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exist winter in the morning HarbinThe air outside might freeze your eyelashes and I’d wake up in a warm bed of dirt.
Harbin, where I grew up, is in the northeast China. winter temperature Often dropping to -30°C, even the warmest days in January rarely exceed -10°C. Today, with approximately 6 million residents, Harbin is undoubtedly the largest city in the world to experience such persistent cold.
Stay warm in these temperatures This is something I’ve thought about my whole life. Long before electric air conditioning and zoning heatingPeople in this region used methods completely different from the radiators and gas boilers used in European homes today to survive the harsh winters.
Now, as an architecture researcher at a British university, I’m struck by how much we can learn from Britain’s traditional systems.
Energy bills remain too high, millions of people are struggling to heat their homes, and climate change is expected to make winters more unstable. We need efficient, low-energy ways to keep warm rather than relying on fossil fuels to heat an entire home.
Some of the answers may lie in the methods I grew up following.
a warm bed made of earth
My earliest memory of winter is waking up on a “kang” – a heated platform bed made of adobe bricks that has been used in northern China for at least 2,000 years. The kang is less a piece of furniture than part of the architecture itself: a thick raised slab that connects to the family stove in the kitchen. When the stove is lit for cooking, hot air passes through the channel below the kang, heating the entire kang.
For children, a kang has a magical feel: a warm, glowing surface that stays hot all night long. But as an adult—and now an academic—I can appreciate what an efficient project it was.
Unlike central heating systems, which work by heating the air in each room, only the kang (i.e. the bed surface) is heated. The room itself may be cold, but people stay warm by lying or sitting on the platform under thick blankets. Once warmed, hundreds of kilograms of compacted soil slowly release heat over several hours. There are no radiators, no need for any pumps, and no unnecessary heating of empty rooms. And since most of the initial heat is generated by the fire we need to cook, we save fuel.
Maintaining a kang is a family business. My father was a middle school Chinese teacher, not an engineer, but he became an expert in building kangs. My mother’s job was to carefully stack coals around the fire to keep it alive at night. Looking back, I realize how much skill and labor this required, as well as the trust families had in a system that required good ventilation to avoid carbon monoxide risks.
But for all its shortcomings, the kang offers something that modern heating systems still struggle to deliver: long-lasting warmth using very little fuel.
Similar approaches are adopted in East Asia
Across East Asia, methods of keeping warm in cold weather have evolved around similar principles: keep the heat close to the body and only heat the spaces that matter.
About the author
Xing Yangang is an associate professor at the School of Architectural Design and Built Environment at Nottingham Trent University.
This article is reproduced from dialogue Licensed under Creative Commons. read Original article.
In Korea, the ancient ondol system also channels warm air under thick floors, turning the entire floor into a heated surface. Japan invented the kotatsu, a low table covered with a thick blanket and a small heater underneath to keep legs warm. They may be a bit pricey, but they are one of the most popular items in Japanese homes.
Clothing is also very important. Every winter, my mother would make me a brand new thick cotton jacket, stuffed with new fluffy cotton. This is one of my best memories.
Similar ideas were thought of in Europe – but then forgotten
Europe once had similar heating methods. For example, the ancient Romans used fire pits to heat buildings, circulating hot air under the floors. Medieval homes hung heavy tapestries on the walls to reduce drafts, and many cultures used cushions, heated rugs, or enclosed sleeping areas to keep warm.
The spread of modern central heating in the 20th century replaced these methods with a more energy-intensive model: heating the entire building to a uniform temperature, even if only one person is home. This model worked when energy was cheap, even though most European homes, especially those in the UK, are poorly insulated by global standards.
But now that energy is expensive again, tens of millions of Europeans are unable to keep their homes warm enough. New technologies like heat pumps and renewable energy sources will help, but they work best when the buildings they heat are already efficient, allowing for lower heating set points and higher cooling set points.
This highlights why there’s still something to be learned about traditional home heating methods. Kang and similar systems show that comfort doesn’t always come from consuming more energy, but from designing warmth more intelligently.