The medieval marvel: 14th century Hungarian stove cuts my monthly gas bill to just £5

With gas and electricity bills soaring, energy firms are ploughing millions into cutting-edge technology.



However, according to this man, they might be better off taking some tips from the Middle Ages.



Peter Breuer has cut his gas bill from £20 to £5 a month by heating his house with a Hungarian stove based on a 14th century design.

Peter Breuer is dwarfed by his money-saving tile stove

The 80-year-old grandfather says it is so effective at warming up his house that he has been able to switch off his central heating.



It uses just one small bundle of wood - which he often gets free from local tradesmen - to keep his home snug for an entire day.



'I live in a sizeable house and that's one of the reasons I had to fit the stove,' said Mr Breuer, a retired Customs and Excise lawyer who lives in Westcliff-on-Sea, near Southend in Essex.



'Even with previous prices I couldn't afford to keep heating my house.



'With most stoves you put some wood in and you get a nice little fire but as soon as the flame's gone down, the heat disappears.



'But a tile stove works as a storage heater because there is a great mass of masonry inside which heats up and radiates heat through the tiles.



Nice and warm and it doesn't cost a fortune to heat the house

'It keeps you warm for around 12 hours. It also has a little stove so you can bake potatoes and other things in one of the hatches.'



Mr Breuer added that he has an electric water heater, so the only gas he uses is for cooking on the hob.



He had the Hungarian stove fitted for £3,000 last autumn, around the same as it costs to install central heating.



With the average family now spending £750 a year on gas, such a heater could save them £500 a year - meaning it would pay for itself in six years.



The stoves are virtually unheard of in Britain but have been popular in Hungary, Germany, Switzerland, northern Italy and Scandinavia since the 14th century.



Tile stoves are one of the oldest types of heater - they have been popular in parts of Europe since the 14th century

Mr Breuer said he was familiar with tile stoves because his grandparents had lived in Hungary and he owned a house there.



He was unable to find anyone in the UK with the skills to build one so a team of friends drove a van filled with materials from the country last year.



They took two days to finish the job at his three-bedroom detached house.