27th March 2008

We have a log fire with a water heater fitted (known as a wetback). Since the introduction of Regional Authorities and their fixation on "one size fits all" clean air policies, logfires have become a dirty word in their eyes and those that manage to make the stringent emission criteria rarely are approved for heating water as well. The fire manufacturers have complained to no avail. The new religion is GREEN and those that do not conform are heretics. We have three neighbours within a 100m distance and although sitting on a cliff above the sea coast, we're subject to the same rules as if we were a house in the middle of St Albans Christchurch. The words bureaucrats and common sense are never used in the same sentence.

According to the technical experts our wetback shouldn't work, as the water storage cylinder is 12m away from the logfire, but it does even without the help of the low speed circulation pump fitted. Those that have the cylinder within a meter are two need no electricity to heat the water to almost boiling. A radio report this morning said that electricity prices will rise about 40% above the inflation rate over the next 20 years and every day in the newspapers, pending shortages and blackouts are predicted. Yet Environment Canterbury sitting in their silos are still beavering away getting people to remove their fires and offering subsidies to replace them with heat pumps. Pragmatism isn't a word in their vocabulary.

Having the cleanest air in the world is no help to those that can't afford electricity and freezing to death. Often people have access to free firewood, no one has access to free power (apart from maybe power company executives).

TC