Staying warm this winter 2022

[Joe]

I’m at 55.8 deg North so it can drop below zero regularly in the winter but to be perfectly honest I’m not panicking. I’ve even dropped back food stores to prepandemic levels.
I will introduce some extra emergency lighting just in case but I don’t see long term power cuts. The house drops about 3 deg C through the night when the heating is off so unless it goes for days it won’t have much effect.
I have the caravan parked at the house with it’s own gas heating and back up power supply and this could last weeks if I need it.
If I see things getting shaky I could just buy a bigger 5kw generator and wire it in, would only take ten minutes.
There’s a lot happening in the background that the public don’t have access to and it was happening before Ukraine.

[bigpaul]

I can see long term power cuts, even now in most winters demand strips supply and in a winter storm the power can be down for many hours if not days, not some extreme thought to see it down for longer indeed down permanently.
I have a basic plan for when this happens, WHEN not if, nothing too complicated or extreme, just keep it simple.

[Pete Grey]

(14 October 2022, 10:57)Straight Shooter Wrote: With the onslaught of a predicted hard winter this year ( the prediction will eventually become reality ) this year we will also have to deal with (predicted) power outages , fuel shortages, natural gas shortages , supply chain and distribution problems and just to top it all off food shortages along with price increases of everything !.

Yes SS this winter will be a real struggle for some and difficult for most, even for us with our preps we may be stretched, apart from inflation, as MB pointed out sterling has fallen 25%.

Well we have coal, wood, propane, a genny with fuel, some solar power with more coming very soon. So far so good.

As for our food and shopping we are are well stocked but we’re now concentrating on things which seem to be increasing the most rapidly or getting harder to find. Beware of shelves with empty spaces.

[Skean Dhude]

If the government are predicting rolling power cuts of 3Hrs each then the reality will be much worse. Power cuts are only of use if the people are using power at the time. So it isn't going to be just evenings and lat at night. It will start that way but will soon impact daytime when business will be even harder pushed. More will go under and costs will go further up.

Will our politicians wake up in time? Of course not. They never do, no sacrifice is too great for us to make towards their goals. Will we adapt? Of course we will. Many won't but there are many like us and many more, although not preppers, who are just ordinary hard working folks who can, and will, adapt. It is our species way.

[bigpaul]

way I heard it these will be scheduled power cuts like we had back in the 70s, when one area is off another will be on.

[Mortblanc]

Anyone else a bit chilly? My feet are getting cold.

It's down to -4 with a good wind and I think it might be time to quit trying to save money and turn on some heat.

I saw a news feed where local councils were denying remodeling applications for installing wood stoves and fining people for violating pollution legislation due to wood smoke!

The greenies don't like all that soot!

[bigpaul]

weather forecast is for a slight frost here tonight, that will be the first of the winter and probably minimal.

[Straight Shooter]

Best you get that wood stove dragged in from the porch Mort …..if you have not already done so ! By the looks of things , you will need it sooner rather than later , buy in some firewood to get you through the worst of winter ! …time to bring on out your cast iron pans and Dutch ovens , stew and soup is where hits at ! Oh and bread ! ….you stay warm my friend ! .

[Mortblanc]

The wood stove thing is not going to happen SS. I own that as a last ditch, end of the world option to be installed inside if all other options have failed.

I heated with wood for more decades than I care to remember and will not return to it unless forced to do so. The last time I was on wood full time was 20 years ago and I seriously doubt that I could keep up with the wood pile any longer. The back and the heart simply will not take it. I had my first heart attack while cutting wood, the second was doing veg gardening. I do not prep to punish myself or shorten my life.

I definitely do not need another wood pile. I just pushed the last one into the ditch back of the house because it started to rot from the bottom up. I was well prepared for the inevitable fall of mankind, and only attracted termites.

Your power situation is actually a social reset. Those with heat and those without heat. The guy in the castle has a fire, the guy living in the wattle a daub hut is hanged if caught cutting the noble's wood. He can have only the blow down wood and needs that for cooking, not heat. The are arresting people in Germany for trespassing while gathering deadfall this minute, today!

What you will see first is people wearing the same clothes indoors as they do out doors because there is no heat differential, only respite from the wind and rain. They will not be able to wash those clothes so they will turn into a walking pile of dirty rages, raging at the machine for not taking care of them. It will be the same for the "preppers" in urban or suburban areas, just at a latter time after they run out of wood and find they can get no more.

We are not having the power crunch that you folks are enduring. We pump our own gas and produce a vast amount of hydro electric power. Most of our generation facilities are on natural gas and we have a good bit of it.

Our rates have not even increased. I am paying the same for power that I was pre-covid. I pay $4 daily for all of my power needs. Lights, heat, hot water, cooking, TV and all devices.

If you see news of electric cuts over here it will first be in the large urban areas of our west coast. They have closed a vast and healthy nuke system and now buy their power from areas in the mid-west and pump the electric for a thousand miles to the entire west coast. Similar situation in the northeast, where the population has long since outgrown the ancient and woefully inadequate power grid. That area generally heats with fuel oil which is piped in from Texas. But for now it is working.

We are not facing blackouts or brown outs here and with a solar array 5 miles from the house, that will power 15,000 homes, I do not expect long term problems any more than in previous years. Power during the daylight hours will always be available and batteries and electronics will be charged up daily.

If the electric goes out forever I go to the LPG tanks first. After a month of that, if it can not be replaced, I consider the wood stove. Probably during that last week of LPG use.

If things get that bad you will not be hearing from me. The internet will have been accessible by only the military and the elite for some time before we get to that situation. You will never know what really happened, you will get only the propaganda feeds on your little short wave sets.

[CharlesHarris]

Every fall Potomac Edison Power Company trims trees around their lines as a power quality precaution to reduce outages caused by limbs coming down during ice storms. The wood is routinely cut into 16-inch stove lengths and stacked in piles along the right of way. Anyone can help themselves to the wood. Some enterprising people collect the larger logs by the truckload, splitting them and stacking in their yards for future use or resale after the wood has dried and seasoned adequately.

This activity keeps the powerline right of ways clear of debris, provides honest work and income for those down on their luck, supports the local economy and helps keep firewood prices low. I paid $200 per ton, delivered and stacked in my shed.