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Woo, county-wide power outage right before Christmas, with no bad weather associated with it like usual (just a single digit freeze). If it's someone's resistance op I wish him the best of luck: this is a great target.
Seems like a good time to break out the laptop, curl up by the wood stove, and finish the culture war side of "why forcing everyone to only have electric heat with no form of backup allowed by law may be a bad policy choice."
Not that anyone with any power cares what the consequences are.
Edit: Christmas Eve, and power's out again for at least half the day. Only a day between outages.
Simply become rich and live in SoCal, as all quality people must do.
Shorts and sandals 365 days a year, BAE-BEE
For real though do houses in your area commonly have fireplaces or cast iron stoves or some such for backup, or some other gridless system?
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Just one comment, many heating systems that use other fuel such as gas or wooden pellets also rely on electro-mechanical components. So do not be surprised when your heat pump becomes useless during blackout - of course it does when there is no electricity for water/air circulation.
I do have a tiled wood stove with an oven where I can heat food/water and that also serves as additional heating element (when open) in case of extreme cold. I did install it for monetary but also house microclimate reasons. But lately I am more fond of how robust this old piece of technology is to various shocks and SHTF scenarios. I have no regrets for sure.
Btw, I would love to see a pic of your stove model. I've been frustrated by my new one being unusable for anything more than warming pots of water, because the top is basically an aluminum duct for hot air flow.
You could cook a steak on my old one if it wasn't so disgustingly coated in soot lol.
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For personal warmth, I've been leaning on a vintage Jon-E giant hand warmer. I know Zippo makes similar and so do other Chinese manufacturers. This category of hand warmer is new to me and I am loving it. It runs on naphtha (Zippo fluid, V&PM Naptha at the hardware store, or camping "White Gas") and has a platinum catalyst that, once heated, catalyzes the naphtha fumes to produce substantial heat for 8+ hours per fill. There's no flame, and you can restrict its oxygen substantially, so it's quite happy in a pocket or under the blankets. There's something almost magical about the amount of energy in liquid fuel.
"Chinese import wearable zippo heater" sounds like the setup to a morbid joke about why they call that guy "Johnny No-hands"
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Yeah, even this basic wood stove has an electric fan for better heat transfer (although it's obnoxious enough that I never use it). A lot of people get surprised when their gas furnaces and such also go out in a power cut, and don't learn to use any manual backups the equipment has.
Simple options really are the best, at least as a fallback.
A friend of mine who had a wood stove had a fan that was powered by the warmth of the stove (it sat on top). The fan would blow as the stove warmed up, and stop when it cooled. Pretty cool, and might be a good addition to your setup for days without power.
These are Stirling engine fans, and they don’t do much more compare to regular convection (they simply don’t have a lot of power to move substantial amount of air). They’re really cool, though, I love Stirling engines.
Yeah, I remember seeing a thermodynamic analysis of them and being devastated that such a cool idea didn't really work.
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I have classical Tirol tiled woodstove that does not rely on any electricity or other sensitive components. I even asked for automatic doors for management of air toward the fire, but I was discouraged from it in the end. The argument used was simple: there are wood stoves hundreds of years old that work just fine even today. A motor that opens/closes the door maybe lasts 5 or 10 years if I am lucky and it will give me just additional headaches when it inevitably breaks. The guy gave me guarantee of free inspection with the promise that the stove will definitely outlast my house. I was sold immediately :D
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Which country? sounds very European, but I can't find anything on the news.
"Single digit freeze" immediately outs an American using Fahrenheit.
I assumed he meant between -1 to -9
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Could be -1…-9 C.
Yeah, it could be that as well, now that I think of it. All of this could be avoided if people just said x C/F.
Aggressively assume Kelvin.
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County, not country.
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I prefer "shire" to "parish".
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Oooh that makes a lot more sense.
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I grew up in an old house in the countryside, where almost every room had an old fireplace. My family only kept one of them going, but it was right below my bedroom, so I was very cosy in the winters. We also lived in a wood with a surplus of dead trees, fallen branches, twigs etc., so there was far more wood to burn than we ever needed. I knew the process of dessicating, cutting, and burning wood before I could read or write. It was a shock to me when, as a child, it gradually dawned on me that not everyone lived this way.
