Care to do the maths?, Take away the gas, leccy and coal.............................

[NorthernRaider]

(20 June 2013, 22:40)Highlander Wrote: Can I ask why are you thinking of only wood, dont get me wrong wood is great, but wood alone doesnt burn very hot, it fires up good but produces a lot of ash that starts to cool down a fire,..and you use a hell of a lot

Cos I dont have the luxury of just planning for myself, I try and level my posts as often as possible to cover as many peoples plans and needs as possible. Wood is a core commodity that most of us will use as a basic source of heat, some will have acess to peat, sea coal, open cast coal etc, and some folks dont know about mixing fuels.

Then we have to remember that more people have wood stoves than coal or multi fuel stoves so if they burn coal they risk buggering up their stove. Good point though HL and useful info.

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(20 June 2013, 22:40)Highlander Wrote: Can I ask why are you thinking of only wood, dont get me wrong wood is great, but wood alone doesnt burn very hot, it fires up good but produces a lot of ash that starts to cool down a fire,..and you use a hell of a lot

I think that the key to making saving here is to mix your fuels, I burn lots of logs, but I also mix it with coal, either lumps or cobbs, this keeps the ash to a lower content and the fire hotter, so you burn a lot less fuel, both logs and coal

If you mix your fuels, you can let your fire drop to a smolder and still hold in heat, if you only have logs, your fire will go out,... we could never keep our fire in all night by just burning logs, but we can easily by mixing the fuels

Just to confirm this guys, HLs advice is 100% accurate and valid BUT only if your stove is designed to burn other materials like coal that burn much hotter. Some of these thin walled steel stoves will burn through or buckle at coal burning temps on prolonged use.

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(20 June 2013, 23:55)Gizmo Wrote: At the moment i use a combination of wood and smokeless coal. I use the smokeless coal as I was warned off using house coal in the burner.

You've never had any problems with increased amount of deposits in the flue ?

I need to get the chimney swept so I might get a stock of house coal in afterwards and see if there is any difference, or if there is a difference is it enough to cause a problem.

Coal is certainly easier to store in large quantities than wood, but down here at least wood is easy and often free to get hold of whereas coal needs to be purchased

Another very valid point, 9/10 we folks scrounge our firewood, we have to buy coal.

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(20 June 2013, 23:20)Gizmo Wrote: Am I right in thinking that normal "house coal" shouldn't be used in Multifuel burners ?

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I just googled burning house coal in a multifuel stove and as usual came up with plenty of contradictory info, some places say it is fine to use and others say you shouldn't because of the high bitumen content, does anyone here burn it in their stove ?

Yup my little wenlock is a multi fuel burner and its instructions are clear, only use smokeless treated stuff like coalite, burnbrite etc not straight coal.

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(20 June 2013, 23:42)Highlander Wrote:

(20 June 2013, 23:20)Gizmo Wrote: Am I right in thinking that normal "house coal" shouldn't be used in Multifuel burners ?

Multi-fueled burners are just that,... multi-fueled burners, we use everything in ours wood, coal, coke and cobbs,..and sometimes peat blocks,... and that is the key to saving fuel, mix your fuel, it keeps the fire hotter with less fuel

Warrenty is invalidated on my Aga if I use ordinary coal, and my fire is only supposed to burn up to 500 degrees.

[bigpaul]

(21 June 2013, 00:01)Little Lou Wrote: we can't live a 21st century lifestyle in an 18th century world[/i], and the true survivors will be those who adapt. .People didn't wash every single garment after one day's wear.

Yes, we must wash our clothes when they're uncomfortable or smelly or when there's a threat to personal hygiene, but we don't need to do it because there's a dirty mark we don't want the neighbours to see.

hear,hear LL, you've hot the nail on the head! POST SHTF living will be different from our current wasteful "throw away" civilisation. we will be living a more natural life, closer to nature and the earth, our lives will revolve around growing food and breeding animals and we will have no time and no use for things which nowadays are considered "essential".

[Highlander]

(21 June 2013, 07:49)Tarrel Wrote:

(21 June 2013, 00:39)Highlander Wrote: I think Little Lou is dead on, its a good post.

