So far we have had a fantastically y mild winter here. Living in our climate controlled abodes sometimes we tend to forget how unforgiving the climate really is. Last night was the first really cold night of the winter at -19°C but I did not know until I went out to feed the ducks and chickens. It is hard for me to imagine how you could survive in a metropolitan environment for any sustained period without hydro or natural gas where wood heat is not an option. We must have some down town city preppers so what have you incorporated into you plan to counter this potentially gargantuan obstacle?
When we lived for a short time in the city when I was younger we did have a wood fireplace. Probably less common even now in the city (more people opt for the cheap electric for looks or natural gas for ease of operation) but we used paper logs almost exclusively. We had a roller, it took maybe 20 minutes to make a log then 3-4 days or so to dry it out. In a city, seemingly a limitless supply of potential fuel! Newspaper, lined paper, you name it.
These are the rolled paper logs we used: (I don't endorse this website, its just one of the first that popped up when googling the rolled paper logs, I havn't read anything else on it)
http://www.tacticalintelligence.net/blog/newspaper-logs-firewood.htm
I don't endorse or watch this website either, but when googling paper logs it came up and they have a good step by step process for the cube ones. i've never tried the cube ones. The rolled ones are fast, and dry fast:
http://selfficiency.wordpress.com/fuel/paper-logs/
https://www.internationalpreppersnetwork.net/viewtopic.php?f=57&t=7738
We must have some down town city preppers so what have you incorporated into you plan to counter this potentially gargantuan obstacle?
I just bought a Mr Heater 9000 BTU Portable Buddy Heater from Canadian tire when it was on sale 25%.
Also from Canadian Tire and also on sale 25% I bought a Multi gas detector :
I have 2 20 lbs propane tanks on my balcony that I'm using for my BBQ and they will provide fuel for the heater and for the camping stove I plan to use for cooking.
For future I plan to buy a sleeping bag rated for -20 or under. Most probably will be the US army ECWS sleeping bag (these will also be part of the BOBs)
MrHeater is supposed to run 110 hrs on a full tank. that's 4.5 days of continuous heating but I probably won't use it non stop.
WILDERNESS RETURN thankyou for pointing to "rocket mass heaters"! Have you made one??? They truly are the ultimate, don't anyone miss out on looking them up... WAy more efficient than even the most efficient wood stove, and a good way to heat your home without giving off noticeable smoke. Thankyou so much, I've gained so much from your posts!
Here's one version of a rocket mass heater http://www.iwilltry.org/b/build-a-rocket-stove-for-home-heating/
Martha (thanks for the compliment!)
Yes.. an outside rocket stove and working right now on an inside semi-portable Rocket Mass Heater. Will also be making a Pocket Rocket, this might replace my portable camp wood stove. I also have a portable camp wood stove, brand new in box never used, that I might modify to a pocket rocket as well, after I make my first one from cheap items 
They burn so efficiently I think you could have the exhaust pipe go out your window and only a little steam comes out, no smoke and no smell if it is done right. So it is stealthy as well.
Once I have perfected my semi-portable rocket mass heater it will go into my camper, the bench will be under my bed, the dogs bed will be beside the burn chamber (she is a hot dog that one) hopefully it will keep the camper warm through the night with no get up and put in more wood trips.
If you have a south facing window or balcony, maybe make up a cheap solar pop can/metal tubing solar heater? Get the little cheap solar panels at CDN tire, hook it up to a couple of computer case fans directly. (12v) my test ran 3 of them with no problems in the direct sun, they will come on when the sun is hitting the solar panel, go off at night so your not blowing cold air into your abode. No worries, cheap thermostat, no sun, no heat, no blowing cold air. I will be making one of these myself soon, thinking of the pop can way or making it with the metal flex tubing, sprayed black, under glass. Since I like Durofoam so much and have some left over, it will be the insulation inside the box, shiny side to the heating tubes of course.
Wilderness, today I was once again admiring the rocket mass heaters and read that one of the possible negatives was that the smoke could backdraft, perhaps on account of poor design or not getting the burn chamber sufficiently heated. I had a terrifying experience with this a couple of decades ago when I went to bed with woodstove going. Woke up in the middle of the night with the house full of smoke, couldn't beleive I slept through that much smoke accumulation as normally I'm a light sleeper. It was black with smoke and I think it was due to fire burning down and maybe atmospheric conditions??? I'm sure if the fire was burning at a more healthy rate, even atmospheric conditions wouldn't backdraft the smoke, but nevertheless I think it was another close call in my life.
I also read that there's no building code for these heaters yet, so presumably you'd void your house insurance by having one. Nevertheless, I'd sure like to build one... portable or at least semi-portable. One thing that I'd like to change is the bench, would like it to be lighter material for portability. Any ideas?
