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LAST UPDATE | 28 Jan
LAST WEEK, STORM Éowyn brought Ireland to its knees. At its peak, over 750,000 homes were without power, and now, at the time of writing, hundreds of thousands of people remain in the dark.
Many households have also lost access to water, with treatment facilities overwhelmed by the impact of the storm. As extreme weather events like this are becoming more frequent and intense, the experience serves as a blunt reminder of how vulnerable our infrastructure actually is.
Climate science tells us that storms like Éowyn are not just a one-off. They’re a preview of what is to come. As global temperatures rise, extreme weather events are becoming more common, challenging not only the systems we have come to rely on, but also the way we live.
While roofs were being ripped off buildings and trees uprooted by winds here in Ireland, uncontainable wildfires tore through residential Los Angeles, and Florida was covered in snow, which for many of its residents, will be a first in their lifetime. Taking climate action is crucial to mitigating these changes, however last week has shown us the necessity to balance sustainability with resilience.
At our not-for-profit social enterprise Common Knowledge, we share the skills, knowledge and community that people need to lead truly sustainable lives. Where housing is accessible for you, maintainable by you and sustainable for our planet. I believe that learning practical skills and learning how our homes work is the key to unlocking the resilience so many of us felt was missing this past week.
Storm Éowyn has caused me to reflect on some of the ways we have been implementing climate action in recent years. It is easy to understand why so much recent climate policy focuses on electrification.
Homes with A-rated energy certifications are more efficient: they lose less heat, thus require less energy to stay warm, and use renewable energy sources. Heat pumps are a genius alternative to carbon-heavy oil or gas boilers, enormously reducing emissions. Much like our electric cars, trading fossil fuels for renewable energy.
But this shift has come with a blind spot. By replacing fires, gas stoves and oil boilers with systems that are entirely grid-dependent, we’re creating a new kind of vulnerability. When the grid goes down, as it did for three-quarter of a million homes last week, those that rely solely on electric systems are left completely inoperable. No heat. No way to cook. And for those relying on electric pumps, no access to water.
I’m not here to argue against the electric evolution. It is absolutely the right direction for the planet. What is clear, in these early stages of adoption, is that we need to pair it with backup systems that work in emergencies.
So, how do we balance sustainability with resilience? The good news is there are many ways to build a sustainable home while maintaining a little resilience along the way:
Backup heating systems
If you’re switching from oil or gas to a heat pump, consider also installing a solid fuel wood-burning stove, as a backup heating system.
Modern stoves are highly efficient and burn with a much lower carbon footprint than traditional open fires.
Renewable energy at home
If you’re installing solar panels, consider adding battery storage with an emergency socket. A 5kW battery can keep essential appliances, such as your fridge and freezer, running for up to 24 hours during a power outage. Small-scale wind turbines are another good option, particularly in rural areas with consistent wind.
While these systems won’t fully replace grid power, they can provide enough energy to keep essential systems operational. If these feel out of reach due to their high price points, a portable solar panel to charge your phone can ease some anxiety.
Water storage and filtration
Water outages are often an overlooked consequence of storms. And in a climate like Ireland’s, the obvious answer is in the sky.
A rainwater harvesting system can collect and store water for non-drinking uses, such as flushing toilets and washing dishes. For drinking water, a gravity-fed filtration system or portable filters can ensure you have safe, clean water, even when mains water is unavailable.
Cooking without electricity
Consider installing a gas hob rather than an electric hob in your home. Alternatively, ensure you have a small camping stove or portable gas cooker in storage. Keep in mind that butane gas freezes at -0.5 °C so it won’t work in very cold weather, while propane gas has a much lower freezing point of -42 °C. Also, make sure you have a stock of non-perishable food that can be prepared without much cooking.
Learning practical skills
One of the most empowering things you can do is learn practical skills to become more self-sufficient. Take every opportunity you can to learn how your home works and how you can better work with it. Learn from your neighbours, friends, grandparents and elders — many of whom are well-versed in resilient, conscious living.
At Common Knowledge, we teach skills like basic carpentry and plumbing and simple solar set ups. Knowing how to take care of your home and adapt during emergencies can make a huge difference when the pressure is on.
Storm Éowyn is our reminder that true sustainability is not just about reducing carbon emissions, it is also about ensuring our homes and communities can withstand the challenges of a changing climate. You can install the most energy-efficient systems in your home, but if they leave you entirely dependent on the grid, how sustainable for you are they really?
