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I think we all appreciate what fire can do for us - heat our homes, cook our food, boil our water, light our paths, or just create a cozy fireplace/firepit to sit around on chilly evenings for conversation with friends and family.
If the power grid goes down for more than just a few hours or few days, how many of you have given any thought to replacing what the utility company may someday no longer be able to provide? I won't go into the numerous reasons why this could occur, just the consequences of it. Fire and the benefits it provides are too important to leave to the vagaries of the local utility company.
Keeping all this in mind, we have begun to put aside the makings of fire and heat, items whose control will be in our own hands, not the utilities'. We have stocked up on wooden 'strike anywhere' matches, some of the longer-length matches used for wood fires, Bic lighters, several containers of lighter fluid, a nice older set of fireplace tools, leather fire gloves, bellows, and fatwood.
Fire always requires fuel, and our preparations have led us in numerous directions. We have an assortment of 20#, 30#, and 40# propane tanks, with regulator hoses. Outdoors we have 2 larger propane tanks that are in current use for the range and water heater. I have purchased 2 of the portable propane heaters made by Mr. Heater. Also have a couple of the wickless kerosene heaters, and several blue tanks to hold the fuel (stabilized). To cook, we invested in a couple of Camp Chef propane dual-burner camp stoves, which will cook a meal, boil water, and do pretty much anything else you may ask of them.
Used wood stoves of various sizes are practically being given away for free these days. Any downed limbs or trees in the area, we quickly cut into firewood. Sometimes the utility crews trim trees by the road, and I throw whatever logs I can get into the truck. I have quite an accumulation of firewood under some tarps...but we're not heating with that right now, so I guess it'll get good and dry!
Would like to hear what others are doing in this regard. Always nice to trade new ideas!
We will be heating pretty much solely with wood in our new place ,just bought a new woodstove in fact.
As to firewood,well unfortunately we do not have a good woodlot on our land,most of the trees are pine.
However,in a SHTF situation we are surrounded by woods owned by people who will in all likelihood never set foot on their property.
We have a couple of chainsaws and an axe or two,handsaws we could use in a pinch too.
On the propane front,hope to gather several more bottles and buy a couple of the 100 pound ones for the gas cook stove we have.
Once we move up to Miane, we may never go on the grid in the first place!
Will you be installing an alternate electrical system, or go without? Our plans call for 2 generators (one for back-up) to run for about 1/2 hour each morning, charging a battery bank, which will power the refrigerator and lights later in the day.
But solar and wind turbines are options, also - just more expensive ones. I know a fellow who runs his entire household on 12 volts DC. Lighting obviously is LED. I think his refrigeration is propane.
Once we move up to Miane, we may never go on the grid in the first place!
Will you be installing an alternate electrical system, or go without? Our plans call for 2 generators (one for back-up) to run for about 1/2 hour each morning, charging a battery bank, which will power the refrigerator and lights later in the day.
But solar and wind turbines are options, also - just more expensive ones. I know a fellow who runs his entire household on 12 volts DC. Lighting obviously is LED. I think his refrigeration is propane.
We heat with wood, it's guaranteed to work at all temperatures we experience (not so with propane or heating oil). We're entirely off grid, an have a two generator set up, with currently a 1000Ah 24V battery array of 12 12V deep cycles, that are about to be replaced by 4 12 V AGM batteries with the same capacity. Next year we add Solar, and possibly the year after we'll add wind. Refrigeration is provided by Ultra high efficiency SunDanzers, it runs on a 12-24V supply and will run at 80F ambient external temperatures powered entirely from a 75W solar panel. The only reason we selected this was it was designed from the get go as an off grid refridgeraton solution and the highest efficiency systems we could find that were grid tied were consuming about 150W.
Running a low voltage system can be a pain (reduces your options of applicances), however for lighting it can work, but you need to remember the copper losses for a power drain at 12V are significantly higher than copper losses for the same power drain at 110V, so what you may gain from avoiding the inverter, you may lose in the cost of the wiring (12-2 romex is about $24-$30 for a 100', 10-2 romex about $80/100', 8-3 romex about $160+/100' or increased energy costs because you're burning your power heating the wires).
Also remember that running 110v for lights opens up your options, you can use LED, QD-LED, CFL, incandescent etc. and (except specialities) pick these up at your local Wally World, for regular prices. Your battery array will not care whether the wattage for the bulb is supplied at 110V or 12V.
Once we move up to Miane, we may never go on the grid in the first place!
Will you be installing an alternate electrical system, or go without? Our plans call for 2 generators (one for back-up) to run for about 1/2 hour each morning, charging a battery bank, which will power the refrigerator and lights later in the day.
But solar and wind turbines are options, also - just more expensive ones. I know a fellow who runs his entire household on 12 volts DC. Lighting obviously is LED. I think his refrigeration is propane.
I keep resisting the urge to add solar. It has not been easy and I may still do it. However, I have to wonder if we are not too many years from having residential home fuel cells.
Been heating with wood for over a decade, around here plenty of orchard prunings are available, pick them up for free or even get paid to haul them out. These will be green and not really ready for use initially of course, but after 1-2 years out in the pasture they are good and dry. Right now don't have any good backup for mains power, and need to put in at least one hand pump for water, the good ones are expensive and so long as TSHTF does not happen, it's hard to prioritize spending on them (although of course if TSHTF, SOL if you have not already put in your hand pump...) For most people so long as it's available mains power is so cheap and within reason will run whatever you want that it's a good deal. If you go off-grid you become your own utility operations and maintenance department, and you will find out what these guys do for a living, you'll see they earn their pay.
Everyone around here in our sustainability group Sensible Simplicity Forum: Discussing Sustainability Categories is either building or hoping to build "rocket stoves". I'm planning on putting one in after I get a level lanai area dug out back. It will be part of an outdoor kitchen which will use wood fuel for cooking and water heating just in case we have a glitch in the propane supply around here like we did several years ago when there was several weeks we weren't able to get propane. The rocket stoves have a forced airflow from the way they are built and cook things with much less fuel than a regular wood stove.
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