hater-of-terfs:

Too Much Combustion, Too Little Fire - Low Tech Magazine

The fire – which we have used in our homes for over 400,000 years – remains the most versatile and sustainable household technology that humanity has ever known. The fire alone provided what we now get through a combination of modern appliances such as the oven and cooking hob, heating system, lights, refrigerator, freezer, hot water boiler, tumble dryer, and television. Unlike these newer technologies, the fire had no need for a central infrastructure to make it work, and it could be built locally from readily available materials.

In a household built around a fire, the making of hot beverages and toast, the drying of clothes, or the illumination of the space does not raise the energy use of the fire: it simply makes more efficient use of the fire that is already there for other purposes – like space heating. To achieve the same result today, we have to turn on a several appliances, and all of them require extra energy use: the heating system, the immersion heater, the electric toaster, the tumble dryer, and the lights.

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