Well, we have now moved into our new house. We moved last Friday, mostly dodging the heavy showers that have been marauding around the country for the last week. We are slowly unpacking – the place is looking a lot tidier now than it did at the weekend, but it will take a while to find a home for every object we own. Mizuna the cat has taken a little bit of convincing about the move – but he has now emerged from under a bed and seems more at home and is very happy that our ex-neighbour’s cat is no longer is around to bother him.<\/p>\n
It’s a two-storey house, so slightly unusual for New Zealand, but one part of it is just one-storey with a very high ceiling. The layout makes for an excellent demonstration of the fact that hot air rises. (N.B. It’s hot air that rises, not heat, as is often mistakenly said.) With the log fire up and going on the ground floor, the area on the first floor above it gets really nice and toasty, whereas the ground floor itself is not so warm. The warm air has risen, has been trapped by the ceiling, and so the higher up you are the warmer you are going to be, pretty much.<\/p>\n
So, here’s a conundrum. If hot air rises, why is it colder at the top of a mountain than the bottom? It’s certainly warmer at the top of our house than the bottom. What’s the difference?<\/p>\n