Second heating period after the flood: Another cold winter for the people in the Ahr Valley

A year ago, many people in the Ahr Valley were afraid of winter: heating systems and supply lines had been destroyed by the flood. A warm apartment is not a matter of course this year either.

While many people are currently afraid of sitting in cold apartments in winter due to the energy crisis, people in the Ahr Valley are threatened with a cold winter for the second time in a row: the flood in summer 2021 destroyed several thousand heating systems. Even more than a year after the catastrophe, there are people in the Ahr Valley who only live on the upper floor, while the lower part of their house and with it mostly the old heating system is still destroyed. Electricity-guzzling fan heaters and radiators: in constant use.

“It’s still a problem because there’s a lack of funds and trade companies are fully booked,” says Iris Münn-Buschow from Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler. In the spring and summer, she organized demonstrations by those affected by the floods because of the slow pace of reconstruction aid. One of her motivations back then was the fear of a second cold winter. Since these demonstrations, first in the district and later also in the Rhineland-Palatinate state capital of Mainz, stories from the valley have been brought to her again and again. “Many have worn down and are considering selling.”

Many houses are not yet habitable again, often gutted and therefore without a heating system, says Münn-Buschow and is certain: “People from outside the flood area, in the rest of Germany, have no idea what it still looks like here. When I stand at the window in the morning, I’m happy about every truck that brings building materials. There are a lot of them. And yet it’s still far too few.” Then she tells of an older woman in the neighborhood: “She only has one heated room. She must have imagined her old age differently.”

“Hot water bottles have become rare”

That woman is Ilse Schulzki. Luckily, her family still owns a small apartment near their half-timbered house, which was badly damaged in the flood. And fortunately, their previous tenant fell in love with a helper while cleaning up after the flood, moved in with him and terminated the lease. Schulzki and her daughter Claudia can use this apartment together.

You can heat a room with the help of a radiator. “And with the help of a hot-water bottle. I was able to get hold of one last one. Yes, they’ve actually become rare here,” says Claudia Schulzki. She smiles, although the current situation often bothers her: “We often ask ourselves how things will continue. You often have a bad day here. But when we go down the street and see the other houses, we think others are fine worse than us.”

There is a lack of technology

Her actual home was gutted after the otherwise small river Ahr flooded the ground floor. Here too: the heating system was destroyed. The supplier’s gas supply line is intact again. “The connections are there. But there’s nowhere to hang up a thermal bath because the walls aren’t finished yet,” says Claudia Schulzki.

But the thermal bath itself is also a long time coming: ordered months ago, the device still hasn’t arrived – due to a general lack of materials? Because of the gaps in the supply chain? Schulzki doesn’t know, and many in the Ahr Valley see themselves in the same situation: In individual villages in the Ahr Valley, the supply network was able to be restored right down to the individual house in an impressively short time.

But on the other side of the house wall, the technology to convert energy into heat is often missing. Gas boilers or heat pumps: in short supply. What is bothering people outside of the Ahr Valley – delivery bottlenecks due to a lack of material – is even more evident in the flooded areas.

Multiple crisis for the craft

The Rhineland-Palatinate construction industry, state government and science came together in Mainz for the second round table on “Reconstruction in the Ahr Valley”. Kurt Krautscheid, spokesman for the working group of the Rhineland-Palatinate chambers of crafts, spoke of a “complicated to difficult” situation: “Material bottlenecks and disrupted supply chains, rapidly increasing prices for purchasing, a shortage of skilled workers and inflation meet rising energy costs.” This is a multiple crisis in which the trade unfortunately also expects further, new difficulties.

These difficulties do not stop at the villages that decided to make a new start away from fossil fuels and towards renewable energies after the flood disaster. Several village communities – previously without a district heating network, only with individual heating systems in each house – have opted for local heating networks: combined heat and power plants generate energy from wood pellets or geothermal energy. This energy is distributed in the form of hot water to several residential buildings via the mains network.

But only one of 14 local heating networks is about to be commissioned. “Until the plants go into operation, we have to offer alternative solutions,” says Paul Ngahan. He advises municipalities on behalf of the state of Rhineland-Palatinate on sustainable energy supply and has been analyzing the heat and energy needs of the people in the Ahr Valley since shortly after the disaster.

50 emergency heaters in the form of mobile condensing oil boilers will be built this year to bridge the time until the local heating network is complete. And even with these construction projects there is a risk of material shortages and supply bottlenecks. Nevertheless, Ngahan is confident: “A year ago, nobody would have dreamed of being able to inaugurate a heating system after a year.”

Heating as a meeting place

Incidentally, Münn-Buschow lives with her husband in a centuries-old house. The Ahr not only flooded the living and dining room, but also the heating system. “The oil heating was repaired free of charge with the help of the passionate heating engineers. At the same time, we heat with a solid fuel burner to keep heating oil costs low.” Perhaps they want to share the happiness of having a heating system that works: “We have a large ground floor and are considering whether we shouldn’t sit here with other people on the coldest days.”