I have built and installed a pop can solar heater, which I'm pretty proud of, except... I need to move it because it's half shaded by the cover I had to put on my chain link dog run (my dog has a pink nose & can't take the sun anymore). By the way, don't be fooled into making a big huge fuss about baffling the pop cans or joining them together in columns. There's a guy named Rich Adams who experimented with all sorts of designs and found that you can dump the pop cans in any which way and it's just as effective as all the complex fancy stuff other guys are doing. Rich demo's his various designs on You Tube to prove his point. Having said that, i did load my cans into neat columns, for the sake of aestheticity (just invented that word!)
OK , did I get you right, you got a mini solar panel at cdn tire which hooks to a battery, which hooks to the computer case fans? Where do you get the computer fans? Rats, its rough not being of the technical persuasion!!
does you dog have Lupus?
computer fans from the computers at the side of the road and from a couple of older ones I had.
backdraft issues are not common, make sure your outtake pipe is 6" and you will be fine. The issues are with the 4" and smaller outtake pipes.
just put the fans directly to the small 1.5 watt panel, for this project you do not want a battery as it only runs while getting sun and heating up.
working on lighter bench now, that is the real issue that is slowing me down, and health as well.
holy frack batman...
Rich Adams
http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/SpaceHeating/Space_Heating.htm
RANGER.. check out this site!
thanks Martha !!!!
Hey lookee here, this hillbilly heat!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=6DWq4ZdSJfo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsF9RvVxFc4
Wilderness,
Leave batman outta this!!! Here's the easiest ever pop can heater! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsF9RvVxFc4
My dog's a redhead heinz 57 with a partly pink nose, gets sunburnt... No lupus. He's old but real peppy and loves the outdoors, so it really upsets me to drastically reduce his time outside for fear of another sunburn, but I must. If I take him out with me and try to make him stay in the shade, every time I turn my head, he's layin' in the sun again...
Give us an update on your projects as they're completed please! I'm getting close to buying a sea can and I definitely must make one of them rocket mass heaters!! Must, must... Hope everyone looked that up, what a great way to save fuel and do stealth heating!!
There is many other ways to heat your home in a winter power outage you can use a wood gasifier or wood boiler.You can also power your house with a generator for a period of time.
By far the cheapest and simplest solution is to buy a generator in the range of 3500-8000 Watts. Make sure it is capable of producing 220 Volts to run the submersible pump in your well. If you have a jet pump on your well, its 110V. You can buy generators in this power range for well under $1000.00 at Costco for example. In an emergency, shut if the main electrical switch, shut off all the breakers on your panel, wire up the generator to your electrical panel (Hint: pull out the wires for your dryer and stick the ones from the generator in there NB: this is for an emergency!), fire up the generator and turn on only the breakers that you need - furnace, well, water heater, stove and a few wall outlets. Do this on breaker at a time so you don't overload the generator. I've done this a few times in the past during winter months. I shut down the generator just before bed time. The house will stay warm enough over night, and you don't need to worry about pipes freezing, etc. Make sure the generator is outside and locked up, meaning you'll need to make a cord to run from the generator to the electrical panel. Building a simple shelter for it helps to keep the air intake from freezing up - a common problem.
If you want to make a permanent connection for your generator, it's best to get an electrician to do this.
Things you won't need to buy or do with this solution:
- buy a wood stove
- get it installed
- pay more for insurance
- buy a chainsaw and a splitter
- cut, split, haul and store wood
KISS - kepp it simple s....
- drain all your plumbing
Highlander... your solution will be fine in the very short term. In the event of a loss of fuel resources for any reason the amount of fuel you can personally store will be severely limited. If you are running your generator even 50% of a 12 hour day you will need 6 hours of run time daily. A 7000 watt surge capacity generator with a full load capacity of 6000 watts will use about 7 gallons of gasoline to run 12 hours at 50% load. That works out to approximately 3.5 gallons of fuel per day. That would be 105 GALLONS of fuel for 30 days use.... almost 400 liters per month. That would be a serious storage problem for the vast majority of people. On top of that you need lubricating oil, air filters and spark plugs for minimum maintainance. Generators are loud and act as a beacon to those who would need what you have. Lastly once it breaks or you run out of fuel it is a lawn ornament... and you are in the same predicament as when you started. No heat. Plus you can't cook on a generator. Just my 2 cents
JAB
http://www.cbc.ca/player/Radio/ID/2323998883/
I listened to this broadcast on "Rewind" a few weeks ago. It was about the Ice storm in Quebec. Of interest was the "after the fact" effect a lot of people had. Purchases of wood stoves went through the roof "after" the storm, and the city had to plead with citizens to stop using them as the air quality really started to suffer in the city..
More interesting was the psychology of Montreal and how a disaster played out. The shortfalls, but also what worked. It was a really interesting piece. Worth listening too. It may relieve some of the paranoia that we would expect, but also bring some insight into the unexpected too.
https://www.internationalpreppersnetwork.net/viewtopic.php?f=57&t=7738
Lots of good suggestions already listed for you but what l would say is look at the house at the same time. lf you insulate properly - spray foam on the walls, insulate the basement, etc your house will stay warm for close to 3 days after you lose heat and makes keeping it warm a lot easier. Then the above options make it so much easier to stay warm