As winter approaches, families in our area will heat their homes in a variety of ways – using oil heaters, propane, stoves that burn coal, wood and peat turf, and of course electricity. We will heat our rooms, our water tanks and our food, and the price of this heating seems to rise every year.
We need to think seriously about how we heat our homes, for a few reasons. First, the cost of heating and electricity seems to rise every year, even as we expect to face both more and more severe economic troubles. Second, many of our heating systems rely on fossil fuels, either directly – say, by burning oil in a home tank – or indirectly, by burning fossil fuels to generate electricity. Fossil fuels like oil have gone up and down in price in recent years, but will generally become more precious in the years ahead – and they worsen climate change. We should try to wean ourselves off them as much as we can.
One of the easiest ways to save on one’s energy bill and carbon emissions is to simply turn the thermostat down and use less. I am not a model citizen in this area – I moved to Ireland from land with hotter and drier summers, and am less tolerant of the Irish climate than natives are. I get my own back in the summer, when I happily bask in the lukewarmth and those around me are panting and sweating. Either way, though, it teaches us that we are adaptable --- there are people who live in 50-degree deserts and polar icecaps, and we are perfectly capable of surviving a slightly cooler home.
You can, of course, buy long thermal underwear, thermal socks and multiple layers. You can, of course, keep the heat off when you are not at home, and you can heat only the room you will occupy in the evenings. We also generate our own heat, so families keep warmer when they spend the evenings playing games than when they each stare at their own computers in separate rooms. We can also use hot water to warm us in various ways – holding hot water bottles, sipping hot tea or soup and keeping our feet in baths of hot water in the evenings.
Another simple way of coping with the winter chill is to use passive heating. This can take the form of a south-facing conservatory, or a polytunnel for your garden. Consider putting a polytunnel right up to your back door, to have an inexpensive place to sit outside and keep plants all winter. Consider whether it is feasible to put a half-conservatory on the south side of your home, creating a garden patio and slowing the loss of warm air.
Wood-burning stoves might not seem like the greenest solution, but they can work well if you have a good supply of fast-growing wood. We have dozens of willow trees which we pollard, resulting in piles of firewood that renew annually, along with many fast-growing pine trees. As long as you grow back as much wood as you are using, you are not damaging the environment or the climate.
It’s hard to get too much home insulation, and most of us don’t have enough. If you want to add more insulation yourself, consider using fleece – farmers might have some left over, and a fleece will trap heat without introducing toxic chemicals into the home – and it does not catch fire. Whether you use fleece or the more conventional insulation, however, it will probably help you save that much extra at a time when we all need it.
Photo: me and Girl in Minnesota.
