Need Suggestions for Safe fuel / power storage

[castle]

Hi Everyone,

I'm looking for some tips and / or ideas. I live in a smaller house, with an unfinished basement, I've sectioned off a small corner of it off for my families food storage.

I have a single - car garage, with not much room to spare in it, and a very small backyard.

I have a barbecue, but it is hooked up through a gas line.

What suggestions / ideas does anyone have for power and or fuel storage?

I'm looking at what I will do for heat / cooking etc in a worst case scenario of a complete power grid failure, for an extended period of time.

I am wary of storing large containers of flammables in the house, and I'm not sure what to do.

What does everyone else do?

Thanks!

[Rand]

Hi Castle, I suggest warm clothes, a tent to set up in your house for warmth, cover it with blankets and you have an indoor igloo. To cook, you can do a propane stove, or if you are alone I like the back packing stoves and use the butane or white gas as your fuel source. They are relatively safe, and fairly efficient and not too cost prohibitive.
You can get little propane heaters that take the small propane canisters to fuel. That is not a bad solution either.

[mgriffith]

Hi Everyone,

I'm looking for some tips and / or ideas. I live in a smaller house, with an unfinished basement, I've sectioned off a small corner of it off for my families food storage.

I have a single - car garage, with not much room to spare in it, and a very small backyard.

I have a barbecue, but it is hooked up through a gas line.

What suggestions / ideas does anyone have for power and or fuel storage?

I'm looking at what I will do for heat / cooking etc in a worst case scenario of a complete power grid failure, for an extended period of time.

I am wary of storing large containers of flammables in the house, and I'm not sure what to do.

What does everyone else do?

Thanks!

Are you looking to heat your home AND cook inside? Can you/are you willing to do most of your cooking outside? Do you have forced air heat?

I would not ever store any flammable liquids or gas in my home. Yuo are just asking for a problem. You should be able to install a small yard storage shed in your yard for these things.

In an extended power-off situation, heat for your home in the great North would be your primary concern. The most flexible source of heat is a wood stove. Can you install one in your home? An alternative is a Big Buddy propane heater. These use a catalytic heater that is safe to burn inside a home. By using the hose to connect to a 20 pound tank OUTSIDE the house (routing the hose through a window for example), you can heat a room for many days. If you using something like this, I would recommend getting the special hose for it that has a pressure regulator at the tank end. That way, you aren't running a hose with 100psi of pressurized gas into your house, but at a much lower and safer pressure.

http://www.amazon.com/Heater-MH18B-Portable-Big-Buddy/dp/B0002WRHE8

Outside cooking is easy if you do it the way our forefathers did it, on a campfire. A set of cooking irons, like in the attached picture, make it much easier. If you go to any mountain man or pioneer days reenactments, you should be able to find a blacksmith that can make a set, or they be selling some already made. You should be able to get a set for $50-$75.

A BBQ grill like those you fin in parks are also easy to use, with charcoal or wood. You can install one in your yard.

http://www.jamestownadvanced.com/Products/Grills/tabid/58/Default.aspx?gclid=COCN4fDp9q0CFSleTAod03X_uQ

If you have any more questions, please ask.

Mark

[Julie Bulie]

Are you looking to heat your home AND cook inside? Can you/are you willing to do most of your cooking outside? Do you have forced air heat?

I would not ever store any flammable liquids or gas in my home. Yuo are just asking for a problem. You should be able to install a small yard storage shed in your yard for these things.

In an extended power-off situation, heat for your home in the great North would be your primary concern. The most flexible source of heat is a wood stove. Can you install one in your home? An alternative is a Big Buddy propane heater. These use a catalytic heater that is safe to burn inside a home. By using the hose to connect to a 20 pound tank OUTSIDE the house (routing the hose through a window for example), you can heat a room for many days. If you using something like this, I would recommend getting the special hose for it that has a pressure regulator at the tank end. That way, you aren't running a hose with 100psi of pressurized gas into your house, but at a much lower and safer pressure.

http://www.amazon.com/Heater-MH18B-Portable-Big-Buddy/dp/B0002WRHE8

Outside cooking is easy if you do it the way our forefathers did it, on a campfire. A set of cooking irons, like in the attached picture, make it much easier. If you go to any mountain man or pioneer days reenactments, you should be able to find a blacksmith that can make a set, or they be selling some already made. You should be able to get a set for $50-$75.

