We have today received from the Department of Building and Housing and the Consumers Institute (obviously a joint effort) a box containing 50 copies of a 41-page, heavy gloss paper, full colour booklet entitled YOUR GUIDE TO A SMARTER HOME, with a letter requesting that we put it on display so our customers can take one if they want to. Free. Courtesy of me and you, the taxpayer. From the 'Introduction' page:Try www.smarterhomes.org.nz for more of the same crap.The Department of Building and Housing and Consumer want to help you to:Lord knows how many they printed and how much it has cost me - I suppose I should be comforted by knowing "this booklet is printed on paper from sustainable forests using elemental chlorine-free pulp."
- reduce your household power/gas bill;
- improve your family's comfort and health at home;
- maintain your property and retain or improve its value; and
- do your bit to reduce the impact on our environment.
Pulp's the bloody word. Crap more like!
Thursday 16 August 2007
Crap. Please take one.
I've received the following from "Angry Taxpayer," who owns and runs a timber yard in K--- (as they say in Russian novels).
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6 comments:
I'd suggest you take a close look at the numbers they are claiming for energy savings then compare them to the average NZ home power bill on the MED website. Something smelly is going on.
You might want to comment from your experience on the true costs and pay off period on 'investing' in solar or double glazing. Isuspect their numbers are wobbly too.
What a pity there's no way to add up the total amount spent on crap such as this by the myriad government departments and agencies...
The amount must be staggering, and this in a tiny country with very few productive taxpayers.
Now add the cost of welfare benefits.
Surely NZ can't afford to carry on like this much longer?
An OIA should get the number easily enough
Remember when Jenny Shipley was PM?
She had a booklet distributed to all NZers throughout the whole country. A copy or two was sent to every household. All of this was taxpayer funded.
Among other things the booklet instructed people that they had a duty to the country to look after themsleves and live healthy. People were instructed not to partake in bad habits like smoking or over-eating. It seems they had a responsibility not to burden the welfare system with avoidable health problems such as obesity..
A few months later the amply framed PM, Jenny Shipley, went to the head of the hospital waiting list for an angioplasty. She had heart trouble it seems, too much eating, too fat...
Remember that?
And here, now, another government booklet campaign. Here's hoping something bad hapens to all of them. I hope their houses fall down.
Cheerful happy thoughts!
Little Green Man
Ah, a Kolyma tale from Kaitaia.
I am surprised that you dismiss info on the SmarterHomes website as crap. Many of my company's (bathroom fittings)customers are immegrants from the northern hemisphere. Without exception they have described the thermal performance of New Zealand houses as crap.
The numbers given on that web-site are generally less than than 20% optomistic. When it comes to heat loss almost every house more than a few years old suffers from leaky building syndrome. Even the land of the free has higher insulation standards than we do but market forces and have made there standards reduntant. It's almost impossible to sell a new home in the states if it doesn't exceed code by a substantial amount.
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