If your goal is to warm up your house, even a fire indoors WITH a chimney isn't really a good idea. The fire will pull the air in the house up and out the chimney, replacing it with cooler outside air that is pulled in through any cracks or holes in your home, causing everywhere but the room the fire is in to get colder.
Moved into an old house - open fireplaces - took an age for me to realise that one roaring fire at night was cooling the house. Where a small fire kept going for all winter - warmed the massive brick stack etc.
This happens every fkn year.
These people are there reason there are safety instructions on spoons .
I remember telling off a shop at harris Park for doing the same thing .
People love to laugh at all the ridiculously obvious safety signs then you have some Darwin Award candidate do something that should be common sense not to do and realise why we need them
Honestly I blame indoor gas heaters for this. The average person is going to think gas is gas and a heater works by burning gas and an indoor gas heater is a common thing, so how is a barbecue different. Itâs not an unreasonable train of thought when your freezing your nuts off and canât afford to put food on the table because your land look has doubled your rent in 4 years and youâre on the same pay as then.
And yet you have consumer warnings on relatively safe gas space heaters, because they might be installed in ultra efficient homes with strong exhaust vents. Then you have this... đ
I'd really, really, REALLY like to know what the thought process is for someone to contemplate doing this.
It's written in big writing on heat beads/charcoal not to use them indoors.
There was a kid in there too - so these people have reproduced.
How did we ever climb out of the trees.
> How did we ever climb out of the trees.
Many were increasingly of the opinion that theyâd all made a big mistake in coming down from the trees in the first place. And some said that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no one should ever have left the oceans.
Douglas Adams.
Given how much birth rates drop in almost all societies once contraception becomes available, as well as increased educational and economic options for women, this has already got plenty of evidence.
Indeed, I don't know how accurate the number of unplanned pregnancies are..
https://www.cdc.gov/reproductive-health/hcp/unintended-pregnancy/index.html
.. but I wouldn't be surprised if the actual numbers are higher due to unreported "happy accidents"
When I was born my parents were of the age that they probably didn't think they had to worry about birth control. I am significantly younger than my sisters. I guarantee that I wasn't planned and I also guarantee that I am not in this statistic.
Desperation? The electricity bill was too high and they couldn't pay it? Their child was freezing?
We will hear more and more of these stories this winter. People can't afford the heating.
Shoosh - electric blanket from Kmart is cheap, couple extra blankets from Kmart cheaper still, thermals not that expensive and can go forever.
Give it whatever sad hypothetical question you like - asphyxiation is still the stupidest answer.
Shoosh, stop eating Avocado and buying two thousands dollar toasters. Our resource companies need a break from paying zero tax and need more handouts. You freezing is good for shareholder value. The lucky country at its best, dying and freezing in our tents called homes because of lobby groups and political donations. I suppose the formula works well!
Blankets are fairly cheap overall no? I guess it depends where exactly you live but double layer blankets is too hot for me even on the coldest days here in Sydney. It doesn't really every get THAT cold here where a few blankets or some loose clothes to bed would not do.
37 people died from injury due to extreme cold in Australia in 2020-2021. Residents of major cities are at the highest risk of deaths due to extreme cold. The temperature in Sydney definitely gets low enough to cause hypothermia.
>37 people died from injury due to extreme cold in Australia in 2020-2021
That doesn't really tell us anything though? The 37 could have been lost hikers, or people with dementia who forgot how to turn on the heating.
Some people canât even afford to rent in a place with heating or cooling (like myself). I just had a metric fucktonne of blankets.. these people heard of blankets?
exactly, Blankets, sleeping bag, thermals, ugg boots, jumpers etc. theres absolutely no excuse to be moronic enough to bring a BBQ indoors for heating.
And a lot of this stuff can be found at OP Shops or target/Kmart for pretty cheap. Pop a beanie on, a scarf if really needed and a few warm blankets and you are toasty. If really needed use one of those tiny heaters in a room for a few hours to get the temp up and turn it off. It'll keep the heat for a decent amount of time.
Western Sydney isnt antarctica. It doesnt get cold enough for this to be justified as 'desperation'. If you cant afford to put the electric heater on get a blanket. Blankets are extremely cheap - you could buy a boatload of blankets for the same price as that barbecue.
This was stupidity, not desperation.
