Hitaveita

By Gunnar Birgisson

Photo Credit: Mathieu Neville: Geothermal Power Plant in Iceland; Wikimedia Commons

Over the ages, Iceland offered its residents few resources to enjoy. The soil and climate rendered it difficult to grow crops for human consumption, with most farmers instead using their land to grow grass to make hay for feeding sheep and cows in winter. Aside from blueberries (see my earlier article on Berjamór), almost nothing growing in nature could be harvested and eaten raw. There was no granite for building, mostly just jagged lava rocks. There was no coal to burn, and not many trees to use for construction. There were no deer or other large land-based mammals to hunt. And the weather, particularly in winter, made life harder. 

This is a bleak picture. But finally, finally, we get to the good part. In various places, geothermal hot water bubbled up from the earth. Iceland is located on the Mid-Atlantic ridge, leading to a high degree of volcanic activity. The underground heat warms up water, which in various locations bubbles up to the surface. 

The water is close to boiling, but early on, Icelanders found ways to divert hot water streams and mix them with water from cold springs to create water that was warm but not scalding. Little pools would be constructed where people could assemble and relax, and use the water to do their washing. This was a luxury— perhaps even a necessity for many inhabitants. Think of everything that made life difficult: the limited diet, the howling wind and raging rain, the dark and dingy dwellings. At least people would occasionally be able to dip into a sublime pool of warm water.  

Moving ahead to the miraculous twentieth century and all its technological advancements that improved life in Iceland and elsewhere. In the first decade of the century, some innovators learned to channel hot water for house heating. The city of Reykjavik began drilling for hot water in the 1920s and built a distribution pipeline that connected to houses.

The hot water flows through the pipes, through the radiators attached to the walls, spreading warmth throughout the building to the descendants of the people who could only occasionally dip into the warm water. Today, there are municipal or community-owned district heating operations—Hitaveita—throughout Iceland, and more than 90% of homes and buildings in Iceland are heated through geothermal district heating. The country’s ample network of public swimming pools is likewise possible because of district heating.

While the Icelandic weather can still be awful, and the winters are just as long, our homes— the ones no longer built of dirt and lava rocks—are well-heated. Today, people take this for granted. We don’t remember anymore what it was like to be so poor and deprived.