What’s Wrong With This Picture?
Can anyone identify any advantage gained by driving down the road with the handbrake on?
It’s probably not something that a normal person would consciously do. It is possibly something that some people may have inadvertently done but surely it would not have been done on purpose.
Why would you knowingly sabotage what you were doing? Why would you purposefully make things more difficult for yourself?
If you had realized that a practice was negatively impacting your plans, one may assume that when reality raised its head, a reasonable person would attend to improve the situation “post haste”.
The most efficient plan is to have everyone rowing in the same direction as often as possible. I say as often as possible because frequently life gets in the way and compromises need to be made.
In our first picture, the sun’s energy is naturally heating these drink bottles but the objective, for all concerned, is to have them consistently cool at around 4 to 5 degrees. The sun’s radiant heat energy is naturally raising the temperature of the drinks. Imagine the irony of having the same sun shining on a bank of solar panels generating electricity to run the refrigerator to cool them down.
Two steps forward one step back. I would wager that whoever owned this fridge would not drive down the street with the handbrake on, well not on purpose anyway, but, for some strange reason, locating this fridge in the position it is in, is apparently OK. It is either is OK or is it isn’t OK. I think it’s not OK.
I would suggest that relocating the fridge would be in the best interest of the shop owners and also the customers who may, heaven forbid, decide to drink from one of the bottles that have had such sun exposure.
If we just say focused on the energy efficiency aspect, simple logic would ultimately dictate that there must be a better way and repositioning the fridge may well be a much better option.
My thoughts were that the shop was laid out to allow visual access from the street as to what was for sale inside and that the re positioning of the fridges would compromise this possibility.
In any situation there are always a number of options and under close examination some options are better than others.
Regardless of who you are or what you do, all of us have to make compromises on a daily basis and one person would readily select an option to a problem that another may not even consider.
Only you will know what you will tolerate and what you won’t.
That’s why, when considering what you will do to increase your energy efficiency, one size doesn’t fit all.
Frequently however, energy efficient compromises are made without our being aware. That is, metaphorically speaking, we are unknowingly driving with the handbrake on.
I recently had to find a location on our property to store a container that may be stored for an extended period of time.
I had three locations that I considered suitable, when a fourth and possibility the best location was suggested to me by someone I was working with. A new broom sweeps clean and new eyes see possibilities that familiar eyes may not.
It’s pretty obvious to me now that that’s the best location for this container for a number of reasons. It’s not uncommon that someone new will see something that we cannot, but as reality rears its head, we must be ready and willing to identify and acknowledge those things that we have unknowingly excepted.
The second picture is a fridge in a Gold Coast Hotel Unit located on the northern side of the building. The energy efficient consequences aren’t as severe as those that would be experienced by the refrigerators in the first picture.
Even so, there is still room for improvement. For those who are keen to become more energy efficient, a new set of eyes may identify opportunities for improvement that you may not see.
Every little bit adds up and every opportunity that can be identified
is worthy of consideration >>>LEARN MORE>>>
John Lynn
suburbanoffgridliving.com