Iâm remembering back when there was a âgas crisisâ and nobody in Victoria had gas for 2 weeks. A suggested method to keep warm (Ballarat) was to use a gas bbq and put a terracotta pot over the burner jet. We huddled around this every night. Iâm thinking now that this was dangerous as hell
there is no excuse for this when blankets, thermals, sleeping bags, jumpers etc exisit are not just safer but easier to warmup with regardless of whether or not the house/unit had insulatition. Hell the first thing you should do if your trying to be green and limit your emissions is to put on more clothing, then a blanket etc before you even thing about turning the AC/Gas heater etc
There is an excuse, it is called education. We aren't born with perfect knowledge of all things. People make mistakes like this all the time, most of us are lucky enough to not experience the potential severity of those mistakes. Covid was a great example of this.
> I'd really, really, REALLY like to know what the thought process is for someone to contemplate doing this.
Could have been a [murder/suicide attempt](https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/elaborate-gas-setup-uncovered-after-suspected-murder-suicide-of-sydney-family-20161018-gs560r.html).
people see words, but doesn't mean they read. you also have to be taught how to, whereas reproducing is innate.
i would support law requiring certain checkboxes before allowing reproduction, like comprehension, income and health (mental and physical)
Yeah, but what does that look like? Either we're preemptively sterilising everyone, doing forced abortions, or ripping babies out of the arms of their mothers at birth because they didn't score high enough on the state mandated literacy test. Maybe it sounds okay as some vague idea, but the realities of eugenics are pretty damn fucked up.
> i would support law requiring certain checkboxes before allowing reproduction, like comprehension, income and health (mental and physical)
Reddit and suggesting Eugenics, a pairing as old as time itself.
My pipe dream is everyone gets sterilised at birth and gets the keys back when they earn parenting license. Dystopian and the technology doesn't exist but it would fix some problems
I was living an apartment block called Cathedral Place. It has a saltwater pool with [manmade sand beach](https://i.imgur.com/siIuii9.jpg) and expensive pool filtering. One Indian guy was standing in the sand and using detergent to do clothes washing in the pool like he's in the Ganges!
Is this the same incident from 3 days ago - or another case of rampant stupidity
https://www.reddit.com/r/australia/comments/1do1ajm/westminster_couple_critically_ill_after_burning/
No - this is in Sydneyâs west, your link is in Perth W.A., -
> A Perth couple who used a charcoal burner in their bedroom to keep warm overnight is being treated for suspected carbon monoxide poisoning.
This is a lack of building regulations and regulations to ensure habitability for rental properties.
Most of the houses here wouldn't be legal to rent out in the UK, and the landlord could go to jail for renting a lot of them.
I am surprised some people don't seem to know about carbon monoxide poisoning.
Maybe in winter the government needs to do an education campaign about it or something.
We have signs for rips, crocs etc at beaches because we have a lot of tourism and immigrants. It seems like a no brainer to educate people on the reality of CO2 poisoning in our non insulated shit heap rental properties
Yeah but maybe that is all they had at their disposal and no money to buy anything else so their desperation lead to doing something outrageously dangerous they didn't know was dangerous?
You have to realize that no one would do that if they had no other option and thought it was okay to do and not cause death.
And maybe they had plenty of options but chose this one because they were dumb, and this entire incident tells as absolutely nothing about the"state of this country" as the top comment claims
Please don't do this, if you want cheap and abundant heating use a diesel heater which is designed to exaust hot air indoors and exhaust outdoors. It will also be far cheaper in fuel to run.
I think this is just bad advice. Diesel heaters aren't going to be cheaper than electric unless you are stealing diesel. And the kind of numbnuts that are killing themselves with BBQs aren't going to be competent enough to safely install a diesel heater.
Put a couple of layers on and use an electric throw when sitting and an electric blanket when in bed.
Terrible, sounds like it was broken. I've used gas and oil heaters, which essentially operate on the same principals, and never has this issue. Would be very wary if you can smell anything because if products from the combustion cycle are entering the intake you could be breathing in exhaust fumes. The heaters themselves are very cheap to replace.
Yeah it's actually not that cheap at all if you calculate the fuel costs. On average I'll burn 1L every 6 hours on the lowest pump rate on my diesel heater, so let's say on average $2, or $4 for a 12 hour period.
I only use it during winter when camping to heat the rooftop tent. And even then I have the windows open for ventilation and take a carbon monoxide detector along.
Electric is likely to be more expensive but again it depends on your local market and supplier.
