Korean Energy Philosophy

My dad would FLIP if he saw how Koreans treat the concept of indoor heating. To sum it up: "Turn on the heaters, and leave the door open."

Right now I'm in one of the staff rooms at my school, and I just closed the single pane glass door to the outside for the third time. There are two things wrong with this. 1.) Leaving the door open lets the warm air out. 2.) Single pane glass doors aren't very energy efficient. Elementary stuff here. What's more, though, is that if you look closely you can see a half-centimeter gap between the door and the frame that runs the whole length of the door. That's about the same area as a 5-inch diameter hole in the wall.

Walk over to the reception counter, though, and you'll see three people sharing a space heater. There's already another space heater set up next to the computer I'm using, ready to start blowing hot air out that gap once the weather gets colder.

This really makes me wonder. I mean hey, isn't oil like, over $50 a barrel these days? Wouldn't it make sense to put some weather stripping around the place? Maybe even another door, like a storm door, on the outside to make an air pocket or something. I'm no civil engineer or "heating consultant" or anything, but wouldn't that make a lot of sense?

Then again, the Korean concept of what to do when it's cold is a little different. Last winter, I saw guys going around with no hat, no gloves, or anything. It'd be horrible, nasty cold out, and Korean guys would be walking around like "Hooo, looks like an early summer this year!"

I have to admit they are way more manly than I am in this respect.