Posted on 01/22/2012 8:48:55 AM PST by djf
I’ve seen that. It’s not much use in this state. The marinas aren’t always listed but they have ethanol free gasoline.
I would love to put in a Masonry Heater but they are pricey.
I love my pellet stove (only lug 40# of pellets a day) vs a wood stove. Masonry heaters use wood - but it’d be equal to hauling 40# of wood or less a day :>)- Fill it and forget it.
And they have bake ovens!
“LOL I know exactly what you mean. I love Sams club, my problem is where do I put all the stuff I want to buy when I go shopping there.”
You also have to not show the world (i.e., visitors to your house) your 4 years worth of non-food supplies. Not always easy. One thing to think about if one is really space-starved (which many of us are) is to store higher quantities of items that require a small volume, like batteries. Other things to think about is storing stuff in attics and outdoor sheds. You can put a lot of stuff in shed, providing your neighbors don’t see you doing it, and no one will ever suspect anything - so the stuff would be safe there. But also, always consider the local climate of where you store stuff - if the shed gets real hot, be sure not to put stuff that would be damaged in the heat (or freeze in the winter).
Inside the living space and garage, one can add cabinets and free-standing closets, to the extent that volume permits.
Things like that...You have to get creative.
And it doesn’t take a huge volume to be well-prepared. In my case, my 4 years worth of paper towels is huge...toilet paper maybe 1/3 as much - but other stuff not so much. If I had less room, then less paper towels, and maybe more cloths, or something like that.
LOL. You have some clueless neighbors. Is she also an obama voter?
We are in south King County in a heavily wooded area. Our power went out Wednesday night. It isn’t expected to come back on until late Tuesday night. We just moved into this house two weeks ago. A generator is on our list but we hadn’t gotten to it yet. Luckily the previous owner left us a cord of wood and we have our camping gear. Good opportunity to try the freeze dried food I’ve been stock piling.
Florida hurricanes have shown it doesn’t even take 24 hours for some people.
I was lucky, only went without electricity for 12 hours two different times. Quite a few friends were without power for up to 3 weeks. the day right after one of the storms we went out to see if we could find anything. Found 1 restaurant open, with no AC. They were selling the heck outta shrimp which had thawed due to the lack of power. The shrimp might not have been spoiled but I chose not to take a chance. Other people weren’t so picky.
No cops were around either so forget calling them.
Fortunately it’s warming up - not much, but some. I’m sure they are making very good progress now, if you go to WWW.PSE.COM there are some Javascript driven maps that will show estimates.
You offered many good tips. Here are a few more:
- paper plates, plastic cups, plastic utensils
- camp stove (e.g., Coleman) (use outdoors)
- camp-style percolator
When we lose power, we also lose water because we have a well. I immediately filled my tub, so that I'd have a supply of water for flushing the toilet. (I have an additional emergency supply of water for drinking.) I have been washing my hands regularly--even with snow or roof run-off--so I don't get sick.
BTW, the forecast is for heavy winds today and Tues., so we're not out of the woods yet.
Thanks djf, PSE is saying late Tuesday. The hard part was listening to all the branches breaking off around us. One fell on our son’s truck and missed the windshield by an inch. I haven’t had time to unpack everything so I can find all my supplies. But we are doing well all things considering. Thank goodness for my iPhone and car chargers! I enjoyed your post.
You will never regret installing a simple wood stove. This 80year old woman has never resided in a home without some form of wood heat. Currently, we have an old fashioned cast iron cook stove and I love it!! Every summer when it is too hot to run the wood stove, I can’t wait til weather cool enough to stoke it up.
Although we have forced hotwater heat, I always have two huge teakettles boiling on my cook stove. Like you, we have a large generator and a smaller one we use for camping, but we use the generators almost solely for refrigerator and freezer. Kerosene lamps are very cozy, nothing worth watching on TV and we have plenty of battery operated radios.
Box stoves that we have had in the past give more heat but are not so practical for cooking and do not provide an oven for baking.
Glad to hear you’re ok! Thanks for posting about your experience.
That's a shame. Works well for us around here. (Pascagoula)
It's an Aladdin Oil Lamp. In addition to being very bright they put out about 2500 BTUs per hour. They're not inexpensive but they're very well made and, if you enjoy that sort of thing, quite beautiful as well.
There are many sources on the web but you can get them here:
I have no commercial association whatsoever with this company by the way.
Those are good and are well worth it, a couple quarts of lamp oil could literally last you months.
When I was a kid, if the power went out, we didn’t have fancy generators or propane lamps, we had flashlights and oil lamps.
Not as fancy as this one, but hey, they did the job.
Just a chuckle, though. You still kick yourself in the rear every time you go into a dark room and hit the light switch...
;-)
I'm going to get a couple of them when finances allow.
How is it that they run an oil lamp on a mantle? I don’t get it...
BTW, it would be totally asinine of me to tell this story and not give my (and all, I am sure) thanks to the crews who are out there fighting the weather and conditions and traffic jams... etc. I know nothing about power lines and would probably get killed in the first five minutes if I tried to fix something. We hear about all kinds of heroes, airline pilots, doctors, firefighters, truly many of them are. We curse when the lights go out, curse when we get our power bills, but rarely think about those guys out there in the wind and the rain and the snow and the sleet and the dark fighting something that could kill you in the blink of an eye!
PSE crews!!!
Thanks!!
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