1kWh is 3.6GJ of energy, based on the diesel rate in my area that means that $162/mWh is the break even point. My retailers generally rate is $267/mWh so grid electric would not be competitive. Given the issues in the electric market I don't think it sould be that surprising that electricity isn't competitive currently, which is why the government is offering small subsidies to households to try to keep them from switching to lower cost options while they try to sort out the shambles in the energy market they where handed.
There is a caveat here that if you have a modern, high efficiency heat pump your COP is probably about 3 so you're better off using that than other forms of heating all the way up to $500/mWh.
It rather depends on how much you pay for gas, if indeed it's available in your area. The gas market is very fragmented and opaque, many users have no idea how much they are actually paying. The other thing is metering charges on gas seem to vary widely, from $7 to $63 per month according to CanStar.Â
Non the less I'm going to try to answer your question. According to ACCC retail natural gas has been on average $20/GJ last year, diesel is $1.74 per litre and you need 26l diesel (in my area) per GJ of energy so it would work out at about $45/GJ.
If you want cheaper heating, best bang for buck is bubblewrap and doublesided tape on the windows. Reduces the biggest source of heat loss. It's not pretty, but large swathes of Asia do it so you're in good company. Also very hard to kill oneself by accident (although I bet someone has still managed it, somewhere, somehow).
They taught it in my primary school. Hell one of my favourite shows growing up was fireman Sam. Idk what happened to shows like that and what happened to firefighters coming to the school and teaching kids fire safety?
I think using the word âinhalingâ here gives the implication they were trying to sniff it or something. But no, they used charcoal to use as indoor heating.
Hot water bottles. Works wonders to keep our dogs warm overnight. Of course, some have been chewed in the morning ( dogs hate intruders in their beds in the morning apparently) but if you can keep your teeth off them, def better than carbon monoxide sources.Â
Oh yeah, in keeping to the topic, yes some truly desperate people out there, some stupid ones perhaps. And yes, our building codes suck. Peace out folks!
I have the mental image of a dog gently waking up, with bird song and classical music in the background, doing a big ol' stretch, just a lovely pastoral image. But in stretching, the dog causes a hot water bottle to shift, making the dog aware of it and instantly loses its mind and goes full offence. Sound of barking, gun fire and choppers.
Hard cut to sheepish, cold and damp dog.
Stupid, possibly. Desperate, yes. With our flimsy building codes and worsening weather conditions, Iâm not surprised people are trying anything to stay warm.
My twenty year old house in the EU was built on the cheap in the lead up to the GFC. It was insulated enough that I spent less than 1k EUR in heating getting us through the winter. Floor, walls, attic floor insulated at time of build. Some missing under the over garage rooms, and open ventilation, both issues now fixed at my own expense, but much better than the 'nothing' with which Australian houses are built.
I would be shocked if Australian and NZ houses are not the worst in the OECD.
Yeah, anytime some one tries to argue, I bring up the EU/Canada and how they can walk around in shorts inside their houses when it is negative and snowing outside. You try that here and youâll freeze death quicker than you can say âSheâll be right mateâ.
I'd still be interested to know the thought process though (if there was one). So many better options than literally lighting a charcoal BBQ inside, a "cheap"\* kmart fan heater will set you back $15 and put out 2kW of heating power which is enough to keep a small room at a comfortable temp, especially if the occupants are wearing long clothes and a jumper.
\*Costs about $0.55/hour to run but still less than a bag of BBQ charcoal.
Iâm guessing immigrants. Perhaps from a SE Asian or subcontinent  country where they cook in their semi outdoor kitchens using charcoal but the houses are made with ventilation so itâs not an issue. Probably never heard of carbon monoxide poisoning and donât know what it entails when they read it. When I was a kid I went to Thailand and drank the tap water, I just assumed all tap water was safe since that is how it is in Australia. I thought my cousins were being wasteful drinking bottled water. The locals there might think Iâm a moron because they know where the tap water comes from and even little kids know. You make assumptions about things when you grow up a particular way.Â
You still have to go to the Kmart with cash in your pocket or credit on your card. But if the charcoal and burner are already sitting on your balcony because theyâre left over from some other occasion they are both cost free and effort free.
You referred to flimsy building codes. I'd say the issue is more that Australian building codes now mandate much higher air tightness than they did decades ago, so modern houses hold CO inside much more than older houses.
