It seems that we just don’t get it when it comes to energy conservation.
We mostly haven’t a clue when it comes to efficient homes – at least not compared to the Romans. The energy penny dropped with them long, long ago.
New research carried out for electricity and gas supplier E.ON by a leading Oxford University archaeologist, has revealed that a typical Roman villa built 2,000 years ago, used techniques that we could learn from today to save energy in traditional British three-bed, semi-detached homes.
Using criteria commonly set out for today’s homes on E.ON’s Energy Fit website, Professor Andrew Wilson compared the attributes of a Roman villa and a 1930’s semi – the most common housing stock in the UK.
He found that modern British suburbia could learn a lot from the Romans. From underfloor heating to water efficiency, they had us beat. They were highly efficient and used recycled materials and the environment around them to the greatest benefit.
Prof Wilson said: “One of the many things the Romans did for us was to show us ways to be much more imaginative and efficient with their energy use.
“They made heat and water work much harder round the house than most of us do today.”
TV personality Dick Strawbridge, an ambassador for the Energy Fit campaign, said: “Of course, new buildings today are mandated to be energy efficient, but many of us live in homes that aren’t and we should look at ways to fix that.
“Taking some inspiration from the Romans as well as personalised tips from the Energy Fit website is a good way forward.”
Here are a few examples of how the Romans used energy.
Heating rooms – Romans used underfloor heating systems called hypocausts, which heated floors and walls via hot air and smoke from a furnace. In addition, rooms featuring this system tended to face south or south-west and were built with glazed windows to catch the sun’s rays, making clever use of solar radiation.
By comparison, the great British household wastes heat; we tend to place wall-mounted radiators underneath windows, where heat can escape, or we cover radiators with wet clothes and curtains, and don’t use the right radiator size for many rooms.
According to E.ON, these factors will cause central heating to work inefficiently and waste money.
Interestingly, underfloor heating has made a comeback in recent years, 2,000 years after it was last used extensively in Roman Britain.
Heating water – Romans visited public baths where water was kept hot with a device called a testudo – a half-cylindrical water container with one end opening into the bath, and the other held in place above the furnace of a hypocaust.
This heated the water, which was then circulated back into the pool at the top of the container’s opening, and replaced by cooler water at its bottom through convection.
Compare this multi-tasking heating system with many British homes, which often shut the hot water tank in a cupboard where it fails to heat the rest of the house.
Prof Wilson: “This prompts the question, if the Romans used the same heat source to heat both their water and the room, then why don’t we?”
If your hot water tank is in a cupboard, make sure it is not losing heat by filling in any holes around it.
Water tanks can also be insulated by placing a water tank jacket around them.
Water efficiency – The Romans were keen on putting different qualities of water to varying uses.
Many of their cities were fed drinking water by an aqueduct served by a spring, river or groundwater.
At the same time, they were heavily reliant on rainwater cisterns for laundry and household cleaning.
Thanks to Victorian water schemes, which aimed to purify all water to drinking standard, we use the same quality of water for drinking as we do for flushing the toilet.
Strawbridge: “In modern water schemes the potential for trapping and storing rainwater is all too often overlooked.”
Building materials – Romans were highly energy efficient when it came to recycling building materials.
Abandoned properties were systematically stripped of their metal fittings, which could be melted down and used again.
Pottery could be reused as building materials, old amphoras – a traditional Roman vase with two handles – might be used as hollow aggregate to lighten the concrete of a vault; build drains or used as an ingredient in waterproof cement linings for aqueducts, cisterns and baths.