True sustainability is about resilience. It is about creating systems that work for you in all situations – whether the grid is up or down.
And it is about recognising that sometimes, the old ways of doing things still have a place in our modern lives. A wood-burning stove, a rainwater barrel, or even a camping stove might seem like a backward step, but they’re the peace of mind we’re going to need heading into an unpredictable future.
Harrison Gardner is the presenter of the RTÉ series Build Your Own Home and the Author of the Self Build guide Build Your Own He is also a co-founder of Common Knowledge, a non-profit organisation in the Burren that teaches practical skills for sustainable living. Upcoming courses here. Harrison’s new book, Build Your Own is available here. For Instagram, see _harrisongardner and Common_k_.
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Hurrah for the genius who decreed that new houses should not have a chimney.
@paulinlavally@gmail.com: IMO the lives saved from not having polluted towns outweigh the lives lost due to not burning stuff during a temporary power outage.
@Name: A few days fire to save old people from freezing to death would hardly cause a major problem.
@paulinlavally@gmail.com: issue is people don’t just use fire places and stoves in emergencies
@Name: More people with dementia due from taking anti psychotic drugs in the UK alone (1,800) per year than people in Ireland who die from so-called air pollution related effects.
Please get your facts right, I have been measuring air quality in various places over the last year, it’s astonishing how many ‘leisure’ areas which encourage visiting and physical exercise have far worse readings (by a multiple of up to 7) than a congested street during school traffic.
@Athena: not outright dismissing what you say, but there are so many non sequiturs and false comparisons in your comment, I’m not sure where to start
@Name: tell China and India that then.
@paulinlavally@gmail.com: chimneys were not banned but you wouldn’t get planning with a open fireplace in the plan’s but you could put a stove it’s a closed fireplace.
@Name: nah bull
@Name: so you think people should live in the cold to sate your perception? Not go8ng to happen.
@brendan C5: nothing to do with Planning.
We should thank the people freezing in their A-rated homes and stuck at home with their EVs for saving the planet. A covid style round of applause should be organised
@common sense: I’m fairly sure that those enjoying the comfort of an A-rated home and convenience of an EV will not think or care a iota about your envy.
@common sense: lots of them can run their homes off the ev car battery haha
@Name: They’re currently running their A rated homes using their EVs
@Thesaltyurchin: what happens when the power in the EV goes ya won’t have enough to get to the charging station that would be out of power, alot Filling stations have backup generators.
what happens if you lose your keys and fall in a well?’… I cant account for morons who don’t now how to tie their own laces can I
@common sense: I dont think anyone living in a very well insulated home with a giant backup battery parked in the driveway and solar panels on the roof is too worried about power cuts during a storm..
The people in the worst position during a power cut are those living in older houses with poor insulation and heating from a back boiler in their fireplace. Back boilers can get explodey if the electric pump isn’t running and you light the fire.
@Name: A rated homes get cold if you don’t put heat into them. Heat isn’t magicked from the air, no matter what Eamonn Ryan told you.
The green agenda has wrecked this country. I have my stove. No one will make me part with it but carbon taxes means I pay more to run it. I would have frozen without it. I will be putting it on again shortly as power gone again. Estimated time it will be back: Saturday 1pm.
@Rita McCarthy: no need to be overdramatic. The so-called “green agenda” wants better insulated and more energy efficient homes. This means your stove would go a lot further, using up less fuel. You’d also receive subsidies for your solar/battery/EV setup, which can keep your lights on and fridge running. It’s about more than just carbon taxes.
@Rita McCarthy: you wouldn’t be freezing without it if they built your home with better insulation, something these green agenda folks are advocating for.
@Name: No government subsidies for battery storage any more, power companies lobbied against it. They want you to sell your excess power to the them instead of storing it. So they can sell it back to you for 2x the price.
I always have a supply of candles and matches also candle stick holders, , batteries for flash lamp and radio, a small 2 ring gas breakfast cooker with full sized gas cylinder ,a bag of coal, fire lighters, kindling and logs for my open fire.
@Anne: It’s common sense.
@Athena: I was born in 1945. Learned to be resourceful and resilient.
Diesel generator. Job sorted
@Shimo F: not everyone has one, wants one or has the space for one. It also sits idle most of the time. My mate’s one wouldn’t kick as it wasn’t used for so long.
Modern EVe can now supply your home grid. This has been deployed by people around the country apparently.
