How do you heat your home in winter?

31 comments

1. Like the majority—almost two thirds—of Danes, my home is heated by teleheating/district heating. Our heaters are connected to a network run by the municipal company called _Kredsløb_(“Circuit”), and is produced using a multitude of different sources, so it is hard to keep track of.

2. Like many British people, we have a gas boiler that heats hot water, both for washing and for filling radiators, which we have in every room. We also have an electric fire in the sitting room with a “flame” effect, which adds extra heat but is also for decoration/a cosy atmosphere. In the spring or autumn we might turn the fire on when we’re sitting there in the evening for an hour or so, when it isn’t really cold enough to turn the central heating on properly.

3. The house where I live has district heating. And almost only renewable and recycled energy sources are used.

4. Electric heat pump using a ground loop with circulating liquid. This heats a accumulator tank with a heat exchanger, which is connected to the house radiators. We also have a wood fired stove in the kitchen which is connected to the accumulator tank and a fireplace in the living room for cozyness and comfort heat. Firewood comes from our own forest around the house, which means a couple of days chopping wood and splitting wood each year…

   We have 7kW of solar panels on the roof providing power for the heat pump, which is connected to the main grid and electricity produced is deducted from the normal power bill.

5. Mostly electricity, but we’ve still got a few fireplaces around. I guess we’ll use them more this year, for obvious reasons.

6. I live in a building that has central heating for all the apartments. Actually we’re quite lucky to have this thing because the costs are still under control this way.

7. I live in France. My house has a gas heater with floor heating on the ground floor and radiators on the first floor. Gas heating is fairly common here (at least in the region I live in). But some older homes still have resistive electric heating, a wood pellet burner or a fuel oil burner.

   Newly built houses and houses where the heating system is replaced are mostly getting equipped with heat pumps.

8. We have a gas boiler and a wood burner, but we rarely use them as we just put jumpers on and get under blankets.

   We’ll used the boiler to take the chill off but not to completely heat the house

   P.s. Live in rural England

9. Gas-based central heating system. Would love to replace it, for obvious reasons, but that is just too expensive. We’re going to try to cut back on gas, by buying some extra warm clothing and using a few electric heaters.

10. Geothermal heating with a ground-source heat pump. It has become very popular even before the current crisis though district heating is the most common source in cities.

11. Nearly all Italian buildings are heated by centralized system that either in the form of a gas boiler in a underground room or an external station that heats a group of buildings, or through teleheating.
    Those in single family houses or that live in older buildings istead have a autonomous gas boiler, with some also using pellet stoves to heat the living rooms.

12. Nearly half of Bosnia is covered in woods, so the wood is the most popular thing and source of energy we’ll never get run out of.

13. We have two sources of heat: from gas and from wood heater. They could be on at the same time. We’re living near the forest and have been using the fallen wood to save the money. This year I see a lot of people actually buying wood heaters and the wood itself

14. Living in a pretty new apartment with district heating and heated floors in all rooms.

15. Looking at the prices apparently not at all.

    Come on climate change give me cosy 15° till April.

16. We use small gas heating devices called gamatky. We got one in each room.

17. Our apartment has gas heating. It’s actually very warm though and we don’t generally need heating.

    My family home has oil heating but my parents have a fire place in the most used room so generally light a fire and don’t use the central heating that much.

18. My house has electric heated radiators, but most of the heating is done by air-source heat pump. Radiators are just supporting on heating when it gets -20c or more outside. We also have old fashioned Porin Matti wood burning heating stove that we often use on coldest time of the year just to save on electricity and to enjoy the cosy fire. It is very efficient and gives nice comfy heat all day long with just few pieces of firewood.

19. We have wood-fired central heating, which is used to heat the apartment and water. We also have an old oil heating that we never use and a fireplace in the living room. We prepare our own firewood.

    Wood heating and heat pumps are the most common in Slovenia, while fewer and fewer people have oil and gas heating, due to high prices.

20. We have a wood burner and electric radiators. We will not be using the electric radiators this year unless desperate.

21. I live in Lisbon; winter generally means closing the windows and maybe a small electrical heater in the worst week or two.

22. Gas-fired boiler only. I did want to get a wood burner too but that never worked out.

23. Fireplace. My gf and I are very lucky to have a fireplace in our living room, it warms up the whole appartment. And I bought wood before summer when it was cheap.

24. Usual gas heating + well insulated home.

    Also ritual fireplace family reunion/barbecue with mandatory Spaghetti western binge watch

25. The city has a heating plant that sends hot water to our apartment heaters (1 in each room).

26. Just had a pellet burner installed and had a wood burner removed. Maybe it wont take 3 hours to heat the room now and I can get up and turn it on without having to get covered in ash and soot or going out to chop wood!

27. We have district heating, and the apartment is often a little hot. On days when something is being repaired, we can turn on a tiny electric heater.

    My mother has a stove heating with wood in a village house, it is relatively inexpensive.

28. > But most people still use electricity to heat up parts of the home, like the bathroom for instance.

    How else are you supposed to learn Finnish?!

    I live in an apartment in a urban area, so my home is heated with district heating. What they use id a bit harder to say. They claim to use excess heat from industry and waste burning, which sounds good, but oil refinery is one of the industries in the area. When I lived in the country side back around the turn of the century, we used mostly wood. We had *tiled stove*/*masonry heater*, later replaced by a pellet fueled fireplace, and a wood stove. And an electric radiator in the bathroom.

29. I live in a super small flat and have to train big Models, so yeah, it’s GPU heating for me, or electric in the end I guess..

30. District heating is by far most common in Danish homes. My mom’s rural home has gas and wood, a few still use oil, and heat pumps are increasingly popular.

31. No other form of heating other than electric storage heaters from 1987 in a house that doesn’t have the best insulation. Landlady won’t replace them. There’s no fireplace or chimney either.

    I’ll be sat huddled around a load of candles I reckon.