The fifth volume in a series of books opening up Low-tech Magazine’s archive by theme.
Around the 17th century, the Dutch started reinforcing their dykes and harbours with sturdy mats the size of football pitches – hand-woven from thousands of twigs grown on nearby coppice plantations. These “fascine mattresses” were weighted with rocks and sunk into canals, estuaries, and rivers.
From the Neolithic to the beginning of the twentieth century, coppiced woodlands, pollarded trees, and hedgerows provided people with a sustainable supply of energy, materials, and food.
Wood stoves equipped with thermoelectric generators can produce electricity that is more sustainable, more reliable, and less costly than power from solar PV panels.
The fire – which we have used in our homes for over 400,000 years – remains the most versatile and sustainable household technology that humanity has ever known.
The heat storage hypocaust could keep a room warm for days with just one firing of the furnace.
Most modern heating systems are primarily based on the heating of air. This seems an obvious choice, but there are far worthier alternatives.
A fireless cooker doubles the efficiency of any type of cooking device because it shortens the time on the fire and limits heat transfer losses
Despite technological advancements since the Industrial Revolution, cooking remains a spectacularly inefficient process.
Virtually all human cultures have made baskets, and have apparently done so since we co-existed with ground sloths and sabre-toothed cats.
Almost all of the leading economies in Western Europe during the last millenium relied on a large-scale use of fossil fuels such as peat and coal.
Not so long ago, each profession or trade had adopted the knots best suited to its requirements, and knotting was part of their daily lives.