@Name: “your mate” should have serviced it like you do any appliance or vehicle. It’s not rocket science.
@Tony: yet another appliance to buy/service/store and one that is almost never used. TBH, I prefer the EV solution. Less noisy and polluting also.
@Name: An EV is less polluting than a diesel generator? Lol. Don’t think so bud.
@Name: you have to charge an EV , pray tell how you do that if you have no electricity?
@Chop Chop: please sit half an hour in a garage with a running diesel generator. I’ll do the same with an EV. Looking forward to the results.
@Ollie Fitzpatrick: drive to a location where they do have electricity? You can run your house 3-5 days on an EV battery. You’d probably have to drive more to get diesel for your generator.
@Name: oh well, fail to prepare, prepare to fail. My genny kept the house warm and the lights on while waiting for ESB to fix fault. I also discovered the gunny was very cheap to run on the green desiel
@Shimo F: each to their own. I’d prefer not to have to think about it. Genuine question, what’s the deal with hooking up the house to a generator? Can you isolate the house from the grid? Live in the city myself, so haven’t had the storm-related power outages.
@Name: I’m talking carbon footprint of both, including manufacture.
@Shimo F: Natural gas apparently will be ‘easier to get in a disaster situation’, tho I don’t believe it, diesel all the way. Well, solar or wind when cheaper/better but for now Diesel.
Watching people streaming back to where their homes were in Gaza,whole place blitzed and listening to Irish citizens without power or water for a period expecting someone to appear at their door with a hot meal.Two different worlds
@Ray Martin: Such whataboutry.
@Ray Martin: maybe if more of us particularly politicians paid more attention to our own country, we wouldn’t be in this mess. Estimated time for power back where I live Sat 1pm. That might be trivial to you but not to me or my neighbours.
@Harry Paisley: I do.
The consequences of Eamonn Ryan’s delusional world view laid bare. Even though they got what they deserved at the polls people will still vote for this nonsense.
@Matt D:
No question Ryan can come up with some fairly delusional stuff but 90% of the environmental rules brought in by the last government came from the EU and Paris climate agreement. Pretty much all of those laws will stay and there are plenty more coming, including further increases to carbon taxes agreed in the programme for government.
@Matt D: so the subsidies to insulate your house, use solar power/batteries for your home and buy an EV with which you can now power your home were a bad idea?
@Name: Solar oanels are rarely mentioned, trusting that they weren’t damaged by the storm then surely you still have electricity and the ESB wants to buy excess energy created off of people with solar panels. There are other choices to fires etc but some focus completely on the negatives. Scientists don’t have an agenda but to share their research and we saw exactly what is happening with the last storm and it will only get worse unless we change our ways as a collective. What I don’t understand is why we’re doing it so last when this was known as far back as at least the ’70′s, we’re paying for delaying in reacting to the damage we’ve caused to this planet.
@P. J.: yes, but we shouldn’t have signed up to the Paris Agreement. Certainly not without a referendum.
Also anyone who doesn’t have an open fire should consider a Superser gas heater. Can be got fairly cheap.
“Climate science tells us that storms like Éowyn are not just a one-off. They’re a preview of what is to come.”
Misinformation. Data from Met Eireann shows that wind gusts are decreasing overall.
Malin Head for example: https://x.com/SnowbieWx/status/1883590345772199980/photo/1
Dublin Airport another example: https://x.com/SnowbieWx/status/1882488201954378195/photo/1
Day counts of 100kmph+ at these two stations with a long history shows there is a decrease.
@Laois Weather: hmm, I’d rather listen to meteorologists than X-users with an agenda TBH
@Laois Weather: Quoting X as a source really helps show your credibility
@Name: “data from Met Eireann”… Duh
@Chop Chop: selectively chosen and presented data. Come on, you’re not that stupid
@Name: You must be new here. He is.
@Jack Hayes: How rude.
@Chop Chop: I just said “you’re not that stupid”. Pretty kind of me IMO
@Laois Weather: …climate science is more complicated than this. Individual gusts of winds vs extreme weather events becoming more common and more extreme is kind of different.
@Laois Weather: I have seen the interesting graph that Sryan posted but strangely I’ve been seeing an increase in power cuts in my area of east Galway in the last 10 years.
That could be due to less esb maintenance though? Or could we be seeing a recent increase in wind speeds?
