The ever increasing price of electricity has pushed the cost of heating a home by electricity to unsustainable levels. This coupled with increasing awareness of the importance of preserving the environment, has led to a demand for a cost effective way of heating homes that is environmentally friendly.
In South Africa the vast majority of our electricity is generated in coal fired power stations.
A well designed and maintained coal fired power station will run at best at 30% efficiency, and will consume between 80 – 200 litres of water per Kwhr produced. (This excludes water used in the coal mining operations and to wash the coal prior to its use in the power station)
This means 70% of the energy from the coal consumed is wasted into the atmosphere.
Water consumption by coal fired power stations, as well as coal mining and washing operations is immense. With the relatively low levels of insulation used in SA homes it will require about 10 000 Kwhrs of power to comfortably space-heat a family home for our typical 3 – 4 month winter. (This excludes energy used in hot water production, cooking or electrical appliances in the home)
Providing this 10 000 Kwhrs of electricity to space-heat one typical home for one winter, will consume about 4 tons of coal and about 1.5 million litres of water. This equates to about 25 average size swimming pools. The impact on a country where water is a scarce resource is staggering, let alone the implications of the exceptionally high emissions registered in the air from the power stations located to the East of Gauteng.
Wood stoves have been used in Europe for the last 150 years as a much more efficient source of heat. These remarkable units are designed to burn wood slowly and efficiently with minimal emissions into the atmosphere and lots of heat.
If you plant a tree to replace the tree you are burning, the growing tree will take as much or more carbon out of the atmosphere, than the cut tree will produce, when burnt in one of our highly efficient stoves.
A win/win for us all. A lowering in the demand for electricity from Eskom, a huge reduction in air pollution and water consumption and the continued growth of our forestry industry.
When buying wood in bulk (typically 1 ton loads) our wood stoves will provide heat at about 40c per Kwhr, one quarter the current price of electricity.
By changing to one of one wood stoves, you could cut your home heating bills substantially and have a huge benefit for our planet.