Posted on 10/30/2019 9:39:34 PM PDT by lee martell
My part of the California Bay Area (San Rafael) just completed a 2.5 day involuntary blackout. The local utility is taking precautions to reduce their power in areas of ongoing fire, or windy weather. They have already declared bankruptcy due to past mistakes and misfortunes. There is nothing I can do about it, but to be ready, more ready the next time. I can be thankful it wasn't longer. Tonight is the first time we have had street lights and traffic lights for a while. I recall gazing from my back terrace at the nearest avenue. All was pitch black. It was as still and empty as it usually is on Christmas Eve. I made sure to finish all my driving by 6.30, when the darkness fell, like a thick black curtain. I enjoyed seeing the stars more clearly, but the only constellation I really know is the Big Dipper. Every star cluster I see cannot be the Big Dipper.
I have already purchased an old fashioned BoomBox CD player Radio online that runs on either electricity or batteries. I have purchased a small, ancient Transistor Radio on Ebay. I am stocked up with canned soups and tuna fish. I heard that 30 miles north of me, some communities have had to evacuate their homes. Therefore, I have packed a 'Run-Away Bag', in case some one knocks on my door at 2.45 in the AM, saying I have one hour to GTF out of my apartment, and be ready to stay out for a week. I have a week's worth of medication. I first aid kit, a beach towel, change of clothes, Toothpaste and emergency snacks.
But, before it gets to the point of evacuation, I just want to have a way to heat a skillet or a pot of food that does not require electricity. I put 'Non-Electric Hot Plates' in search, and then, I get Electric Hot Plates anyway. Does anyone have any suggestions for a reasonably priced single burner hot plate? They must still be sold somewhere. The homeless always seem to have them to start those accidental fires on hillsides.
Backpacking stove or a Coleman stove. Uses bottled gas or propane that you can buy at walmart.
Hot plates have the same problems as electric cars: you can’t store enough energy in a battery to last very long as a heat producing device. (That’s why EVs don’t use heaters or air conditioners when they tell you the range of the battery.)
You simply can’t carry enough batteries to heat food, or anything else, for that matter.
After searching, searching for the last few days, I now realize that you are correct.
There simply is no safe, battery powered stove for indoor use that is efficient in cooking food. No such animal. I have received some fantastic suggestions over the last few hours, but there are certain risks I decline to take. So, I’ll figure it out otherwise.
****For those my age (63), you may recall a child’s game called Creepy Crawlers. It was a craft set for Boys that allowed you to melt down colored plastic and make little toy insects.
I had one. The tool you used to melt your plastic on was
a small metal heating box called a Thing Maker. Of course I lost it.
This was during the Johnson Administration.
A popular hit song was “The Name Game” by Shirley Ellis.
Good Times!
Good times!
Heating elements take way too much power to run just off of battery. They do make some 12 volt hot plate type things that are meant to be plugged into cigarette lighters.
https://www.amazon.com/RoadPro-12-Volt-Portable-Stove-Black/dp/B00030DLEE
I think that would be the best you could do if you don’t want to do the camp stove or sterno.
I vaguely remember Creepy Crawlers, but I was too old to own one.
Rocket stove. Extremely fuel efficient. Light weight. Dirt cheap. Portable as in folds up small. Does not require electricity. A handfull of twigs will do as fuel.
I should have added that I own a single burner propane heater. They are quite inexpensive. I use the short-fat single use propane cans which have a large enough base to support the burner and a small pan on it. It works great.
Don’t use it in an enclosed area, though. Propane is heavier than air, and can “pool” in an explosive mixture on the floor. This is extremely dangerous in a vessel such as a boat but care is needed most anywhere that’s inside.
Haw about Three Letter Abbreviations?
The irony of California central planning is blacking out the whole State in a wind storm to prevent fires and thereby causing 30,000,000 city dwellers to light fires in and around their homes to cook dinner.
What could possibly go wrong...
Kind of a Rube-Goldberg blueprint for failure.
Simple. Just drive to the nearest forest fire and cook what ever you want to.
Self playing flutes, wireless electric guitars and invisible microphones. Obviously a band ahead of their time!
> Nowadays, where do you buy coal?
Just be naughty. You’ll get a stocking full in about 2 months.
Sorry. I’ll leave now. /grin
> Frankly a bag of charcoal...
The obligatory; NOT inside! Or at least well ventilated.
I was a deer hunter for many years. Under extreme weather into the teens a butane cigarette lighter’s butane will blow past the seal and leak out. Happened to me more then once, I always carried wooden matches after that in a little container.
Yes. And dont play with matches in a California windstorm.
You may be able to plug your griddle into your tesla.
Which is why the lighter is backup to the little torch. I would carry a refill cartridge so both can be recharged "if" any such leak happened. The refill cartridge isn't going to leak. I'd have the matches, too, as a backup to the backup...but then I'm kind of fanatical about such things.
Now, that’s what I call ‘creative determination’.
“I want a steak, and I want it now!”
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