Preparing Your Home For a Healthy Winter
Firewood Prepping for Winter
As the leaves start to change, those of us with wood burning fireplaces should immediately turn our attention to one of the most versatile preparedness resources available to us – firewood. Typically, firewood is used for home heating. The energy stored in the wood is obtained by the trees absorption of sunlight during its years of growth. As I have written in prior articles for American Preppers Network, a fire also provides you an energy source for cooking and water purification. We have three wood burning fireplaces and stoves.
The process of procuring and storing firewood should have started many months ago. But like many preppers, it may not have been on your list of things to do until the chilly mornings arrive and the leaves fall. Recently, my good friend from Maine, Charlie Koch, sent me an interesting primer on firewood that I would like to share with my friends at APN.
Why Wood Heat? - 1) wood heat works when the power is out. 2) Storing firewood protects me from delivery complications, price changes, shortages etc. 3) If you are not afraid of a little labor, wood supply can be cheap or even free. 4) When I do buy wood, it’s from my neighbor and not a multinational conglomeration.
Wood heat can be your primary source of warmth, a handy supplement to reduce your other fuel consumption, or just something you keep for emergencies.
Safety - Folks, use your heads. Wood burns at an extremely high heat and keeps much of that heat long past the point where there are visible flames. Each year, somebody manages to set their house on fire from misuse of a wood stove. Don’t be that person! NEVER use gasoline to start a fire. It’s just common sense, but somehow it keeps happening. Gasoline more or less explodes when ignited, and a tiny ember hiding in a cool stove is enough to set it off. DON’T DO IT. Re-start a cold stove with crumpled newspaper, fine-split wood or sticks, commercial fire-starters or even a propane torch but never never never gasoline!
When the stove gets too full of ash and unburned charcoal, scoop it out into a metal bucket with some sort of lid. Allow it to cool completely before disposal. We save our ashes for the vegetable garden; it’s a natural liming agent. However you choose to dispose of the ash, remember that it is still very hot when it comes out of the stove. I heard an awful story about someone who shoveled hot ash into a cardboard box and put it in the wood shed, with catastrophic results. Another fellow put hot ash in an uncovered bucket on the back porch; the wind picked up while everyone was asleep, blew the hot embers onto the house… that story led to multiple fatalities. Again, use a little common sense.
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The process of procuring and storing firewood should have started many months ago. But like many preppers, it may not have been on your list of things to do until the chilly mornings arrive and the leaves fall. Recently, my good friend from Maine, Charlie Koch, sent me an interesting primer on firewood that I would like to share with my friends at APN.
Why Wood Heat? - 1) wood heat works when the power is out. 2) Storing firewood protects me from delivery complications, price changes, shortages etc. 3) If you are not afraid of a little labor, wood supply can be cheap or even free. 4) When I do buy wood, it’s from my neighbor and not a multinational conglomeration.
Wood heat can be your primary source of warmth, a handy supplement to reduce your other fuel consumption, or just something you keep for emergencies.
Safety - Folks, use your heads. Wood burns at an extremely high heat and keeps much of that heat long past the point where there are visible flames. Each year, somebody manages to set their house on fire from misuse of a wood stove. Don’t be that person! NEVER use gasoline to start a fire. It’s just common sense, but somehow it keeps happening. Gasoline more or less explodes when ignited, and a tiny ember hiding in a cool stove is enough to set it off. DON’T DO IT. Re-start a cold stove with crumpled newspaper, fine-split wood or sticks, commercial fire-starters or even a propane torch but never never never gasoline!
When the stove gets too full of ash and unburned charcoal, scoop it out into a metal bucket with some sort of lid. Allow it to cool completely before disposal. We save our ashes for the vegetable garden; it’s a natural liming agent. However you choose to dispose of the ash, remember that it is still very hot when it comes out of the stove. I heard an awful story about someone who shoveled hot ash into a cardboard box and put it in the wood shed, with catastrophic results. Another fellow put hot ash in an uncovered bucket on the back porch; the wind picked up while everyone was asleep, blew the hot embers onto the house… that story led to multiple fatalities. Again, use a little common sense.
READ MORE
