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Ahr Valley: Fitters report a lack of heating for the flood area

2021-11-20T07:51:51.917Z


After the devastating flood disaster in the Ahr valley, heating systems could not be installed in all the repaired houses due to the material crisis. Fitters complain: "We have customers who are cold."


Enlarge image

Altenahr in Rhineland-Palatinate: A man walks past a hotel damaged by the flood in early November

Photo: Boris Roessler / dpa

With the cold snap, the situation for numerous flood victims on the Ahr becomes precarious. According to a craft guild, there are freezing flood victims in the disaster region - the sometimes very long delivery times for new heating systems are all the more serious. "Of course we have customers who are cold - they don't have a functioning heating system," says the head foreman of the sanitary, heating and air conditioning (SHK) guild in the Ahrweiler district, Frank Wershofen, of the dpa news agency. »When it comes to delivery times, it depends on the device. In the case of deadlines of several months, there are supplier problems: The large manufacturers of heating systems do not get enough semiconductors. That's the international chip shortage, "explains the head of a flood-damaged SHK company in Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler.

During the floods on July 14th and 15th, after heavy rain in the Ahr valley, 134 people were killed and thousands of houses damaged or destroyed.

There were also floods elsewhere in Germany.

The Energy Agency Rhineland-Palatinate refers to the fact that they were "almost everywhere" in the Ahr Valley with questionnaires in order to record the need for heating.

"Mobile single or heating network transitional solutions" were also offered.

Heating companies in Germany also delivered "priority to the flood areas".

According to the Energy Agency, the number of inquiries due to insufficient heat supply on the Ahr is now falling.

Tiny houses as emergency aid

Ahr municipalities are increasingly organizing heated emergency shelters for flood victims without long-term, warm alternative quarters. Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler, for example, has ordered 64 "tiny houses" with 34 square meters of living space each for up to five residents. Sinzig, Grafschaft and the Altenahr community also rely on mini-houses like this. In addition, a container village is being built in Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler. "There are 16 three-way solutions, each with a kitchen and a bathroom in a middle container and two outer containers," said city spokesman Michael Rennenberg.

District craftsman Wershofen explained that a new high-pressure natural gas pipeline had been put into operation in the lower Ahr valley around Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler.

"But over 3,000 gas meters have not yet been installed in the houses." There are also emergency solutions here.

In the wine villages of the middle and upper Ahr, the citizens used heating oil and liquefied gas to heat up until the flood.

Now there is a hodgepodge of individual solutions, for example with wood stoves, electric or pellet heating.

"Two hands can only process a certain amount at a time"

Wershofen, who, in his own words, currently works seven days a week and receives more than 100 customer inquiries every day, warns of rash heating solutions: “A system must also fit the house.

Usually it's meant to last 15 or 20 years. "

The Koblenz Chamber of Crafts protested against statements that were often heard that there were too few heating engineers.

It refers to its website - this is where specialist companies from all over Germany offer their services.

The access numbers show, according to the Chamber, "that about 80 percent of the artisans

say

>

We still have capacity

<

".

Egon Linden, a flood-damaged heating fitter in Heppingen, a district of Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler, said: “In the Ahr valley, you can actually see heating fitters with license plates from completely different places.

That is a big help.

But two hands can only process a certain amount. «District tradesman Wershofen reported that» of our 55 or so guild members, 12 drowned in the flood «.

mrc / dpa

Source: spiegel

All life articles on 2021-11-20

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