This was how I was brought up,..less the mention of `before the 18th century`,.. and it was no real problem,.. we will just re-live, and re-learn what many of our families took for granted

Agreed. The problem though is that many people live in dwellings not currently suited to that lifestyle. Having said that, a modern house with combi-boiler, etc, is likely to be better insulated than your average 18th or 19th century home.

I think my advice to people in such houses would be to start thinking about practical modifications, as has been discussed on here before. It will cost money, but not as much as moving. My first priority would be to introduce solid fuel to replace or supplement the gas boiler, then to move away from the "combi" principle and reintroduce stored hot water.

If renting, and such modifications are not possible, I'd be thinking about a portable calor heater and cooker, with spare cylinders to insulate me from gas shortages, and organising the household around a warm living area, with the rest of the house unheated.

Obviously, one can wait until TSHTF before making these lifestyle changes but, if one is convinced that things can't go on like this indefinitely, why not start making the transition now? When we put our Rayburn in last year, it was quite a shock having to tend it, clear it out, prepare the wood, carry it in, do extra cleaning in the house, etc, compared to the nice, simple oil boiler we had before. But we,ve now got into the rhythm and it's normal. It's one less transition to have to make when TS really does HTF.

I agree with you, but I would add one thing, providing you are not renting it would be a good idea to get cavity wall insulation, it costs a lot less than you think because you can get a grant that helps with the cost,.. this alone makes a massive difference to the warmth of your home

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@ NR,.. I see your points

[bigpaul]

I think there are a lot of people who think POST SHTF living will be the same as now,with maybe 1 or 2 differences, well it wont, its going to be very different and the sooner people realise that the better. if you read the book or get the DVD of "The Green Valley" its going to be more like that than anything most people are experiencing today, its going to be a huge culture shock to most people, the ones that survive that is, and a huge adaption to their lifestyles will be needed.

[Jonas]

(21 June 2013, 00:11)Grumpy Grandpa Wrote: Now don't you go thinking you can get away with calling me 'older folk' just because I'm 660 years of age, young lady...

I hope that was a typo there... otherwise I'm on my way to Scotland. You're a historian's dream come true!

[Grumpy Grandpa]

No typo - it wasn't long after Bannockburn that.....

[bigpaul]

[quote='Grumpy Grandpa' pid='62475' dateline='1371832778']
No typo - it wasn't long after Bannockburn that.....
[/quote) you must be "Connor McCloud"!!

[preservefreak]

well it seems like the solution is too store some heat efficient supplements like coal-lite and the like. In the long term (after collapse) the solution may be more people in a location. It takes no more wood to heat a room with 3 people in than 2, it won't take much more fuel to cook for a third person (almost certainly not when compared to the extra wood they can harvest and process) etc.

There are energy saving ideas as well to help. Something like Ghillie Kettles and an old insulated tea urn to boil and store hot water from twigs. Maybe you could look at storing bags of wood pellets to use in a wood gas stove for outdoor cooking and water boiling.

If you got a couple of those solar showers to sit in the sun during the day for washing and laundry without using wood stores. You could also us haybox or thermas cooking to use less fuel per meal.

[Scythe13]

I hate to sound like a smartarse, but I seem to be good at it.

Although storing more wood and other fuels does seem a logical solution to our problem, may I suggest an alternative, similar in thought process to the different lifestyle and insulation HL is speaking about.

1. Don't boil all water! There must be alternative ways to filter water....oh wait, there's loads!
2. Suck it up an have a cold meal once in a while.
3. Find alternative ways to stay warm...see numerous posts about this.
4. Use a more efficient way to transfer the heat from a fire to your home (clue, check how the Swedish do it...Norwegians do a good system too).
5. Find a more efficient way to burn your firewood (google Rocket Stove if you need to).
6. Find a more efficient way to burn your firewood, without changing your burner (hint: google upside down fire).
7. Get used to colder temperatures. Hint: wear a jumper.

[NorthernRaider]

PF HL yup agree with you both one needs redundancy and alternative systems incase your primary heat / light source fail, I've got the bottled gas and a few bags of charcoal but i still think I need more firewood. The house is well insulated about the only thing i could do is go for treble glazing, I cannot seal off any more air flow into the house because its needed to fue the wood stove.