Staying warm this winter 2022

[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.