WINTER HEAT

  Hope I would rather take my chances in the winter with a wood burning stove.  If you can afford to have it converted I would.  The less dependent we are on the system the better off we will be.

We don't have access to pine cones here unless we buy them at a store so we make our own fire starters. We take a cardboard egg carton. Fill up each section with dry sawdust (from when we are cutting wood). Then we take a cheap candle and melt it down. We pour the liquid wax over the sawdust in each of the sections. Let it dry and when you need one, you just break off a section and there you do. They burn for a long time.

Sorry I didn't get back to this one sooner Mary Kay. We fill each of them enough to completely cover the sawdust. We've never stirred them before. I just make sure the all the sawdust is covered on the top with wax. As it hardens you can see where you missed and just pour a little more on that area.

Diane~yes, we use the recycled paper egg cartons. Once they have the wax in them, they break off very easily. We usually manage to keep a fire in our stove all the time but I've had the occasion that the coals weren't hot enough to get it going very well. I'd just throw one of these on the coals and they'd either catch that way or I'd light them. I wouldn't go through a winter without at least an 18 pack of these. I believe we currently have 5 of the 18 packs so I should be good for quite a while, unless we use them to start our cooking fires outside in the fire pit. I may need to get more made.

Daydreamer thank you for the fire starter tip.  I made some a couple days ago and they turned out great.  I didn't have sawdust so I used some hamster bedding (new of course) and worked perfectly. 

I bought a 55gallon metal drum for fuel. where can I buy clean burning kerosene for my keresene heater for cheap.

Lowes Home Improvement has 100lb Propane tanks for (US) $80.00 

Gilmore wrote: Lowes Home Improvement has 100lb Propane tanks for (US) $80.00

I have the impression that the 100# propane tanks use different fittings and hoses than the standard barbeque 20# tanks.  Is that correct, and if so, are there adaptors available so you can use 100# tanks with things like a Coleman stove or a Mr. Heater Buddy heater?  Thanks for any info.

Gilmore wrote: Setting up a tent in your house reduces the amount of space needed to heat if you lose power/heating capability. Just pretend you're camping. . . Don't forget to drain the water lines so they don't freeze

nettie4263 wrote: How do you drain the water lines??

    
First shut the water off to the entire house. Can be done at a valve near the meter (probably near street) or there should be a valve just before water enters your home.

Find the lowest AND highest point in your water pipes where there are valves. Open the highest one. This will bleed off any pressure that remained in the line after you shut off the entire house.

Then, open the lowest valve and HOPEFULLY most of the water in between will drain out. . . This won't be completely drained because of elbows (90 & 45's) that may be higher / lower.

Then if you are really ambitious, force air into the "highest" valve to push remain water out.

Then, again if you even more ambitious, use a wet / dry shop vac and suck the air / water out of the "lowest" valve.

Then, open and close ALL the valves in the house to get anything that was in a "riser" that didn't get drained.

Make sure you do both hot and cold water lines.

Also make sure you empty the water heater.

Also the hose faucets outside your house. . .

WHEW,
Gilmore
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