Home Damage Resources Windows Doors Ceilings Roofs Walls Services Furnishings Re-building Damaged Homes - Building Services Repairs : By Richard Edkins Introduction : A building is a house when it has building services. The most crucial is some form of cooking and heating, followed by lighting, water supply and sewage disposal. In the short term, these can be dealt with by stoves, lamps and buckets, but a more permanent system should be restored if at all possible. Here are a few points to consider. :- Wiring and plumbing : This will have to be salvaged or supplied. Electric power is important foremost for lighting and for pumps, to a lesser extent for cooking and heating. Piping is needed to bring water into the building, to distribute heated water from central boilers and to dispose of waste ('grey') water and sewage. Note that water supply systems can be hard to replace and that untreated water might be available on tap rather than drinking water. Domestic drinking water treatment might have to be considered. Electric light : This is another important element of civilisation that is hard to replace because bulbs and tubes shatter. Car and torch bulbs may survive through being mounted in shock-resistant fittings, but at 6 or 12 volts will need to be powered by cannibalised car batteries, possibly recharged by car alternators powered by wind-turbines or bicycles. A pair of bicycle lighting sets on a bike with its back wheel held off the ground by a frame, might be the only reliable source of power. The use of old 12-volt car batteries for domestic lighting is common in some parts of Africa and Asia; the Ideas in Action website illustrates the use of a communal wind-turbine to recharge car batteries. For a fascinating Colorado backwoods approach to improvising the whole heat, light and power question, including solar and micro hydroelectricity, see Otherpower.com. Heating and Cooking : In all but a very few parts of the world, the climate can be cold. All cultures in every part of the world need to consider cooking their food - and preferably indoors. Access to electricity is fine - if there is an electric cooker and heaters. Otherwise, it is important to devise as good a heater as possible to heat rooms and to cook food. Existing fireplaces and chimney-stacks - in themselves only 10% to 20% efficient - should be used with the most efficient stove available. Here are a few points to remember :- (a) : A drum-shaped stove with a pipe leading up a chimney can be about 70% efficient as a heater and can cook food on top of it. A 25-litre steel fuel drum may serve as a good temporary cooker. Although they burn through and need replacement, such 'Hobo Stoves', 'Yukon Stoves' and rectangular steel plate 'Franklin Stoves' were made on the American frontier and in Alaska. However, they must be properly made or there can be a risk of carbon monoxide poisoning. (b) : Hotplate cookers with a hearth under a plate of steel can be built from brick or mortared stone and may be about 50% efficient. They can be designed to include a steel drum or metal box set on its side to act as an oven. Intended for outside or outhouse operation, well-built variants such as the 'Fachongle Furnace' can be built indoors. (c) : Bread-making or roasting can be done fairly efficiently in a metal box upside-down over a hotplate cooker plate. The bread or roast can sit on a metal grill to keep it off the actual hotplate. (d) : If the risk of fire or fumes prevents building an improvised cooker inside the house, consider constructing one in a small cookhouse. The old trick of heating bricks and carrying them in wire cages as heaters could be revived. (e) : Great care must be taken with fires. Some alternative constructional materials are more vulnerable to fire than the materials that they replace. Make sure that stoves and heaters stand on brick and tile, not on wooden floors, and that pipes or canopies to chimneys are present to help remove fumes. (f) : Whilst boilers are easily devised, pumps are needed to drive water round most central heating radiator systems. The Russian tiled brick stove sleeping-platform - heated by a flue from a furnace - may need to be considered in cold climates. A variety of useful recovery living ideas can be found in the JustPeace Nugget Pages. Home Damage Resources Windows Doors Ceilings Roofs Walls Services Furnishings © 2003 Richard Edkins. Site maintained by Dalbeattie Internet. Last Updated 16th April 2003.