Ancient Web: James Dulley Kept the Energy-Savings Newspaper Column Online

Part of the Ancient Web Collection.

Before every appliance came with a comparison video and a dozen affiliate links, James Dulley was explaining the machinery of ordinary houses in a syndicated newspaper column. His website still resembles a filing cabinet for that work.

Visit James Dulley's home-energy archive

Dulley describes himself as a mechanical engineer, environmentalist, do-it-yourselfer, and author of the $ensible Home and Cut Your Utility Bills columns. His homepage says the writing appeared in about 200 newspapers and magazines. That circulation figure is the site's own description; the surviving column index is enough to establish the size and intent of the web project without relying on it.

A paper-era library mapped into links

The 194-column bulletin list turns an enormous range of domestic problems into a browsable catalog. Air conditioning, doors, insulation, ventilation, solar cookers, fireplaces, refrigerators, lighting, geothermal heat pumps, and small electric gadgets each have numbered entries with short summaries.

One bulletin describes a plywood solar cooker and a cardboard alternative. Another offers instructions for a simple indoor or outdoor vestibule. Elsewhere are mini-split heat-pump comparisons, duct boosters, induction cooktops, and a chart of what power supplies can keep running during an outage. This is a record of energy-efficiency questions as household technology evolved.

The site does not pretend that advice and product lists never become dated. Many descriptions include model counts, product features, approximate prices, and efficiency terminology from their own period. It would be unwise to use an old list as current purchasing guidance. As technical history, though, those details show what readers were deciding between.

Navigation is wonderfully dense. There are topical lists, a word search, downloadable update bulletins, DIY reference guides, and even a tour of Dulley's own energy-efficient house. The homepage advertises his utility bills and his geothermal installation, replacing the usual stock photograph with an invitation to inspect what the writer actually did.

Some sections require purchases or old browser behavior, and this is partly a commercial author's site. It still preserves a distinctive pre-social-media approach: a specialist's long-running newspaper reference shelf, organized for readers who arrived with specific household questions.

The web did not make newspapers obsolete overnight. For a while, it made their deeply practical columns easier to find.

Browse the numbered home-energy bulletin directory.

Part of the Ancient Web Collection.