(Indoor) SURVIVAL cooking and heating

Alan_Cross

(I have already posted this in 'in my home' but it strikes me as something much more suited to Old Style. Mods please do whatever you think best for it.)

I have put together, finally, an emergency store of equipment and food in case the lights go out big time this winter - i.e. for a considerable period measured in weeks rather than a day or two.

I now have to tackle the twin problems of heating and cooking.

Does anyone have recommendations for (this being MSE) any economical solutions?

RAS

A lot of the stuff here is useful: https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/323098

LilacLillie

Alan_Cross wrote: »

(I have already posted this in 'in my home' but it strikes me as something much more suited to Old Style. Mods please do whatever you think best for it.)

I have put together, finally, an emergency store of equipment and food in case the lights go out big time this winter - i.e. for a considerable period measured in weeks rather than a day or two.

I now have to tackle the twin problems of heating and cooking.

Does anyone have recommendations for (this being MSE) any economical solutions?

Can you post some of your kit please?
I'd be interested to do something like this but don't know where to start.
LL

valk_scot

Camping gear? I camp a lot, long family holidays of up to a couple of months every summer and I've got camping gas heaters, lights, cooker etc etc. I've even got a gas fridge, not that you'd really need it in a UK winter. Most of this is equipment is not rated for indoor use of course but as tents are considerably more flammable than the average house I would think that as long as you had good ventilation you'd be okay. And a fire blanket handy!

Apart from that a Calor gas fire or an open fire if you have a fireplace? You can cook on an open fire with a bit of practice. A wood one is better as coal smoke can taint the food. Or you could go one better and have a proper log burner installed, with a hot plate on top.

As to lighting there's gas, oil or battery lamps, or candles.

Pitlanepiglet

We're also campers and have enough kit to take us through most scenarios.

Heating - we have a gas fire in the living room and we have a gas hob so our weather related plan was to "hole up" in the living room using the fire, block any drafts and keep curtains closed where possible, bring mattress in so that Dad can sleep in the warm. Consider where DH and I sleep - bedroom with lots of bedding would probably be fine. If no gas, we have a heater that clips on our camping gas cylinders and we would prioritize the gas for heating. We also have a cast iron woodburning stove - we would need to connect a flue to it but we could use it inside to heat if things got really desperate and there is a wood at the back of us to get wood.

Cooking - gas hob but if that wasn't an option, we have petrol powered camping stoves, we'd probably use those outside but may use in the kitchen with windows open if outside wasn't possible. We have lots of petrol in the shed and we would siphon it out of Dad's car if necessary! We also have BBQ's and a couple of bags of BBQ charcoal (outside only) and could use the cast iron stove (as above)

Food - We have full cupboards and full freezers, any weather related power outage would involve eating our way through the freezers and hopefully the food wouldn't spoil very quickly as it would be cold.

Lighting - we have lots of functional candles (as opposed to decorative ones!), plus petrol powered lamps and battery powered lamps.

I think we'd cope fairly well, heat would be our biggest problem as both Dad and I really feel the cold. We debated whether we could pull out the gas fire from the living room and reinstate the open fire that was there when Dad moved in. We'd have to cap the gas off presumably but as a last case scenario it might be a go'er!

LizEstelle

Over in the States, multi-wick candles like these are all the rage.

http://www.bestglide.com/Nuwick_120_Info.html


Apparently you can actually use them for cooking if the gas and electricity fail. Although it takes a fair while to heat up food/water, it can be done with enough efficiency and planning ahead.

A shame that they don't seem to be available in any of the so-called 'outdoor gear' shops over here which seem to be badly disguised fashion outlets.

LolaLemon

ive been reading a few of these post this past week now and tbh, im scaring my self sh!!less! i live in a wooden house, yep not timber decoration ontop of concrete, but proper scandinavian timber constructed wooden house, (2 bedroom upstairs/downstairs, back n front door semidetatched) and i cant cook with an open fire in here, so we will freeze!
(need to stop reading these lol)

saveabobortwo

last winter our electric went off as they had a fault for most of an evening luckily we had an open fire but normally use the central heating and had one bag of logs otherwise we would of sat there froze this year collected lots of bits of wood and bought logs in the summer when they were cheaper case this happens again .we stock up now a little for lots of reasons the weather the economy ,inflation and we dont buy anything but bargains value ranges we have to to make the pennies go round i dont think this is silly i think its sensible to have a bit of extra soup in the cupboard for a rainy day.:o and to be able to make a meal out of left overs or nothing.

[Deleted User]

LolaLemon wrote: »

ive been reading a few of these post this past week now and tbh, im scaring my self sh!!less! i live in a wooden house, yep not timber decoration ontop of concrete, but proper scandinavian timber constructed wooden house, (2 bedroom upstairs/downstairs, back n front door semidetatched) and i cant cook with an open fire in here, so we will freeze!
(need to stop reading these lol)

I am in an all timber eco house and we are all electric. I have made provision via having a barbeque ready outside and also fuel. There was en extremely good thread on survival on the discussion board some time back. Do a search as there were countless good tips on there like: kelly kettle, wind up lanterns and radios etc

real scandanavian will be very well insulated so stop worrying

Penelope_Penguin

Alan_Cross wrote: »

I have put together, finally, an emergency store of equipment and food in case the lights go out big time this winter - i.e. for a considerable period measured in weeks rather than a day or two.

Have you calculated how much drinking water you will need for those weeks, and prepared the storage containers to keep it fresh and not frozen

Pitlanepiglet wrote: »

Cooking - gas hob but if that wasn't an option, we have petrol powered camping stoves, we'd probably use those outside but may use in the kitchen with windows open if outside wasn't possible. We have lots of petrol in the shed and we would siphon it out of Dad's car if necessary!

Ifyou're planning to rely on that I'd make sure you try it first. We have a petrol camping stove and thought we'd just be able to syphon out of the car, but there appears to be a valve making it impossible

LizEstelle

Water is indeed a factor. I always keep a huge supply of the cheap, 'value' Tesco bottles in a dark cupboard. As I use one, I buy another with the furthest away use by date I can find.

There seems to be little by way of recommendation for what an all-electric home with no chimney can do for heating when the power goes off. Gas stoves are out. Presumably we're back to paraffin..?