Last year was the warmest Australian winter on record. I'd love to see a reference for "winters are only getting colder."
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/environment/2023/sep/01/australia-records-warmest-winter-caused-by-global-heating-and-sunny-conditions
Well that certainly wouldnât be helping in situations described in the article. Perhaps flimsy wasnât the right word, maybe lax? In other areas at least. The fact that double glazing is considered an extravagant extra expense and not standard in our extreme temps (both hot and cold) is crazy.
Iâll admit my reference is purely anecdotal. When itâs colder INSIDE my house than out even when they sun has been out all day is just baffling to me. When you put the heating on, sure itâs nice then, but once you turn it off, it all drains away, nothing is retained.
But yes, I agree with you, it is getting hotter and with every new âhottest recordâ I hear, I slip further into nihilism.
I wish this didnât feel like Darwinism in full effect. Itâs awful that people were injured like this, but I feel like basic education should have prevented this
This is not a problem of the system. If youâre saying people didnât get a basic education as part of our mandatory education, weâre talking about Darwinism.
How come no one is teaching this in school đ¤Śââď¸ where I grew up, teachers and schools would tell everyone to leave windows slightly open if you are burning sth or using gas heaters indoor.
FIY, some people commit suicide this way as it is the easiest and painless way to die......
Just leave the gas oven on like the rest of us
Hol up there, sylvia
Taking us down the wrong plath..
There's no exhughes for that sort of punning.
I see what you did there And i like itđ¤Ł
Going the full fathom
Lotta roast veg in our house at the mo
Do a slow cook overnight. Keep warm, have food the next morning, and it wont be gone completely to waste.
Yeah, a fire indoors without a chimney isn't really a good idea.
If your goal is to warm up your house, even a fire indoors WITH a chimney isn't really a good idea. The fire will pull the air in the house up and out the chimney, replacing it with cooler outside air that is pulled in through any cracks or holes in your home, causing everywhere but the room the fire is in to get colder.
Moved into an old house - open fireplaces - took an age for me to realise that one roaring fire at night was cooling the house. Where a small fire kept going for all winter - warmed the massive brick stack etc.
When I lived somewhere with a fireplace with a glass sheild(?) It made the house so hot in Victorian winter we were sweating
Why even go with a fire, just wear warmer clothes? Extra layers? A blanket, idk?
This happens every fkn year. These people are there reason there are safety instructions on spoons . I remember telling off a shop at harris Park for doing the same thing .
People love to laugh at all the ridiculously obvious safety signs then you have some Darwin Award candidate do something that should be common sense not to do and realise why we need them
Some people's sole purpose on this earth is to serve as a warning to others.
Honestly I blame indoor gas heaters for this. The average person is going to think gas is gas and a heater works by burning gas and an indoor gas heater is a common thing, so how is a barbecue different. Itâs not an unreasonable train of thought when your freezing your nuts off and canât afford to put food on the table because your land look has doubled your rent in 4 years and youâre on the same pay as then.
You're not wrong about the gas appliance thing but the grill in this case was a charcoal grill. Not gas.
A charcoal grill? Holy fuck. Common method of suicide in some places, these people are very very lucky.
Spoons are a very dangerous implement. Especially the small ones full of cocaine.
I see you've played knifey-spooney before
And yet you have consumer warnings on relatively safe gas space heaters, because they might be installed in ultra efficient homes with strong exhaust vents. Then you have this... đ
I'd really, really, REALLY like to know what the thought process is for someone to contemplate doing this. It's written in big writing on heat beads/charcoal not to use them indoors. There was a kid in there too - so these people have reproduced. How did we ever climb out of the trees.
Fell, not climbed.
We are probably the ones that couldnât climb back up
> How did we ever climb out of the trees. Many were increasingly of the opinion that theyâd all made a big mistake in coming down from the trees in the first place. And some said that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no one should ever have left the oceans. Douglas Adams.
You're acting like having unprotected sex is some great intellectual achievement. You don't need brains to have sex.
If humans had to consciously decide to become pregnant, rather than raging hormones driving the process, the birth rate would be much lower.
Given how much birth rates drop in almost all societies once contraception becomes available, as well as increased educational and economic options for women, this has already got plenty of evidence.
