How 5,000 bottles helped save heating costs for an entire home
Glass bottles insulated an earthen house and significantly reduced the heating costs of the house. A Ukrainian woman used 5,000 bottles to save money on heating an entire home.
The author of the unusual project was Vera Ivashko, a resident of the village of Ozera, Kobeliak district, Poltava region, in Ukraine, who was looking for a way to reduce the cost of home heating. To do this, she made the cladding of exterior walls from old bottles, improving thermal insulation.
“I could not cover the roof with slate, I had to hire roofers. I did everything else myself. A few years ago I bought an electric saw and changed all the wood on the roof. Then I switched to interior work. I leveled the ceiling – lined it with planks – “battens”. This way, an air cushion was formed on the top, and it became warmer in the house,” she told the local media.
“Then I tiled the stove and grate. Now they are hot until morning, not like before – as long as you’re heating it, it’s warm. And the floor in the living room was leveled with bottles. The principle of laying was the same as the paths in the yard, only instead of cement, I used a warm material – clay,” Vera explained.
She continues that “on top of the dried floor was covered with linoleum. This is the lower air cushion. And at the end of it all the walls and the gable with glass. Now my whole crib is air-cushioned, so it’s warm. The electric heater was long forgotten about. In summer, on the contrary, the house is cool,” according to the website “Facts” portal quotes Vera Ivashko as saying.
The house was clad with about 5000 bottles, but the resident of Ozera used the glass for the fence, paving of paths on the plot, and cladding of other buildings. It took half a month of work to insulate the house, but the savings were more tangible.
If before the monthly expenditure on electric power was 1000 hryvnia because of the constant turning on the heater, but now for the entire heating season is spent only 1500 hryvnia for the purchase of wood for the stove. The woman estimated the costs of the facing itself at 2,000 hryvnias, which were spent on the purchase of cement.