When it comes to saving energy and heating costs, people can become really creative. Some of them only heat those rooms which they use most. Others get one of those fancy dog draught excluders, or they close all shutters to improve the insulation of their windows. And because for every degree you turn down your heating you save a good 6 % off your next energy bill, they wear a second sweater or a third pair of socks. That is certainly one way of dealing with the problem…
But what most people tend to forget: The apparent air temperature strongly depends on the humidity levels in the room you are in!
This phenomenon can easily be illustrated when you think of the summer holidays. Have you ever been to the tropics? Exactly – the high humidity levels in such areas make the heat almost unbearable. However, when you are in the desert, temperatures seem far more moderate, although they are usually a lot higher.
How you can use this information to save on heating costs at home? Continue reading
For many children, especially the younger ones, it was like a dream come true. The whole country lay under a thick blanket of soft, crunchy snow with some parts of England reporting as much as 30 – 40 centimetres of snowfall overnight. Even schools were forced to close their doors, which only added to the children’s delight. For the rest of the nation it was a nightmare. The cold snap, the worst in 30 years, left whole villages cut off from the outer world, causing cities to become hopelessly clogged and commuters driving home from work to become stranded in their cars where the unluckier ones suffered abysmally as they spent the night on one of many thousands of miles of roads and motorways across the country that had turned into treacherous ice rinks or become impassable because of snow drifts and heavy snow. Yet despite the gruelling winter we had last year – and the winter before that – and the prospect of yet another big freeze that is forecast to take another harsh, icy grip on the UK and the rest of Europe this year, there are still some diehards out there who cannot see the sense in fitting their cars with winter tyres when the year draws to a close and the temperatures in our otherwise relative mild mainly maritime climate start to drop.
Which thoughts cross your mind when you think about horse riding? In my mind I see little girls who dream about winning ribbons in equestrian tournaments, or I picture Europe’s royalty wearing ridiculously huge hats and feverishly watching the world-famous horse race at Ascot, or I even think of the lonesome cowboy from a renowned cigarette commercial galloping through the American prairie… Despite – or probably because of all these clichés about it, the popularity of horse riding as a hobby doesn’t seem to wear off… But one thing is sure: horse riding is, without doubt, quite a time-consuming and costly hobby.