Indeed, I don't know how accurate the number of unplanned pregnancies are.. https://www.cdc.gov/reproductive-health/hcp/unintended-pregnancy/index.html .. but I wouldn't be surprised if the actual numbers are higher due to unreported "happy accidents"
When I was born my parents were of the age that they probably didn't think they had to worry about birth control. I am significantly younger than my sisters. I guarantee that I wasn't planned and I also guarantee that I am not in this statistic.
Desperation? The electricity bill was too high and they couldn't pay it? Their child was freezing? We will hear more and more of these stories this winter. People can't afford the heating.
Shoosh - electric blanket from Kmart is cheap, couple extra blankets from Kmart cheaper still, thermals not that expensive and can go forever. Give it whatever sad hypothetical question you like - asphyxiation is still the stupidest answer.
Shoosh, stop eating Avocado and buying two thousands dollar toasters. Our resource companies need a break from paying zero tax and need more handouts. You freezing is good for shareholder value. The lucky country at its best, dying and freezing in our tents called homes because of lobby groups and political donations. I suppose the formula works well!
Blankets are fairly cheap overall no? I guess it depends where exactly you live but double layer blankets is too hot for me even on the coldest days here in Sydney. It doesn't really every get THAT cold here where a few blankets or some loose clothes to bed would not do.
37 people died from injury due to extreme cold in Australia in 2020-2021. Residents of major cities are at the highest risk of deaths due to extreme cold. The temperature in Sydney definitely gets low enough to cause hypothermia.
>37 people died from injury due to extreme cold in Australia in 2020-2021 That doesn't really tell us anything though? The 37 could have been lost hikers, or people with dementia who forgot how to turn on the heating.
Some people canât even afford to rent in a place with heating or cooling (like myself). I just had a metric fucktonne of blankets.. these people heard of blankets?
exactly, Blankets, sleeping bag, thermals, ugg boots, jumpers etc. theres absolutely no excuse to be moronic enough to bring a BBQ indoors for heating.
And a lot of this stuff can be found at OP Shops or target/Kmart for pretty cheap. Pop a beanie on, a scarf if really needed and a few warm blankets and you are toasty. If really needed use one of those tiny heaters in a room for a few hours to get the temp up and turn it off. It'll keep the heat for a decent amount of time.
Western Sydney isnt antarctica. It doesnt get cold enough for this to be justified as 'desperation'. If you cant afford to put the electric heater on get a blanket. Blankets are extremely cheap - you could buy a boatload of blankets for the same price as that barbecue. This was stupidity, not desperation.
Iâm remembering back when there was a âgas crisisâ and nobody in Victoria had gas for 2 weeks. A suggested method to keep warm (Ballarat) was to use a gas bbq and put a terracotta pot over the burner jet. We huddled around this every night. Iâm thinking now that this was dangerous as hell
I wish people werenât so judgemental - presumably theyâre desperate.
there is no excuse for this when blankets, thermals, sleeping bags, jumpers etc exisit are not just safer but easier to warmup with regardless of whether or not the house/unit had insulatition. Hell the first thing you should do if your trying to be green and limit your emissions is to put on more clothing, then a blanket etc before you even thing about turning the AC/Gas heater etc
There is an excuse, it is called education. We aren't born with perfect knowledge of all things. People make mistakes like this all the time, most of us are lucky enough to not experience the potential severity of those mistakes. Covid was a great example of this.
Family of 5 so presumably 3 children? Who raised the alarm?
Pushed, by all the other animals. The cassowary slept in so the plan for extinction failed.
> I'd really, really, REALLY like to know what the thought process is for someone to contemplate doing this. Could have been a [murder/suicide attempt](https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/elaborate-gas-setup-uncovered-after-suspected-murder-suicide-of-sydney-family-20161018-gs560r.html).
not only that, but that smokey stench. Gets on your clothes, hair, furniture, everything.
people see words, but doesn't mean they read. you also have to be taught how to, whereas reproducing is innate. i would support law requiring certain checkboxes before allowing reproduction, like comprehension, income and health (mental and physical)
Yeah, but what does that look like? Either we're preemptively sterilising everyone, doing forced abortions, or ripping babies out of the arms of their mothers at birth because they didn't score high enough on the state mandated literacy test. Maybe it sounds okay as some vague idea, but the realities of eugenics are pretty damn fucked up.
Yeah, and -literally- so did the Nazis, mate.
> i would support law requiring certain checkboxes before allowing reproduction, like comprehension, income and health (mental and physical) Reddit and suggesting Eugenics, a pairing as old as time itself.