A BBQ grill like those you fin in parks are also easy to use, with charcoal or wood. You can install one in your yard.

http://www.jamestownadvanced.com/Products/Grills/tabid/58/Default.aspx?gclid=COCN4fDp9q0CFSleTAod03X_uQ

If you have any more questions, please ask.

Mark

We have propane stored in tanks and a wet line so as to fill small canisters with propane. ( to run your grill etc.)

[Karen Ricks Wife]

charcoal. Many stores have them on sale in 2 pks. Usually 2-25lb bags for like $8 is a great price!

A 25lb bag of charcoal will store nicely in a 6 gallon bucket. I believe you'd need 16 bags minimum to use for cooking (dutch oven) for one year. Don't quote me on that...I am going on memory...I am sure one could easily figure out how much would be needed just for cooking...then if you have a cylinder stove you would want to add more for use to heat...taking into consideration that wood will diminish quickly.

Another thought of something easy (fairly) to store is the pellets. The cylinder stove has that option to use the pellets. I'll bet that those could be stored quite well in buckets as well.

We do have several options...propane, white gas, kerosene and charcoal. We also have quite a few options in our fire starting kit...from cotton balls soaked in Vaseline, egg cartons filled with lint and dipped in paraffin, steel and flint, wind proof matches, regular matches, alcohol stone...etc. It's best to have as many options as you can afford to have. Practice using each and become very accustomed to using them all...

Just like we have probably 6 or 7 ways of cooking, sanitizing water etc...since we really don't know what to expect, right? I can't hurt to have many options available.

[Julie Bulie]

charcoal. Many stores have them on sale in 2 pks. Usually 2-25lb bags for like $8 is a great price!

A 25lb bag of charcoal will store nicely in a 6 gallon bucket. I believe you'd need 16 bags minimum to use for cooking (dutch oven) for one year. Don't quote me on that...I am going on memory...I am sure one could easily figure out how much would be needed just for cooking...then if you have a cylinder stove you would want to add more for use to heat...taking into consideration that wood will diminish quickly.

Another thought of something easy (fairly) to store is the pellets. The cylinder stove has that option to use the pellets. I'll bet that those could be stored quite well in buckets as well.

We do have several options...propane, white gas, kerosene and charcoal. We also have quite a few options in our fire starting kit...from cotton balls soaked in Vaseline, egg cartons filled with lint and dipped in paraffin, steel and flint, wind proof matches, regular matches, alcohol stone...etc. It's best to have as many options as you can afford to have. Practice using each and become very accustomed to using them all...

Just like we have probably 6 or 7 ways of cooking, sanitizing water etc...since we really don't know what to expect, right? I can't hurt to have many options available.


If you say so Buttercup!! :seeya:

[castle]

Thanks for all the great ideas!

Unfortunately I live in a fairly newer townhouse, so it wasn't built with a fireplace.

Not sure about in the States, but up here in Canada (Ontario) there has been talk the past couple of years of banning new homes from being built with fireplaces because of the 'environmental impact'. Utter insanity.

I'd like to find an affordable home in the country, but haven't found anything so far. My backyard is only about 30 by 50, so not much room for a shed.

The charcoal idea isn't bad. Maybe I can do a few bags of charcoal in the garage, and get a few butane containers and a butane stove.

Thanks!

[LEVE]

I heat with wood pellets. I have a pellet stove in the house and detached garage. I store inside, 3 tons, or more, of pellets. That's enough to easily get through a winter. These stoves aren't much good when the power is out. I have a gas generator, but that has it's own problems and I use it to charge the freezer and fridge. And, that means more gas storage... or this device is useless.

I also don't want to store two, or more, types of fuel. I'd considered a wood stove for the house as a back up. That would mean laying in a lot of wood. Recently a new pellet stove came on the market that uses gravity flow.

http://wisewaypelletstoves.com/images/tall_wise.png (http://wisewaypelletstoves.com/)

A month, or so, ago I spoke to the owner of the company. It looks like a viable product for my house and would keep it warm in the winter. Couple this with thermoelectic generators (Peltier Junction Device) and you could also have some minor electrics working in a power shortage.

I know this won't help now, but it's a solution that may help some, like those in my situation.