{"id":9682,"date":"2026-10-30T20:04:59","date_gmt":"2026-10-30T20:04:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=9682"},"modified":"2026-10-30T20:04:59","modified_gmt":"2026-10-30T20:04:59","slug":"crematoria-heat-homes-and-swimming-pools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=9682","title":{"rendered":"Crematoria Are Being Used to Heat Homes and Swimming Pools"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p><span class=\"lead-in-text-callout\">In 2011, Redditch<\/span> Borough Council in England tried something that hardly anyone in the UK had heard of before. Staff announced they were going to warm the local <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wired.com\/story\/ai-is-heating-the-olympic-pool\/\" class=\"text link\">swimming pool<\/a> with heat from a nearby crematorium.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">A public firestorm ensued. The plans were met with <a data-offer-url=\"https:\/\/www.abc.net.au\/news\/2011-02-09\/british-town-to-heat-pool-with-crematorium\/1935156\" class=\"external-link text link\" data-event-click=\"{&quot;element&quot;:&quot;ExternalLink&quot;,&quot;outgoingURL&quot;:&quot;https:\/\/www.abc.net.au\/news\/2011-02-09\/british-town-to-heat-pool-with-crematorium\/1935156&quot;}\" href=\"https:\/\/www.abc.net.au\/news\/2011-02-09\/british-town-to-heat-pool-with-crematorium\/1935156\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">international headlines<\/a>, and a labor union official branded them <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/uk-england-hereford-worcester-12267370\" class=\"text link\">\u201csick and an insult to residents.\u201d<\/a> (A spokesman for the union, Unison, says this was not\u2014and is not currently\u2014the organization\u2019s official position.)<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">\u201cAll you\u2019re doing is basically heating a radiator and sending the heat down a tube,\u201d says Guy Revans, of Redditch and Bromsgrove Councils, just south of Birmingham. \u201cBut death is always an emotive subject, isn\u2019t it?\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">Eventually, the relentless press coverage faded away. The project <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/uk-england-hereford-worcester-13372702\" class=\"text link\">won a green award<\/a>, and the crematorium has warmed Redditch\u2019s swimming pool <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/uk-england-hereford-worcester-23104502\" class=\"text link\">since 2013<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">Although extremely rare in North America, European countries have been harvesting warmth from crematoria for years. The total volume of heat available from crematoria is modest, but as people search for ways of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wired.com\/story\/body-farms-human-composting-climate-change\/\" class=\"text link\">reducing the environmental impact of funeral rites<\/a>, utilizing crematoria waste heat provides a way to lower their carbon intensity.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">Roughly 1,200 cremations are carried out every year in Redditch. A heat exchanger captures heat from flue gases emitted by the facility\u2019s two gas-fired ovens as part of a process to remove vaporized mercury from dental fillings, before venting the remaining gas into the atmosphere.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">That\u2019s a common process at many crematoria. In other words, excess heat is often captured by default, meaning the next question is, does it make sense to waste the heat\u2014or use it? In Redditch, the heat exchanger connects to a water loop that travels 200 meters underground, eventually reaching another heat exchanger supplying the swimming pool.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">Helpfully, such a sizable body of water \u201cacts as a heat sink\u201d, adds Revans. \u201cYou put heat into it during the day, it retains that heat for a considerable length of time.\u201d The recreation center also has gas-fired boilers that can provide more heat when necessary. Overall, the system has saved the council tens of thousands of pounds per year in fuel costs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">Similar projects have emerged elsewhere recently. A school currently under construction in Aberdeen, Scotland, <a data-offer-url=\"https:\/\/www.aberdeenlive.news\/news\/aberdeen-news\/aberdeens-new-120m-hazlehead-school-10411259\" class=\"external-link text link\" data-event-click=\"{&quot;element&quot;:&quot;ExternalLink&quot;,&quot;outgoingURL&quot;:&quot;https:\/\/www.aberdeenlive.news\/news\/aberdeen-news\/aberdeens-new-120m-hazlehead-school-10411259&quot;}\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aberdeenlive.news\/news\/aberdeen-news\/aberdeens-new-120m-hazlehead-school-10411259\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">will receive excess heat from the city\u2019s crematorium<\/a>. The crematorium already relies on waste heat to warm its own premises.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wired.com\/story\/crematoria-heat-homes-and-swimming-pools\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In 2011, Redditch Borough Council in England tried something that hardly anyone in the UK had heard of before. Staff announced they were going to warm the local swimming pool with heat from a nearby crematorium. A public firestorm ensued. The plans were met with international headlines, and a labor union official branded them \u201csick [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9683,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[202,855,288],"class_list":["post-9682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-gadgets","tag-europe","tag-heat-pumps","tag-heating"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Crematoria Are Being Used to Heat Homes and Swimming Pools - Silvybrand Lifestyle Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"European countries are leading the way harvesting heat that would otherwise be wasted as green death practices become more common.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=9682\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Crematoria Are Being Used to Heat Homes and Swimming Pools - 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