My dear mother is looking to trade up her house for a bigger one – no downsizing for this woman! Her rationale is that her impending grandkids will be able to have the run of the huge ground-level space that she envisages. In the part of town she’s lived in for the past thirty years, backyards larger than a postage stamp are hard to come by, but multi-level townhouses are the norm. So she has her sights set on the biggest on the block.
According to my brother (dad-to-be of said grandkids), she’s been uncharacteristically (and amusingly) preoccupied with indoor climate control solutions. She’s always been a bit of an environmentalist and has never wanted air con or heaters around, but now that there are kids in the equation she’s getting interested in regulating the air temp in her house – a bit of an ask here in Melbourne.
Bro tells me that mum’s been going on about an online news article she saw the other week. Apparently, the city looks set to heat up over the coming years, and the discomforts that go along with exposure to UV rays are going to be increasingly apparent in indoor environments. Of course, mum can’t stand the idea of her offspring being the least bit uncomfortable (let alone literally burning) so she she’s staunchly adopted the platform that window tinting for homes across Melbourne is a necessity.
From the sounds of her depth of being sold on this, I wouldn’t be surprised if she wanted to install full-on frosted glass window films in every opening of her new home. I’m going to try to talk her in the direction of a more transparent option that lets in lots of light. I just know that, left to her own devices, she’ll go for the darkest possible reflective tint and then regret it when she comes down with seasonal affective disorder. Having said that, if this stuff can keep in the heat in winter as well, maybe I’m down with her going hard on it.