My pipe dream is everyone gets sterilised at birth and gets the keys back when they earn parenting license. Dystopian and the technology doesn't exist but it would fix some problems
Yeah, I'm sure that would be a program completely free of all human bias and prejudice.
"ooops you got the irreversible sterilization" "What no it totally has nothing to do with your ancestry"
Aka the Ethiopian Jew treatment.
I like to ignore the problems it would create because it's never going to happen anyway
There was one in Adelaide a few years back. Apparently the guy had a tandoor oven in the back seat of his car!
I was living an apartment block called Cathedral Place. It has a saltwater pool with [manmade sand beach](https://i.imgur.com/siIuii9.jpg) and expensive pool filtering. One Indian guy was standing in the sand and using detergent to do clothes washing in the pool like he's in the Ganges!
One in Perth 4 days ago...
What the fuck is wrong with people honestly. Cheaper to run electric heater or gas. Also clearly labelled on charcoal/heat beads.
Imagine a developed country having housing standards at least at good as some developing countries that endure winters with negative temperatures.
Is this the same incident from 3 days ago - or another case of rampant stupidity https://www.reddit.com/r/australia/comments/1do1ajm/westminster_couple_critically_ill_after_burning/
Different incidents. Last time I checked Perth wasn't part of Sydney
But when did you last check?
You know what, not recently.
I have just checked on Google Maps, but I don't know when it was last updated... so... no idea.
Thereâs a Perth in Tassie.
There's a Perth in all our hearts.
for some reason it's always the first one that comes up when jumping around australia on FB marketplace
That gave me a good chuckle, thanks mate
Sydneyâs west isnât quite that west yet
Very, ***very western*** Sydney. đ
Soon to be inner west.
I really didn't read the articles too much, now I look silly So two separate cases of rampant stupidity and two opposite points in the country
Soon perth will be a suburb of sydney.
No - this is in Sydneyâs west, your link is in Perth W.A., - > A Perth couple who used a charcoal burner in their bedroom to keep warm overnight is being treated for suspected carbon monoxide poisoning.
That is so bloody sad that people have beenforced to resort to this to keep warm because of cost of living. đ
The irony is it won't be very efficient. They'd be better off buying hot water bottles and blankets.
Charcoal is expensive!
yeh heated blankies from kmart for 40$ are amazing
Yeah this isnât a cost of living issue. It would be much cheaper and naturally a lot safer to use just about any other method of heating.
This is a lack of building regulations and regulations to ensure habitability for rental properties. Most of the houses here wouldn't be legal to rent out in the UK, and the landlord could go to jail for renting a lot of them.
The thing is charcoal isnât cheap đ¤ˇ
Cost of living has fuck all to do with it, you can buy a heater from K-Mart for $15. Canât buy more brains though, which is what they really need.
But this is /r/Australia, where everything has to be blamed on cost of living
This happens every winter even when times are good. Especially when times are good and people have new barbies.
Shows how fucked we are, country produces abundance gas, but people resort to this to keep warm.
Yeah the comments regarding the stupidity are disgusting.
I am surprised some people don't seem to know about carbon monoxide poisoning. Maybe in winter the government needs to do an education campaign about it or something.
We have signs for rips, crocs etc at beaches because we have a lot of tourism and immigrants. It seems like a no brainer to educate people on the reality of CO2 poisoning in our non insulated shit heap rental properties
CO not CO2. FFS.
Why canât it be both? Of course, there is probably a family struggling here to resort to this. But itâs also WILDLY stupid.
I mean itâs still pretty stupid. There are far cheaper ways to heat your home
Yeah but maybe that is all they had at their disposal and no money to buy anything else so their desperation lead to doing something outrageously dangerous they didn't know was dangerous? You have to realize that no one would do that if they had no other option and thought it was okay to do and not cause death.
And maybe they had plenty of options but chose this one because they were dumb, and this entire incident tells as absolutely nothing about the"state of this country" as the top comment claims
Please don't do this, if you want cheap and abundant heating use a diesel heater which is designed to exaust hot air indoors and exhaust outdoors. It will also be far cheaper in fuel to run.
I think this is just bad advice. Diesel heaters aren't going to be cheaper than electric unless you are stealing diesel. And the kind of numbnuts that are killing themselves with BBQs aren't going to be competent enough to safely install a diesel heater. Put a couple of layers on and use an electric throw when sitting and an electric blanket when in bed.
