If you’ve spent the last couple of years cooped up inside your home, hiding away from the virus, you’re not alone. It’s the story of millions of people across the world.
In that time, you’ve probably become better acquainted with your property than at any other time in the past. In fact, you might even have become best friends.
But our homes aren’t what they seem. Some of the stories that we tell ourselves about them aren’t true.
Fact 1: The Creaking Sounds In Your House Have Nothing To Do With Its Age
Many of us imagine that as houses get older, they become more creaky. Like human beings, they get stiff, and it starts to affect how they function.
But that’s not actually true. Creaking homes have more to do with temperature and humidity changes inside the house than anything to do with how long it has been standing. In the winter, cold temperatures cause the floor to contract, while in summer, they cause them to expand. What’s more, if your home is outside of the normal humidity range of 35 to 55 percent, it’s also much more likely to make a lot of noise.
Fact 2: Your Home’s Faucets Are Designed To Stop You From Getting Sick
If you thought that faucet design in your home was purely for show, then think again. It turns out that many of them are the shape they are to prevent you from getting sick.
Mixer taps are commonplace these days, but in the past it was a different story. Most homes had separate hot and cold water taps. Cold water was safe to drink because it came directly from municipal water suppliers. However, hot water came from the home’s water tank where it was exposed to detritus, rat droppings, bugs and other things that you don’t want in the water supply. In most homes, the hot water was solely for the purposes of washing, nothing else, to keep people safe. If you wanted to drink hot water, you were better off putting cold water in the kettle and heating it up.
Fact 3: Your Home Is Way Bigger Than It Would Have Been 40 Years Ago
The average size of properties has been increasing over the years. Back in 1973, the size of the average house was 30 percent smaller than it is today. Therefore, most people are living in bigger homes that cost them more to cool.
Fact 4: Your Double-Glazing Uses Rare Inert Gasses
If you think that there’s a vacuum between the inner and outer panes of glass on your double glazing, then think again. That’s not how it works. The reason for this is simple: if glass experiences negative pressure, it’ll crack.
The solution is to fill window panes with argon or krypton gasses. These are heavy gasses, so they provide insulation, but they also maintain pressure, so that windows don’t crack.
Renewal by Andersen windows have special technologies that allow windows to maintain their seal for longer. If double glazing loses the argon or krypton gas it contains, it ceases to function.
Fact 5: Rooftop Balconies Have A Sad Backstory
Rooftop balconies are extremely romantic and provide you with great views of the city. They were common in seaside towns, giving wives the ability to look out to sea and watch their husbands return to port in years gone by.
Unfortunately, many of these rooftop platforms, also called widow’s walks, were mired in tragedy. Many wives of sailors who believed that their husbands were lost at sea would pace up and down for weeks, waiting for their loved ones to return in vain.
Fact 6: Mismatched Kitchens May Actually be More Valuable
If you think that going all matchy-matchy on your interiors will make you more money when you come to sell your property, then think again. It turns out that the opposite might actually be true. Kitchens with mismatching cabinets and islands appear to command higher selling prices than those that are all the same color. Therefore, if you want to make a few extra bucks, it might actually be worth painting your island a different shade deliberately.
Fact 7: Where You Put Your Thermostat Has A Big Impact On Its Readings
Everyone talks about how much money you can save by lowering the temperature on your thermostat by one degree. But have you ever wondered what effect placement has on it?
Imagine the following situation: you place your thermostat next to the front door where people are coming in and out on a hot day. Naturally, whenever they enter your home, they’ll bring some hot air in with them and this will affect the reading on the thermostat. Instead of reading 25 C, it might say 30 C degrees instead, kicking the air conditioning into action.
Putting your thermostat in a hotter part of your home, therefore, runs the risk of raising your energy bills whereas putting it in a cooler place means you’re more likely to go hot. Because of this, you need to pick your spot carefully.
Fact 8: Your Textured Plaster Might Be Made Of Real Flowers
These days, vendors don’t make textured plaster out of real flowers, but in the past they did. In older homes, you can sometimes see evidence of flowers in the walls, particularly if any of the plasterwork is chipped or damaged. According to historical accounts, plasterers would actually press petals into the wall to get the desired effect.
Fact 9: Red Farmers’ Houses Come From Rural Poverty
The image of the red farmers’ house is celebrated in today’s culture, but it wasn’t always the case. In fact, the color red largely came out of necessity. Farmers couldn’t afford real paint, so they used a combination of lime, milk and iron oxide to protect their barns. It was only later that people began emulating them by using specially-made barn-red paint, also called “rust.”
So which of these facts surprised you? Are any of them true of your home?
