How do Europeans heat their homes??

[uncle_asa]

There are few different ways in Russia.
1) In cities and towns most common is to have the central station which heats water with gas or coil and distribute hot water through the pipes. Very modern buildings have their own heaters, but this practice is very uncommon.
2) In modern villages most common is to have gas heaters and rarely diesel and electric heaters.
3) In old villages most common is wood and coil heaters (something like fireplaces).

[rowhard]

In England, coal is the most common form of heating. Use to be fire places, then back boilers behind the fire place with wall radiators in the rooms, then a unit with a hopper that boiled water and again wall radiators and sometimes floor coils, real nice except when you drank to much and pass out on the floor

[mrtew]

What does the price of oil have to do with natural gas? Isn't most heating in the US and in Europe natural gas?

[JoFotoz]

Gas or Oil fired central heating is now the normal method in the United Kingdom...
...the back fired ("Baxi") style boilers that rowhard mentions being mostly replaced these days
due to smog rules and effeciency issues.

Most UK homes are built to a much higher (R-value) insulation code than here
in the USA.
So although the fuel is expensive , its reasonably effeciently used.
(No A/C costs to worry about in summer either!!)

Older homes tend to have the oil fired units...newer home use gas.

Modern Gas fired units employ a "manifold" system with individual "T's" going to AND from convection style hot water radiators.
The manifold system is very effecient as each radiator gets "new" boiler fresh hot water..
...rather than the old series system that led to water getting cooler and cooler as it travelled around the house.
The return water in a manifold system is also hotter when it re-enters the boiler...
...so less energy is required to re-heat it.

OK enough!!..yea...I sold heating door to door in Scotland one hellish 6 months...
("""if you sign tonight MrX...I'll include two free radiators"""""...ugh...I hate to remember those days!)

But hey......it helped pay for my sail boat racing adventures!!


jo

[Scott Harness]

In England, coal is the most common form of heating. Use to be fire places, then back boilers behind the fire place with wall radiators in the rooms, then a unit with a hopper that boiled water and again wall radiators and sometimes floor coils, real nice except when you drank to much and pass out on the floor

I went to school with a kid that fell on a floor furnace. He had a grid-like waffle scar on one side of his face.

[tom4bren]

I worked with a gentleman who had the same thing on his butt. I never saw it but he told me about it