Monday 12 December 2022
Net Zero Memory
Many older people must still remember those tiny bedroom fireplaces where a fire was only lit if someone was ill and even then, not much heat was generated. Our nineteen thirties house has them, but they are boarded over now.
A chap is bound to wonder if Net Zero is driven entirely by people with no memory of how cold a UK house can become in winter without what we now think of as adequate heating. I've used this quote before, but it illustrates an issue which appears to come ever closer.
In the middle of the night Edwin kept watch over Auntie Hamps, who was asleep. He sat in a rocking-chair, with his back to the window and the right side of his face to the glow of the fire. The fire was as effective as the size and form of the grate would allow; it burnt richly red; but its influence did not seem to extend beyond a radius of four feet outwards from its centre.
The terrible damp chill of the Five Towns winter hung in the bedroom like an invisible miasma. He could feel the cold from the window, which was nevertheless shut, through the shawl with which he had closed the interstices of the back of the chair, and, though he had another thick shawl over his knees, the whole of his left side felt the creeping attack of the insidious miasma.
A thermometer which he had found and which lay on the night-table five yards from the fire registered only fifty-two degrees. His expelled breath showed in the air. It was as if he were fighting with all resources against frigidity, and barely holding his own.
Arnold Bennett – These Twain (1916)
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15 comments:
We have those little fires in the upstairs bedrooms, both boarded up. We uncovered one a few years back when we decorated the room and were going to make it useable again, but due to a number of factors, we ended up re-covering it. It's still the plan for one day, but if we ever get round to it, who knows
My family were talking recently about those elaborate frost patterns on the inside of windows - and how many people under 50 would know that they could happen, let alone what they looked like.
"Those elaborate frost patterns on the inside of windows - and how many people under 50 would know that they could happen"
At 66 I can certainly remember them, and how the old wooden windows froze in the frames, so you couldn't open them, even if you wanted to! I've got some (scanned from film) pictures of 3ft+ icicles hanging off the gutters...
I think the little register grates in bedrooms were quite effective if the room was not too large. Inadequate, (though still customarily fitted) in large rooms.
Returning with my parents from living in Jerusalem when I was ten to my grandmother's house in Chalk Farm in Jan 1964, with thick snow on the ground, my bedroom was a large Victorian room with no heating in it at all! We were all very cold, if cheerful. Worse was to come, for the next two years my father's job had taken us to Falkirk in Scotland. No heating in our rented flat either at the back where we mostly lived. The first thing he did was to buy an electric fan heater or two!
"A chap is bound to wonder if Net Zero is driven entirely by people with no memory of how cold a UK house can become in winter without what we now think of as adequate heating."
I think the useful idiots (mainly youngsters) are in that category. The others warm themselves with a glow of anticipation regarding the centralised state planning required to invest in battery technology, train hundreds of thousands of heat-pump manufacturers and installers, and write government directives about their use.
Bucko - we'll keep ours boarded up. I can't see us ever using them and they would take up wall space. However, with Net Zero coming...
Macheath - I mostly remember scratching off the ice with my fingernails or using the warmth of my fingers to create melted spots. I don't remember shivering while doing it though.
Dave - we had metal window frames and I think those windows froze in the frames too, although I can't remember wanting to open them in winter.
Tammly - I still remember our first electric fan heater and the novel experience of feeling warm air being blown into the room.
Sam - I'm sure you are right, young useful idiots do not realise how cold a house can be in winter and the idea of centralised state planning does warm many more. They believe in a kind of planning myth.
I think the younger generation apart from no experience of cold houses also think that global warming will elliminate the need for heating
An open fire depends on draughts to keep it burning. You can call the draught ventilation if you like. No draught and you might die of the dreaded CO, a lot quicker than the dreaded CO2 will kill you. If the fireplace has been blocked off then check that chimney has not been sealed at the top to keep rain and birds out before trying to use it. If not sealed at top check that the chimney is not full of dead birds and years of nest material.
"Warm" clothing will not warm you. It just slows down the loss of body heat. Keep your body warm by eating well, moving about or having a hot water bottle inside the clothing with you.
There is a boarded-up fireplace in our (Victorian) bedroom but the room is an odd shape and, were we to light a fire, the only way to keep the bed more than two feet from the flames would be to jam it up against the wall on one side.
Given that this is nominally the master bedroom, is the convention for both partners to have a bedside table and clearance to get in or out a relatively modern innovation? (I seem to remember reading 19th century stories which casually refer to someone sleeping on the wall side of the bed, as if it were a matter of course in all but the most luxurious of houses.)
Woodsy - you are probably right, why wouldn't they assume that central heating won't be needed?
Doonhamer - we find moving about is the key to keeping warm and the effect seems to last for a while. After going out for a walk, we don't need to light the fire until evening, but if stay in all day we feel cold sooner.
Macheath - we'd have a similar problem in our 1930s house in that the bed would be perilously close to the fire.
Bedrooms, 9'x12' and 12'x12', both with small grates, which I have cleaned up because I like the look of them but not for use. Before restoration they were completely blocked with soot and the birds nest material. I don't think those grates were ever intended to have a proper fire, there just isn't enough room to keep it away from the furniture. Rather I think it was filled with hot coals from a main fire just to warm the room up a bit before going to bed.
The plumber should be here Friday to reconnect the radiators! Took them out to redecorate and replace over the summer, but… one thing after another, the job kept being delayed. Temperature this morning 7°C, with the 2kW electric fan heater on all day it reached 15°C this evening!
djc - 7°C is rather cool, I'd be in full walking gear including boots and I'd still be walking up and down stairs to keep the circulation going. Maybe a few hours in the garden centre cafe too. Roll on Friday!
MacHeath.
Beds and walls. Beds in poorer houses and tenements were often built in. Often in the kitchen. A house or tenement home might have only two rooms. A "room and kitchen". And families could be large. So children would be set to sleep head to toe.
Box bed was one name for them. I have seen them in Glasgow tenements and in farm houses.
The beds were size of a small double, with mattress held in place by a side plank and the top was fairly high, maybe four feet. This allowed space below for real cupboards. The sleeping space was hidden by cupboard doors. These would partially or fully closed in winter for warmth.
Who ever slept on the wall side would be last to bed at night and first up to light the fire.
Doonhamer - my mother came from a large family and she and her sisters would sleep head to toe in their terraced house. It would have been one way to keep warm through winter nights.
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