanger used for getting rid of heat from a cryogenic cooler. The basic concept is that materials are being cooled to about 40 kelvin (that's 40 degrees above absolute zero, minus 233 […]

Continue reading