@Laois Weather: Honestly, study windy.com for a few weeks, the ocean in front of us gets some wild storms.
@Name: he is
This is what happens when an ideology trumps practicality. The fact that people are only talking about this now after the event shows the groupthink behind decisions made by our public sector and government. We were told there would be more frequent and more powerful storms due to climate change and yet none of the very well paid people sitting on all these committees could see where problems could arise. The government in their wisdom even got rid of the grants for battery storage.
It’s sort of bonkers really, for all the beautifully worded rhetoric we are still shoeless in the bog, lol!… The irony of this article is that society does not want people to live like Mr. Gardner, they want you buying off plans, a walk from your work.
Depending on the type of EV you can run the basics of your house from it for 4-5 days.
@Me Me: Except it wouldn’t.
@Ger Whelan: you missed the news article where EV owners around the country were doing exactly this
@Me Me: is it easy to recharge your EV from a generator if you drained it too much after the 5 days?
@Me Me: what about if it wasn’t charged?
@Hector turtlehead: cant account for dopers
@Hector turtlehead: I don’t know about you but the fact that they gave us the warning about the storm 4 days in advance meant that I charged my EV, power banks for recharging phones etc. I did what was suggested & you know, prepared.
@Me Me: not at a 3kw limit you’re not. A few appliances, yes, but far from a whole house.
Some reasonably sensible recommendations in the article, with the exception of installing a gas hob instead of electric one. The harm to your health and potential dangers from a gas hob outweigh the low risk and inconvenience of a power outage. There was an article about how people are now using their EVs to power their home. That is pretty sustainable. You can literally drive your sizeable battery to a place you can charge it and bring it home again.
@Name: Halfords sell very handy camping gas stoves that I use for cooking in power cuts.
@Name: the house uses most of the power and you mightn’t have enough to get to a charger and then it might be busy and you will be waiting for an hour or two.
@brendan C5: You under estimate how much power an EV battery holds. The average Irish household uses 14kwh per day. A Hyundai Ioniq 5 (a popular EV in Ireland) for example comes with a 63 or 84kwh battery. That’s 4-6 days of backup power. Easily power your house for 3 days and have enough power left to go refill the batteries at a charge station.
@Name: nope. You’re forgetting the public chargers don’t work in a power cut either. At least with an ICE vehicle the fuel is portable and can come to it, if required, in a can or tank. You can’t do that with an EV
Well, I believe we are importing Peat from Brazil to run the generators that we are supposedly running on green energy. Only a bum would believe it’s good. It’s a fad. As someone who had no power for the same reason.
Overall, a few good ideas such as solar to battery, water etc… however these are easiest to integrate at the house design stage.
I live in a heat pump house. If the electrics go I’m screwed.
@michael powell: get a generator. A family I know have a heat pump but got a generator as a backup it’s been used a lot in the last few years during winter blackouts over the last few years.
So you have a family with a 50k EV car. Yet the electric is delivered by overhead wire that is regularly knocked over by bad weather.
Put the cables underground you simpletons.
@Hector turtlehead: all new built estates the last 20 odd years have all electricity cables under ground, the problem is getting the power from stations/sub stations requires over head csbles,as to run them under ground would mean crossing over huge amounts of private owned land, so getting a pilon on private land is alot easier and cost effective.
100% the ESB should be the back up.
This guy is a bit of an idiot to be perfectly honest. Look, we need to face up to the fact that there is no “climate crisis.” NASA has said that there is no increase in the strength and frequency of storms and hurricanes and the EPA’s own Palmer Index has shown that there is no increase in the frequency of droughts either. The temperatures went up first and then there was the increase in carbon dioxide. You can’t say that A causes B if B happened first. Whether it was the crippling energy inflation in 2022 or the collapse of our power grid response during the current storm season, it’s pretty clear that full steam ahead with fossil fuels is the only correct answer. Scrap the carbon tax, scrap the energy regulations for houses and allow people to freely cut turf again and buy any car.
See Global hotspots of climate-related disasters 2024 International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction Donatti et al.
“The percentage of countries’ populations impacted by all types of climate-related disasters did not significantly change through time…” “……countries with a low and very high level of development, showed a significant decrease in the number of events through time, whereas countries with medium and high levels of human development did not. Countries in Africa, Europe and North America showed significant decreases in the number of events from climate-related disasters through time, whereas the number of events from climate-related disasters that happened in countries in Asia, Australia and South America did not significantly change through time.”
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