Travelling On

themadvix

If these are the single burner stoves with the propane (?) canisters Karma, do be careful - I think they’re only meant for use outside because of risk of CO build up. Make sure you’re using in a well ventilated place if you have to be inside.

Cheery_Daff

Well done on your techy afternoon, most impressive! I always hated Skype, although used it for years for work things when there wasn't much choice. Ditched it in favour of zoom which has its moments, but for me (with a Pro account through work) it works much better. Glad you got on your webinar, there are some interesting ones around. The Wellcome Trust has some really fascinating medical history ones - I've not managed to get on one yet though.

You've reminded me we bought a little gas stove for power cuts and haven't used it, but it's definitely a good idea to try before it's necessary! I'll add it to our list too.

Suffolk_lass

@rtandon27 - just be aware that your gas heating has an electric ignition - our oil heating certainly switches off in power outages. We have a butane (calor) heater in one of the workshops and a log-burner - and normally the motorhome, but that is at the garage for some welding and under-sealing. We must call them next week and see if any of it has happened yet as they have had it since the beginning of December. That has a bottled gas cooker and heater and a solar panel (not much good in winter)

SuperSecretSquirrel

I've been looking for a cost effective emergency heating option recently KC. Our gas boiler needs electricity to run the pump, and we want to avoid installing a solid fuel stove.

The options seem to be either a generator capable of running the boiler (with the added benefit of charging mobile devices, maybe boiling a kettle, etc). Or a small butane heater like the ones you've found KC. A solar battery wall setup sounds great, but expensive.

The generator would be quite expensive and bulky, probably not worth the storage space for the one or two days a year it might be needed. The amount of ventilation required by the butane heaters would likely see most of the heat escape through open windows, especially as we'd only really feel the need to fire them up on the coldest of winter days.

We've ended up without a solution, other than to decamp into one of the cars in dire circumstances. We could use the engine as a generator and heat source - we could charge mobile devices, and the radiatior/heater would keep us warm. If safe to travel, in a prolonged power cut we would most likely head to unaffected friends or family until it blew over.

We have lots of cosy blankets, hot water bottles, and warm clothes to help us deal with less extreme times. Also a camping stove (and quite a few cans of gas) to allow us to boil water and cook simple meals. We always make sure to have a few days worth of tinned food on hand to keep us ticking over (soups, beans, tinned vegetables, corned beef, custard, rice pudding, etc), I also keep a few litres of bottled water on hand "just in case" (just enough to drink, not enough to retain our usual high hygiene standards). If we're talking local power cut not full blown armageddon, there's always the option of takeaway dinners. We also have a couple of wind up lanterns for light (and if we have a means of charging mobile devices the torches on those are excellent), and a few candles hidden away (though I don't particularly like using them).

We're no preppers, but we have enough to keep us alive without help for a few days. That should last us until the red cross parcels arrive. In a full blown zombie apocalypse we've decided it wouldnt be worth the struggle, and would just lay down and die 😁

Then again, I do have a half hearted "go bag" with food and hygeine supplies to last us 24 hours, backups of important documents, small first aid kit, pencil and paper, pack of cards, etc, at the ready - just to deal with flood/fire type events. Plus we have sleeping bags, tent, kayak etc in the shed if we have time to load the car before the zombies arrive. I guess maybe we are peppers, just hadn't realised it... 🤔 

Karmacat

rtandon27 said:

Well done KC on all fronts!  Semi-accomplished is 1/2 way there!
Oh I like that!  Nice one  

OH says he's used several of those little heaters of the years and they are very good!  He suggests that there is also a light attachment for those canisters & that way you would have cooking & heat & light if the power goes off! Much safer than candles says he - LOL [I got rid of our candles when I found out our house boiler & cooker were run on gas! - only a wind up radio/flashlight in this house  lol]

That's interesting, ta muchly.  I do have quite a few candles, mostly church candles that burn for ages, I went through a real phase with them but I also have a couple of those little single AA battery type torches, that I bought two for a fiver.  And someone got me a weirdly great torch for Christmas one year - most of the body is bendy, and you can use it to inspect odd little cubby holes, it's brilliant fun

Karmacat

themadvix said:

If these are the single burner stoves with the propane (?) canisters Karma, do be careful - I think they’re only meant for use outside because of risk of CO build up. Make sure you’re using in a well ventilated place if you have to be inside.

