On Mon, 31 Dec 2012 07:03:48 -0800, Larry Jaques
wrote:

On Mon, 31 Dec 2012 08:23:19 -0500, "Jim Wilkins"
wrote:

"Larry Jaques" wrote
On Sun, 30 Dec 2012 19:47:07 -0500, "Jim Wilkins"
wrote:

...Running water for them was sending the little girl running
to my house to fill a jug from the outside faucet I left on all year
round. The son would be lying in the dirt working under an old
pickup
truck without a coat when it was spitting snow. One winter
relatives(?) lived in the wrecked vehicles out back in the woods. I
can live simply, but not like THAT.

Ouch!

In practice the worst that happens here is a week with the roads
blocked by trees that are tangled in the power wires, which keeps us
from clearing them. I can live like the natives if I'm healthy.
Currently I'm trying to work out how to manage if sick or injured, ie
the minimum effort to keep the wood stove supplied and its chimney
clean. Both would be easy except for the snow.

That's just one more good reason not to live in snow country, AFAIC.

I have to figure out a better way to heat my home (during an
emergency) without a wood stove. I took a insert out. I hate smoke,
and 99.9% of all wood stoves and inserts smoke up the house. All
owners of wood stoves (and dogs) say "Oh, my stove doesn't smoke/dog
doesn't bark." and only about 1/2 of one percent are NOT in denial.

I quit smoking 25 years ago next Feb. and my lungs are sensitive to
pollution now. I'm thinking that my little 12v heater might work in
the tent inside the house. Or I might have to get another solar array
and battery to add to the massive 45 full, manly watts I now have.


There are a number of ways to heat your living areas..and the big one
is.."minimize them"

In the case of a power failure when your heater blower is down etc
etc...move your living area into the kitchen. Hang blankets or old
sleeping bags from the doors leading to the rest of the house to seal
the kitchen off from the rest of the house. Then use your (gas) stove
to keep the kitchen warm. You DO have a gas stove..right? Or a Gas
Oven?
If not..you could...could be well and truely ****ed when it gets
cold. Pull a couch or recliner into the kitchen to sleep in. You do
have Co2/CO detectors..right? Put one in the kitchen before closing
off the rest of the house.

If you live in an Electric House..you have another complication or 10,
besides higher costs for power in most of the US.

At this point..your best move is to seal off a bedroom with a bathroom
from the rest of the house and after opening a window AND making sure
your CO2/CO detector is working...depending on the outside
temps...either use a Coleman type gas heater or a dozen candles to
heat just that room. Having a bathroom means you can use the terlet
as long as you keep a faucet running and if your water supply freezes
up..you can use the water you filled the bathtub with. You did fill
the bathtube..right?

**** in a 5 gallon bucket and keep adding a bit of kitty litter after
each "deposit" and when its filled, take it out and dump it in the
garden, then reuse the bucket as your toilet.

Try to avoid traveling through the rest of the house very often as you
will be bleeding off heat into the other rooms. "air locking" with
blankets/sleeping bags on both sides of a door helps keep things from
bleeding off.

Move in your food, drinking fluids, hobby materials, books, laptop etc
etc.in the fall. Long before you suddenly find the power off and the
furnace dead.

Hopefully the bedroom will be at the front of your home..so you can
watch the front of the house for activities and issues. Simply put a
layer of painters plastic on the outside of the window and the inside
of the window..so the window doesnt become a heat pump..this assuming
you arent double/triple paned already.

It really doesnt take a lot of "energy" to heat a single bedroom,
particularly a small one. In many cases..2 people can do it with just
body temperature down to about 20F..add a couple dogs/cats and a TV
and it can be warm enough to survive comfortably. If the room is well
insulated, both ceiling, walls and floors..it can be kept quite warm
well down to the minus numbers F. with just body activity. Each human
being generally puts out as much heat as a 200 watt light bulb with
light activity..so all you do is trap it in the room with you.
Remember..heat goes to the ceiling..so it will be colder..often much
colder at floor level. Bunk beds are quite good if you have one. Sleep
on the top bunk. Its going to be the warmest spot in the house.

You DO have pets..right? You should at the least..have a nice big
golden retreiver or other big Warm dog. Someone to talk to, someone
to be an early warning system and a companion in your life.

That being said..you can and SHOULD make a "heat spreader"

Take a 8-12" piece of black plastic PVC or cardboard tube, about 7'
long, and put a 4-6 inch 6 or 12vt muffin fan, or a number of them
and mount them at the top or bottom of the pipe. Stand it up in a
corner and run the fans, so they pull the air down from the ceiling
and push it out at floor level. It doesnt take much fan to get a cycle
going and keeping that warm air moving from the ceiling back to the
floor, where your toes are.

Save your 45 watts for powering the muffin fans, the radio and a LED
lamp or two for reading, popping zits and counting the holes in the
ceiling tiles when fits of boredom set in.

One assumes that you will be using those massive watts to charge at
least a couple 12vt batteries, right? If not..when the sun goes down
or the clouds are overhead...you have zippo for power. Stock up on
batteries, stock up on Coleman fuel and mantals. Add some batteries to
your megawatt power system.

During cold weather..close off that room and open a window and let it
cool off nicely. Then test all of your preps and make sure they will
take care of your situation when the power goes off. Better to do it
when you can experiment, then when you are suddenly in the dark and
nothing has been staged.

Everything above..Ive used in some of the coldest badlands in the US
and survived quite nicely. I grew up in an area that the average
winter temp during the day..was -20F..on a warm day. And Ive seen it
-80F with a good wind blowing.

Gunner

The methodology of the left has always been:

1. Lie
2. Repeat the lie as many times as possible
3. Have as many people repeat the lie as often as possible
4. Eventually, the uninformed believe the lie
5. The lie will then be made into some form oflaw
6. Then everyone must conform to the lie