It has “secret room for plotting” all over it. And I covered all my windows with two layers of plastic sheeting. You can’t see in or out, adding another layer of “paranoid conspiracy theorist” chic to the decor.
And I forgot all about it. It only cost me the price of the double sided sticky tape, because I got the loft fluff from the government Warm Front scheme, and the plastic sheeting was a shameless blag. “oh, hello, lovely workmen, wanna cuppa? Are you using that plastic?” – outstanding. I’m sure if I’d spent thousands on retrofitting eco-measures, I’d have been more bothered, geeking-out about boiler efficiency and feeding back to the national grid. But I’m a big fan of bodge-it jobs, because failure hasn’t cost anything.
Imagine my amazement then when I had reason to fiddle about with my plastic sheet this evening. I have a bay window with upvc double glazing, installed by the previous residents as part of a council scheme to make my street look nice. I decided, in my strange zeal, to double-sheet this as if it’s one window, with one gigantic bit of plastic sheet. Excessive, right? Government-approved double glazing, doesn’t need any more, right?
Oh so very wrong.
I had to have a tweak tonight. It’s 0 degrees outside right now. it’s a nice comfy 19 degrees in my lounge. Behind the plastic sheet it’s 10. And you can feel the breeze squeezing through the gaps.
See there’s a difference. I can do something on the cheap and still make it count. I spent next to nothing on my insulation, but I put my heart into it, and used my head. The double glazing windows the council paid for are cheap, and installed cheaply. They’re neither use nor ornament, because they’re the end result of a process that was all about profit margins and cutting costs.
There’s something really empowering about being able to do great things with virtually nothing. Obviously, we need money for some things. But knowing that I have the resources that matter already, that’s cool. Big companies do huge things, and make profits by spending as little as possible, but few of them do it with heart. Passion is worth more than profits.