Energy

The early years of the 21st Century have seen an increased awareness and willingness amongst the UK population to save energy in their homes. This has been made possible by a lot of good technology. We can create a micro-climate through the use of control systems from our mobile phones, form different zones on a room to room basis and watch the levels of our own power consumption on a smart meter. Reliance on and to a certain extent dependency on fossil fuels is not now the case with a wider range of alternatives and renewables. There has been a noticeable increase in the number of roof mounted solar panels in our neighbourhoods, wind turbines in the countryside and other innovations are within financial range such as ground source and air source heat pumps and the harnessing of thermal energy and bio-mass appliances. In addition to making our use of energy in cleverer and more economical ways there has been a big initiative to improve insulation and airtightness of buildings, This has been and will continue to be problematic with an aged housing stock of inherently poor thermal efficiency as a consequence of solid wall construction, ill fitting windows, old and open chimney flues and naturally draughty roofs and eaves. It will be an ongoing challenge and some even bigger changes will be required in our lifestyles and attitudes. I find this interesting given that over my 50 years of life our concerns and practical attempts to reduce our own utility costs and by a roundabout route to prolong the ability of the planet to sustain life are not as we may think a fairly recent phenomena. I think back to my childhood in the 1970's when there were periods of quite drastic energy crises and in particular what sort of things were around by which to make economies and compromises. Here are a few of them that I recall.

Put on a thick jumper and an extra pair of socks.
Wear a balaclava in bed at night
Tuck the bedroom curtains up onto the widow cill
Stick sellotape around the inside of the wooden window frames
Use a hot water bottle
Share the bathwater with other family members
Have a wash at a friends house
Go swimming at the council pool regularly
Read under the bed covers with a torch
Collect up the melted candle wax and make a new candle
Just have one bar working on the electric fire
Apply self adhesive draught excluder to every door frame
Put your feet under a warm pet
Make a hot drink with water from the hot tap
Have a bonfire and stand around it as long as possible
Warm up the kitchen with only one gas hob ring
Line your trouser legs with old newspapers

and........dream about something called central heating.