Thank goodness for wood heat

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begreen

Mooderator
Staff member
Nov 18, 2005
104,337
South Puget Sound, WA
Woke up at 5:30am, no power. Fortunately with this cold front coming in I started a good fire yesterday and kept it going. House was warm and there were plenty of coals for a restart. Power came on a few minutes ago thankfully. But the house lit by candles and firelight was a nice way to wake up.
 
One of the biggest reasons I got a stove was piece of mind. Got ours in on a Sunday...and sometime between light-off and Monday after work.... our fancy wall hung propane boiler shut itself down because of some faulty components. I never was the wiser since the house was warm.

We lose power a couple of times a winter here too... and I hate not being able to 'stay put' and have to bring my family somewhere. No longer!
 
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This is our second outage in a month. And winter has not yet begun. :rolleyes:
 
Thank goodness for a short outage.;)

I am one of those idiots during an outage that still flips on the light switch when moving from one room to another.
 
Having electric is much better than not having it. We started getting a bit concerned today with the ice accumulating. Fortunately it is supposed to warm up a bit before the north wind blows in another cold front.
 
Thank goodness for a short outage.;)

I am one of those idiots during an outage that still flips on the light switch when moving from one room to another.
;lolThat gave me a chuckle.

I have been know to go to the mailbox to get my mail.... on Thanksgiving Day!
;em
 
From 2007 until 2010 we had outage after outage here. Several a month, several a year for 24hours to several days, and I finally broke down and bought a generator and installed a transfer switch.

Long story short, they finally fixed about 15 miles of road where trees were just beating the poo out of the power lines, and we haven't been out more than a few minutes since the generator came home!

Luckily, it's had lots of other uses to keep the fuel fresh, guess it's like bringing an umbrella on a day there is a chance of showers.

Stove was always part of the equation, I was just sick of going without water (we have a private well) and getting concerned about stored freezer contents.

Glad you are in good shape now BG

pen
 
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I live in marshfield ma last winter when we got nailed by that storm lost power for a week I had a 30 yr old gas range so I still had the oven and stove. I have an older on demand gas hot water heater that runs on a pilot flame so I still had hot water and had my dutchwest stove hooked up like 2 weeks before. Our living room was cramped but had heat hot water and an oven. It actually wasn't too bad
 
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I am one of those idiots during an outage that still flips on the light switch when moving from one room to another.

I do it for days. ;em
 
muscle memory is strong.
 
Jags and BB, very funny! I do it too and then I look around afterwards to see if anyone caught me doing it.....then think how weird I am.
 
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Totally agree. A few years we had a really bad snow storm in Feb and we lost power for approximately 4 days in our street. Several trees down all over town and in the county. The power company just could not keep up. We were very thankful for the wood I had gathered the years prior and our wood stove. Having a generator to run our pellet stove was also one of the best decision we ever made. There is something about having a hot fire that gives us a sense of security and comfort.
 
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After hurricane Sandy, in NJ I had no power and no heat for 14 days. My wife went to PA where the power was our for 3 days but she had the wood stove.

I now have a small generator that will run the house, one item at a time. I have it setup to plug in.

Be Green and all, for lighting backup take a look what's out there now with LED's. I found battery powered LED table top lanterns that will run for days with 4 AA batteries. Battery life unused is many years.
 
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We have several generations of supplemental lighting dating back to Aladdin lamps, Coleman lanterns and up to modern LED lights. The Cree variety are great for task lighting, but the Coleman lamp is king for bright overall light.
 
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Yea I try and flush the toliet when I dont have water also.

LOL ... we had a long outage a few years ago. We'd been without power for a day and the forecast was for a few more days. Figured we'd move into the camper in the driveway and enjoy the propane heat. The RV batteries (needed for the fan) were dead. No problem, I thought .... I'll just plug in and charge 'em up.

D'oh !!
 
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