Gathering winter fuel (in August)

Last week's blog considered at the how an Edwardian household might have considered energy management, although they would not have used those words, to them it was just housekeeping.  As the twentieth century progressed, housekeeping, for many became less arduous as electric lamps replaced gas mantles and vacuum cleaners sucked filth from carpets which had previously had to be beaten out using things that looked an wickerwork oar.  In the 1970s natural gas displaced coal and probably reduced the frequency of use of vacuum cleaners as gas is a much cleaner fuel than coal.  In our family, the women celebrated the arrival of electricity and none shed a tear for the passing of coal.  Whilst these advances improved many lives, it seems churlish to suggest that the downside was a break with the seasons, today, the seasons are just marked by a bigger gas bill in January.

This picture shows the extensive research that goes into this blog, these bits of insulation blew into my garden during the winter storms.

Managing seasonality is one of the big challenges of a sustainable energy economy.  In my mind, the solution is based on insulation which reduces the demand for energy.  However, this is not a quick fix.  A lot of the UK housing stock was built before 1910 and was drafty by design and what came later until the advent of building regulations that required a high standard of insulation, is not much better.  My perception as the owner of an Edwardian semi is that there are somethings that can be done quickly at an affordable cost such as loft insulation, draft excluders and curtains and maybe, a limited amount of cavity wall insulation.  Anything which would make a significant difference would either change the character of our home, cost more than it would save or both.  A few houses in our area which were built in the 1960s and which were generally regarded as not very nice have been substantially rebuilt to become very attractive buildings, but there are not many of them.   This suggests that the nation's overall domestic energy efficiency will only improve slowly as new homes are built with good insulation, but the older homes, like mine will be an energy embarrassment until it falls down and gets replaced with something different, as I'm fond of my home, I'm attempting to ensure that this is a long time in the future.  A well insulated home which can take advantages of technologies such as air source heat pumps, which my very limited research suggests have a capacity or around 3 - 7 kw.  These devices are not an option for properties which require 20 - 30 kw just to be less cold.  In our case, the solution to rising energy bills and a desire to minimize CO2 emissions is to have a "zoned" system in which only occupied rooms are heated.

The 19th Century was a time when coal was king, if you wander round the older parts of most English towns, you can estimate the number of rooms in a house by counting the number of chimney pots.  The streets in places like Greenwich are punctuated with the covers of coal chutes many of which have intricate patterns rendered in cast iron.  In the same way that North Sea gas displaced coal, coal had started to displace wood two centuries earlier.  Using wood as a fuel requires an understanding of the seasons.  For wood to be a useful fuel it must be dry otherwise much of the heat generated by combustion is absorbed by converting water into steam.  This it was necessary to gather wood during the summer, possibly split the logs and leave it to dry ready for the winter fires.  Sometime back there was a lively debate in the Norwegian press as to the best way to dry logs, was it better to split them and place the split side upwards or place the bark on top.

In recent years, log stores have been appearing in the front porches of many English homes, in part this is due to the appeal of a wood fire.  It's amusing to watch young men in particular light or attempt to light a fire as all sorts of primal instincts and behaviour come to the surface and if girls are present the process becomes a competitive sport.  The main driving force is probably rising fuel prices and as a result wood has become noticeably scarce.  As a regular dog walker, I used to pick up logs on the morning trip to the woods, but since the cold winter of 2010/11, the portable results of any form of woodland maintenance have gone within hours.  Deforestation was a spur to the development of the coal industry in the 18th Century.  Wood is an attractive option, provided only a small number of people use it but it is not substitute for natural gas in urban locations.  Even so, its not unknown for two middle aged dog walkers to glare at each other over a skip containing decking offcuts.  The future is insulation.