Home truths

There’s one thing that American expats in New Zealand complain about. That’s good: Other nationalities (that shall remain nameless) complain more often and more loudly than American expats do. Given our poor reputation as tourists, this is positively exhilarating.

American expats often feel that Kiwi houses are cold and damp. There’s some justification for this. It was only a few decades ago that the government required that houses have insulation; to this day, many older houses have none at all.

Also, most houses in New Zealand have no central heat. People get by with a woodburner in the lounge, and maybe an electric heater in the bedrooms. Others use unvented LPG gas heaters (New Zealand is one of a few countries to allow them, but not in bedrooms). All of these solutions are inefficient and pretty high-polluting.

Taken together—poor insulation and no central heat—the houses feel cold to Americans, and they’ll complain about it. I did when I first arrived, too.

Of course, new houses (like ours) have proper amounts of insulation. Reverse-cycle heat pumps are becoming popular, too. These are among the most energy-efficient heating methods available to New Zealanders, especially since a large chunk of our electricity is generated from renewable sources (hydro, wind, geothermal).

While newer houses are warmer and drier, it doesn’t explain why earlier generations accepted being cold. A new study from Canterbury University in Christchurch claims to answer that.

Apparently, the reliance on woodfires isn’t just thriftiness, oh, no: It’s “a deeply embedded identification with the masculine pioneer heritage.” Okay, then.

The study, soon to be published in Environment and Planning, says people tolerate cold homes because denial of pain and discomfort “appears to be a dominant feature” of New Zealand culture which allows people “to feel good about themselves as tough, practical New Zealanders.”

Maybe in Christchurch. I’d suggest that in Auckland it has more to do with people deluding themselves that the climate here is milder—in both summer and winter—than it really is.

Whatever the reason, most American expats seem to adjust to New Zealand houses within a year, two at most. I did. My first winter I nearly froze, and I hated the LPG heater we had at the time—until I got cold enough. By the second winter, I’d adjusted, so it wasn’t as big a deal as that first winter. Now, of course, I realise how positively tropical our winters are compared to Chicago’s.

I guess the larger thing here is that given enough time, we can adjust to pretty much anything—New Zealand houses in winter, driving on the other side of the road, the metric system (this list goes on). This is a good thing.