Power cuts were also frequent when I was growing up, though after the electricity system was privatised and there was finally some investment in the electricity infrastructure of my local area, these became less common. (Putting electricity wires below ground is a good idea if there are trees everywhere...) An electricity-only world would have meant a lot of cold winter nights.
One thing I've noticed is that, having lived most of my life since childhood in cities, I have never fully adjusted. Last night, I looked up to the sky to tell if was a clear night and I should prepare for it to be relatively cold, but couldn't tell because of light pollution. I still hate the experience of being unable to see constellations on even the clearest night. I can hardly blame city-dwellers for being similarly unable to grok rural life, but that's one reason for decentralising a lot of decisions to the relevant types of area.
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Hoping things go a little smoother in Texas this year. Not terribly optimistic given the government's response last time around.
Got any tips for stocking up accordingly? I don't think my apartment will tolerate an actual wood-burner.
Texas appears to be going much better than it did two years ago.
I'm not personally surprised: the 2021 storm was a particularly unlikely event that was worse than this one in multiple ways. That storm came with heavy early freezing rain, causing power lines and wind turbines (especially ones in South Texas not adapted for anti-icing) to fail even from the start: this one has been pretty dry. Two years ago Texas saw multiple inches of snow, making transport difficult in areas that largely see snow accumulation once-or-so a generation, and covering solar panels: it's sunny today. A NPSH sense line installed improperly in 1988 caused one of the state's 4 nuclear reactors to go offline: this worked for more than three decades of weather conditions, but was fixed after 2021.
Although I occasionally saw it mocked on social media, temporary insulation and tarps at power plants apparently do work, probably in the same way that wrapping exterior pipes on houses can be quite effective: often it's only a handful of degrees that keep pipes from freezing.
For anyone interested, the ERCOT dashboard tracks energy supply and demand in realtime.
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A lot of people I know are using portable propane. It's like burning money and has a carbon monoxide risk if it's not burning fully, but it stores well and you can use it for your cook stove and generator too. Definitely worth having a CO alarm for, and maybe an HRV to vent some of the moisture.
I couldn't live without a wood stove. Can't beat free heat just from cleaning up fallen trees, and somehow it feels cozier than anything else.
Been meaning to talk to people here about battery backups. Fiber modem keeps working during an outage, but it's like 20+ watts vs just tethering a phone for 1-3 watts; requires a big jump from a 90watt-hr UPS to a proper power system. There's lots of little convenience loads batteries can help with, like 15w house lights.
I ran out of time to build a battery system this fall that's sized right for running basic lights+electronics loads with intermittent generator charging. So I'm stuck with Ryobi battery lights this time, which are admittedly awesome.
Ideally I'd want to run the genny only once a day to keep the batteries and freezers topped up, recharge any electric tool batteries, and maybe pump some well water if the storage is low.
Vent moisture? Here where I am, the temperature is below freezing now, which is rather unusual, and my heat pump struggles a bit to keep up. Thus, I’m running a boiling pot of water non stop on big burner on my gas range, to both add extra heat with cheap gas, but also to add extra moisture, in 50% relative humidity range. Without it, and without my big air humidifier, it’s like 20%, which makes everyone in my family cough a lot and get skin issues.
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It definitely is cozier. If you burn wood, you also basically ventilate the whole house in matter of minutes including all the vapors out of your chimney. You then create the area of lower pressure in your house, so instead of your warm high pressure and moist air going against your roof/walls (creating mold), you have the opposite effect when the air is going the opposite way from the outside to the inside through various mircrospaces. Plus good wood stove heats also via infrared waves, which is much more comfortable. You have cooler air around your body but you absorb heat from infrared - similar to how some sunny autumn days feel comfortable if you are outside even if the air temperature is low.
I have to say that wood stove is the most comfortable source of heat, not only directly but also creating this good microclimate in the house.
I only started appreciating this after switching to the heat pump. Airing out the house daily is now mandatory, and it really needs a ventilator fan.
And yeah, I wonder about what it'll do to the wall lifespan. I don't want to have to buy plywood at these prices!
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