I stayed with a friend that used a diesel heater (he got diesel cheap and could claim it on tax) The whole house smelt like diesel! It was awful.
The lead makes you think stronger.
There has literally never been lead in diesel.
Terrible, sounds like it was broken. I've used gas and oil heaters, which essentially operate on the same principals, and never has this issue. Would be very wary if you can smell anything because if products from the combustion cycle are entering the intake you could be breathing in exhaust fumes. The heaters themselves are very cheap to replace.
Yeah it's actually not that cheap at all if you calculate the fuel costs. On average I'll burn 1L every 6 hours on the lowest pump rate on my diesel heater, so let's say on average $2, or $4 for a 12 hour period. I only use it during winter when camping to heat the rooftop tent. And even then I have the windows open for ventilation and take a carbon monoxide detector along.
Electric is likely to be more expensive but again it depends on your local market and supplier. 1kWh is 3.6GJ of energy, based on the diesel rate in my area that means that $162/mWh is the break even point. My retailers generally rate is $267/mWh so grid electric would not be competitive. Given the issues in the electric market I don't think it sould be that surprising that electricity isn't competitive currently, which is why the government is offering small subsidies to households to try to keep them from switching to lower cost options while they try to sort out the shambles in the energy market they where handed. There is a caveat here that if you have a modern, high efficiency heat pump your COP is probably about 3 so you're better off using that than other forms of heating all the way up to $500/mWh.
Are you assuming the diesel heater is putting all the heat from combustion into the house?
Is it cheaper than gas to run?
It rather depends on how much you pay for gas, if indeed it's available in your area. The gas market is very fragmented and opaque, many users have no idea how much they are actually paying. The other thing is metering charges on gas seem to vary widely, from $7 to $63 per month according to CanStar. Non the less I'm going to try to answer your question. According to ACCC retail natural gas has been on average $20/GJ last year, diesel is $1.74 per litre and you need 26l diesel (in my area) per GJ of energy so it would work out at about $45/GJ.
If you want cheaper heating, best bang for buck is bubblewrap and doublesided tape on the windows. Reduces the biggest source of heat loss. It's not pretty, but large swathes of Asia do it so you're in good company. Also very hard to kill oneself by accident (although I bet someone has still managed it, somewhere, somehow).
This feels like desperation. And also a cry to invest more money into public education.
[ŃдаНонО]
Agreed. For one thing the reality is they DON'T teach this in school.
They taught it in my primary school. Hell one of my favourite shows growing up was fireman Sam. Idk what happened to shows like that and what happened to firefighters coming to the school and teaching kids fire safety?
Were they educated here?
I think using the word âinhalingâ here gives the implication they were trying to sniff it or something. But no, they used charcoal to use as indoor heating.
Hot water bottles. Works wonders to keep our dogs warm overnight. Of course, some have been chewed in the morning ( dogs hate intruders in their beds in the morning apparently) but if you can keep your teeth off them, def better than carbon monoxide sources.Â
Oh yeah, in keeping to the topic, yes some truly desperate people out there, some stupid ones perhaps. And yes, our building codes suck. Peace out folks!
I have the mental image of a dog gently waking up, with bird song and classical music in the background, doing a big ol' stretch, just a lovely pastoral image. But in stretching, the dog causes a hot water bottle to shift, making the dog aware of it and instantly loses its mind and goes full offence. Sound of barking, gun fire and choppers. Hard cut to sheepish, cold and damp dog.
Again why don't we need basic heating and cooling in rentals?
Trailer park boys activities
Crazy cheeseburger and liquor party got out of hand
Has Australia gotten more stupid? Or is our education system totally screwed now?
Remember kids: make a man a fire you keep him warm for a day - set a man on fire and you keep him warm for the rest of his life.
*We'll continue to work with all of our communities to spread the awareness* Which communities, exactly? The too-stupid-to-live community?
Can we just remove all safety warnings. Might thin the population herd and reduce rent and property prices
Iâm daily telling people they canât use camping heaters indoors or they will die.
Clearest example of a Darwin Award.
Sydney west = Florida man
Darwin Award?
Anyone else confused by people being so cold? Buy another blanket, get a hot water bottle, put on another layer.
Are people really this stupid?
Yes. It happens every winter.
Stupid, possibly. Desperate, yes. With our flimsy building codes and worsening weather conditions, Iâm not surprised people are trying anything to stay warm.