Thanks madvix - I think it's butane, and they *do* say to be well ventilated - but I'd be using it in my downstairs rooms of kitchen/living room/ bathroom, for enough time to heat water for a cuppa and heat up some beans, but bathroom window has a nice magnetically-closed flyscreen on that will air the whole downstairs very nicely.

Karmacat

Cheery_Daff said:

Well done on your techy afternoon, most impressive! I always hated Skype, although used it for years for work things when there wasn't much choice. Ditched it in favour of zoom which has its moments, but for me (with a Pro account through work) it works much better. Glad you got on your webinar, there are some interesting ones around. The Wellcome Trust has some really fascinating medical history ones - I've not managed to get on one yet though.
Thanks for this - I find medical history fascinating too - there's so much out there that *is* fascinating, isn't there!

You've reminded me we bought a little gas stove for power cuts and haven't used it, but it's definitely a good idea to try before it's necessary! I'll add it to our list too.

Absolutely - when I finally unboxed it yesterday, I had to watch 3 youtube videos about the safety features, those bistro stoves are actually really well designed.

Suffolk_lass said:

 We have a butane (calor) heater in one of the workshops and a log-burner - and normally the motorhome, but that is at the garage for some welding and under-sealing. We must call them next week and see if any of it has happened yet as they have had it since the beginning of December. That has a bottled gas cooker and heater and a solar panel (not much good in winter)

**groans in envy** Yes I'm looking at buying a car, but a motorhome would be my dream, it really would.  A little more complex than Jason Momoa on holiday in Ireland when he was filming Season 1 of Game of Thrones, but there you go 

Karmacat

SuperSecretSquirrel said:

I've been looking for a cost effective emergency heating option recently KC. 

.....

We've ended up without a solution, other than to decamp into one of the cars in dire circumstances. We could use the engine as a generator and heat source - we could charge mobile devices, and the radiatior/heater would keep us warm. If safe to travel, in a prolonged power cut we would most likely head to unaffected friends or family until it blew over.
The potential solutions you mention have occurred to me too, but as you say, they're likely to be needed for such a short time, the expense and the storage space aren't really do-able, not for me anyway, and from the sound of it not for you either.

If I had a car, I'd definitely do the decamping thing.

We have lots of cosy blankets, hot water bottles, and warm clothes to help us deal with less extreme times. Also a camping stove (and quite a few cans of gas) to allow us to boil water and cook simple meals. We always make sure to have a few days worth of tinned food on hand to keep us ticking over (soups, beans, tinned vegetables, corned beef, custard, rice pudding, etc), I also keep a few litres of bottled water on hand "just in case" (just enough to drink, not enough to retain our usual high hygiene standards). If we're talking local power cut not full blown armageddon, there's always the option of takeaway dinners. We also have a couple of wind up lanterns for light (and if we have a means of charging mobile devices the torches on those are excellent), and a few candles hidden away (though I don't particularly like using them).
That's exactly the scale that I'm at, SSS - except my tins would probably last a week or so, not a few days, as I had the kitchen re-done in 2019 I *could* use takeaways, of course, but they literally make me feel ill  

We're no preppers, but we have enough to keep us alive without help for a few days. That should last us until the red cross parcels arrive. In a full blown zombie apocalypse we've decided it wouldnt be worth the struggle, and would just lay down and die 😁
Ewwwwww 😁😁😁 if I get zombies locally, I might stay very quiet and hope they wander away A Lara Croft impersonation might help, but I really doubt it!

Then again, I do have a half hearted "go bag" with food and hygeine supplies to last us 24 hours, backups of important documents, small first aid kit, pencil and paper, pack of cards, etc, at the ready - just to deal with flood/fire type events. Plus we have sleeping bags, tent, kayak etc in the shed if we have time to load the car before the zombies arrive. I guess maybe we are peppers, just hadn't realised it... 🤔 

I think that level of go-bag is really sensible - I've been on the wrong side of a police barrier twice (armed robbery at local post office, and a murder 6 doors away).  And with the number of flood events (had one of those too, I still had the cats so I stayed put upstairs) it's even more sensible.  If I was on flat ground like the Somerset Levels or even Norfolk, I'd think about a kayak, to be honest - what a great idea!  Although you can't tell from my road, it's on the lower middle of a hill that's a couple of hundred feet high, and if *I* flood, it's zombie apocalypse time!  Maybe I'm a prepper too 🤔 

Alchemilla

@Karmacat it's busy over here!

Another vote for a go bag. I must be a prepper too!

Watty1

I'm not a prepper.  Cant help thinking I'd settle for a candle, a bottle of wine and a bar of chocolate and hope it would all be over soon LOL