Heating a home in the winter can be expensive, no matter how cheap fuel is. This house is found in a row of low-rise apartment blocks in the centre of the town. Although modern housing has simplified the process of heating a home, it hasn't brought the costs down. Most people in Greece rely on oil for heating, which we all know can never be relied on for price. Someone here is using wood, but not necessarily in a fireplace. A lot of people (mainly in rented homes) still use old style furnaces, with an element on top which can act as a cooker.
This photo hides a lot of aspects of Greek life - badly maintained inner city housing (usually rented out to economic immigrants), exposed water taps and meters, and motorcycles parked on the footpath, which means pedestrians have to walk on the road.
Interesting post today! Aloha-
ReplyDeleteI like the way you show everyday life in such an interesting way and this is a great example. I've been trying to move more in that direction since the New Year, it's been slow going but I'm getting there.
ReplyDeleteAmazing how one picture can show so much about life in a town... Great job!!
ReplyDeleteBlogtrotter, with a new post for you!
Comes to see and it's almost the same as here in Portugal!
ReplyDeleteUsing wood for a fireplace is fairly common everywhere, but I thought gas was the usual way to heat the stoves in Greece. With all those mountains, don't you have a fair amount of hydro-electric power?
ReplyDeleteThat's unfortunately the Greek way.
ReplyDeleteI missed many posts lately but there was a problem and i couldn't get into your blog.
But i read them and they were very interesting especially the one with the flytzani.
must be tough..
ReplyDeleteWe had a couple of stoves when I was growing up in Greece and I'm pretty sure we used oil in them. They weren't terribly efficient for heating a big house, but the advantage was that you could use them to heat food and dry clothes too. The wood-burning ones are more fiddly. I never liked them.
ReplyDelete@ RuneE: Gas is very rare in Greece, other forms of power (wind/sun) are more common. The mountains are big but there aren't many rivers.
I like the idea of being oil independent but it will not happen again. People are in love with their thermostats.
ReplyDeleteRe your comment: Oslo was founded about the year 1000 as Oslo. However after a fire in 1824 it was moved and rebuilt as Christiania (later Kristiania) after the king Christian IV. It was renamed Oslo again in 1925.
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