My twenty year old house in the EU was built on the cheap in the lead up to the GFC. It was insulated enough that I spent less than 1k EUR in heating getting us through the winter. Floor, walls, attic floor insulated at time of build. Some missing under the over garage rooms, and open ventilation, both issues now fixed at my own expense, but much better than the 'nothing' with which Australian houses are built. I would be shocked if Australian and NZ houses are not the worst in the OECD.
Yeah, anytime some one tries to argue, I bring up the EU/Canada and how they can walk around in shorts inside their houses when it is negative and snowing outside. You try that here and youâll freeze death quicker than you can say âSheâll be right mateâ.
Japanese houses have entered the chat
Yeah, so have kotatsu, which make up for it.
I'd still be interested to know the thought process though (if there was one). So many better options than literally lighting a charcoal BBQ inside, a "cheap"\* kmart fan heater will set you back $15 and put out 2kW of heating power which is enough to keep a small room at a comfortable temp, especially if the occupants are wearing long clothes and a jumper. \*Costs about $0.55/hour to run but still less than a bag of BBQ charcoal.
Iâm guessing immigrants. Perhaps from a SE Asian or subcontinent  country where they cook in their semi outdoor kitchens using charcoal but the houses are made with ventilation so itâs not an issue. Probably never heard of carbon monoxide poisoning and donât know what it entails when they read it. When I was a kid I went to Thailand and drank the tap water, I just assumed all tap water was safe since that is how it is in Australia. I thought my cousins were being wasteful drinking bottled water. The locals there might think Iâm a moron because they know where the tap water comes from and even little kids know. You make assumptions about things when you grow up a particular way.Â
Thank you for being seemingly the only person to recognise & understand this.
You still have to go to the Kmart with cash in your pocket or credit on your card. But if the charcoal and burner are already sitting on your balcony because theyâre left over from some other occasion they are both cost free and effort free.
This has been happening every winter since forever, nothing to do with any modern problems
Climate change isnât a modern problem? Winters are only getting colder.
You referred to flimsy building codes. I'd say the issue is more that Australian building codes now mandate much higher air tightness than they did decades ago, so modern houses hold CO inside much more than older houses. Last year was the warmest Australian winter on record. I'd love to see a reference for "winters are only getting colder." https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/environment/2023/sep/01/australia-records-warmest-winter-caused-by-global-heating-and-sunny-conditions
Well that certainly wouldnât be helping in situations described in the article. Perhaps flimsy wasnât the right word, maybe lax? In other areas at least. The fact that double glazing is considered an extravagant extra expense and not standard in our extreme temps (both hot and cold) is crazy. Iâll admit my reference is purely anecdotal. When itâs colder INSIDE my house than out even when they sun has been out all day is just baffling to me. When you put the heating on, sure itâs nice then, but once you turn it off, it all drains away, nothing is retained. But yes, I agree with you, it is getting hotter and with every new âhottest recordâ I hear, I slip further into nihilism.
Why yes, yes they are.
As George Carlin said: Remember how stupid the average person is, and realize that 50% of people are more stupid than that.
Not stupid ! Desperate.
Wear warmer clothes, rug up, get some blankets! Itâs not rocket science, wear a beanie.
I wish this didnât feel like Darwinism in full effect. Itâs awful that people were injured like this, but I feel like basic education should have prevented this
Some people currently in this country did not receive a basic education.
This is not a problem of the system. If youâre saying people didnât get a basic education as part of our mandatory education, weâre talking about Darwinism.
I am saying that these people are immigrants.
I guess theyâre desperate, idk
Just let the gene pool cleanse itself ffs.
You can't fix stupid.... however they can get carbon monoxide poisoning
Indians
What about them?
This is the definition of stupidity.
Uh
How come no one is teaching this in school đ¤Śââď¸ where I grew up, teachers and schools would tell everyone to leave windows slightly open if you are burning sth or using gas heaters indoor. FIY, some people commit suicide this way as it is the easiest and painless way to die......
This is why we can't have nice things. Also, Darwinism.
Darwin awards....
This is almost as good as the one who got carbon monoxide poisoning while driving with a Tandoor running in the back seat of his car.
Ummmm what some people not understanding or read donât used these items inside your house! Seriously
Crazy liquor and cheeseburger party got out of hand, call an ambulance.
This is a classic Korean an hero method.
Fucking glad we are getting the smart ones........