68. How Moldavians Stay Warm

In Moldova there are four ways that I’ve seen to keep your house warm during the winter:

Electricity: I’ve seen small heaters around to keep rooms and offices warm, but I have not seen electricity as a means to heat an entire house.

Gas: My host family has a gas water heater which is used to heat the radiators and the sink water. This gas water heater does not have a larger hot water storage tank like many in the US; it heats the water as it is being used.

Sobă (wood stove): I would describe it as an enclosed fireplace/wood burning stove built into a wall. They usually have metal rings on the top of the stove, so you can use its heat to cook. People will burn wood, trash, corn cobs and the stalks of sunflowers for heat. Unlike a fireplace, it is completely enclosed with one door to take out the ashes and put in more material to burn. Depending on the size of the house, there could be 1 to 3 stoves because they can only heat the rooms which are on each side of the wall they are built into.

Fire heated boiler/outdoor wood stove: Generally just large buildings such as schools have boilers, but one of my friends has a small boiler system set-up at his house. There is usually a building outside of the building/home which has a metal cylinder which is where the fire is started (the fuel is usually wood or straw) around the cylinder with the fire is water being pumped in a larger cylinder, the heated water moves into the building and heats it through radiators and then returns to the boiler.