Peter Matthews
When you turn on the hot tap in the kitchen in our house, you can fill up our common or garden watering can with cold water before it gets hot. That’s just over 5 litres. And it’s a good idea to do that because we’re on rainwater. So by the time the water is hot at the tap, there is just over five litres of lovely hot water in the uninsulated pipe between the water heater and the kitchen. Next time somebody wants hot water it will be lukewarm, and another five litres will need to be drawn before the required hot water is usable.
The reason for this is that the ‘infinity’ gas water heater is 17 metres in a straight line from where the tap is located in the kitchen. Along the way there is the laundry, a shower, and a sink in the bathroom. Granted, the wait in those locations is not as long.
Our house was built in 2005, and no expense was spared; it has high quality doors and windows – all double glazed, it has a beautiful hardwood floor throughout, and yet it takes an age to get hot water to the kitchen. What was the architect thinking? Not much apparently.
Some years ago, when the new State Highway One was built past the end of Pickering Road at Tamahere, I was surprised to note the new four lane road went up and over, while little old Pickering Road stayed at ground level. Quite apart from the construction cost of putting the big road over the small one, what about the fuel cost of elevating all that traffic for who knows how many years up to the height necessary to get it over the bridge? Doesn’t make much sense to me. Perhaps someone will write in with a compelling rationale for this seemingly irrational situation.
Then there’s the (relatively) new roading arrangement at the roundabout by the white church in Cambridge, which appears not to have solved anything. How many times have you been caught in traffic coming into town along Victoria Road , only to find that there seems to be some new unwritten rule that traffic coming off Thornton Road from the left has the right of way? I have counted 27 cars being ‘let in’ to Victoria Road from Thornton Road in the time it has taken to get to the roundabout. Of course, now having mentioned it, I shall have to let the next car in every time I drive past. It doesn’t pay to upset potential clients and my number plate is a bit of a giveaway. Anyway, coming into town from the Hautapu side I usually go via Carter’s Flat – it’s often quicker.
So there we have three things that don’t make much sense. That’ll do for now.
But none of them are half as mad as the T-shirt you could have bought in Texas last weekend with “God, Guns, & Trump, Waco Texas” emblazoned across the front.
