How to heat a private house when there is no gas supply

Will Ukrainians be warm in winter? The issue is very relevant and concerns every Ukrainian. The russia-Ukrainian war, significant destruction of infrastructure in the frontline towns and villages, gas blackmail from the aggressor country forced people and the authorities to look for the best solutions on how to provide heat to their homes next winter.

A private country house has a significant advantage over a city apartment in that even when the gas supply and central heating are disconnected, there are completely acceptable options for emergency heating of a private cottage.

Alternative heating options for private houses

Ukrainian traditional clay oven

The traditional Ukrainian oven is a priceless legacy of our ancestors. For centuries, the oven warmed, fed, and gave comfort in the home to both adults and children. Now you can also find a real rustic oven in a modern house, but this considerable structure must be designed from the beginning and put on the construction stage. The entire interior of the house must be designed in ethnic style so that the oven looks harmonious inside the dwelling.

It’s very hard to install a clay oven in the inhabited house. But there are other solutions that do not require radical reconstruction.

Solid fuel boiler

A solid fuel boiler that can work on any type of solid fuel is a civilized, economical and energy effective alternative. You can use firewood, pellets, briquettes, sawdust, coal, pressed shavings, peat, that is, everything that burns.

Solid fuel boilers are available in all models — from the most primitive to the most modern, equipped with sophisticated automation that not only regulates the temperature regime, but also is maximum energy saving. A small diesel generator is enough for such a boiler in the event of a power outage — and you are not afraid even of a complete blackout.

If there are no problems with gas supply, a solid fuel boiler can save money on heating the house, if the price of natural gas for the population will still increase significantly.

You can install a solid fuel boiler in the same room where the gas boiler is located, and if necessary, switch the house from one boiler to another. This is a perfectly acceptable technical solution.

Fireplace

Fireplaces in the living rooms of modern private houses are made more for atmosphere and interior rather than for heating. But the fireplace is also a heat source, which requires some firewood. But the heat will spread only to the room where the fireplace is located, and will not reach other rooms. The energy efficiency of the fireplace is quite low: heat from a regular fireplace mostly escapes into the chimney.

There is a cheaper substitute for a fireplace — an electric fireplace, but it is, in fact, an ordinary electric home heater, decorated to match the fireplace.

Buleryan

A modern and rather expensive type of Canadian caloric stove — Buleryan is not only a fashionable accessory, but also an energy-efficient source of heating, aesthetic, elegant and atmospheric. Put a few wooden logs on the stove and the living room is filled with reflections of a live fire and cozy warmth. The fire-resistant glass of Buleryans allows you to admire the dance of flame to your heart’s content. Buleryan pipes create air convection in the room, thus effectively heating the entire house volume, from 100 to more than 1000 square meters. Buleryan is the most efficient autonomous heat source for a private house and one of the main elements of the loft style in the interior, which is currently fashionable.

Additional heating

There are various ways of additional heating of a private house in the winter season. These are warm floors, infrared heaters and a wide range of modifications of traditional electric heaters. But in the event of a power outage, they will not be useful, unlike a stove, fireplace, buleryan, which will save you from the cold.

Owners of country cottages, private houses in cities should think about how to heat the house in winter, if it is impossible or expensive to heat with gas.

So Ukrainians should be aware of all the possibilities and take care in advance about alternative methods of heating private country houses in the difficult winter season of 2022-2023.

As practice has shown, you should always be prepared for the worst scenario so that disaster does not catch you by surprise. And then the whole family, children, and old people will survive the hard winter in warmth and comfort.