Comment on Anyone else notice this??
Montagge@lemmy.zip 3 weeks agoI’ll never live somewhere without a woodstove again. Two weeks without power, and 20F/-6.5C inside the house will change a person lol
How about not living somewhere where this is even a possibility in the first place. 🥲 2 Weeks, wtf…
I’d also argue for solar panels / a small consumer wind turbine and a battery backup (which can power the heatpump) instead of architecture from the last millenia.
Solar is not great for heating in winter because solar produces very little energy in winter (which is literally the reason why winter is cold in the first place: less solar radiation).
So even if you have solar, unless your installation is massively oversized you generally don’t have spare every in winter for heating.
Small consumer wind turbines make sense only in limited cases, and I say that as someone who had been building some. Because places with a strong constant wind are limited and generally this is not when houses are built.
See https://globalwindatlas.info/en/
No, what we need is seasonal batteries. A way to store the surplus or solar energy in summer to use it for heating in winter.
Wood is exactly that, solar energy stored in a stable chemical form that is easy to use.
O’d love to have solar, but solar isn’t great here due to lack of sunlight but it still works. Also I don’t have $30k.
Makes sense if you happen to find a building with pre-existing fireplace of course (even though upkeep is still pricey depending on its construction). Face-to-face less though, adding a proper chimney during construction is also pricey and the additional income / cost-savings of PV over its lifetime will very quickly make it way superior in a direct comparison.
Where’s that? 2 weeks in certain places and millions are dead, essentially precautions are taken at the supplier level.
Yeah it’s good emergency prep
Canonical_Warlock@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
Woodstoves are nice as an option but I’ll just take backup power any day. Gas pressure is normally still fine for a long time durring most outages and it takes very little power to just run the blower fan on a gas furnace. I’ve run mine off my vans inverter using an extension cord and some farmer grade wiring practices at one point with no issue. Plus I can also power other things with backup power. If it’s an extended outage then most gas furnaces can easily be converted to run on propane and swapping out tanks is much easier than dealing with fueling a woodstove.
Grabthar@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
As you reach city limits in a lot of cities, it is increasingly likely that you will no longer find gas lines, city water, or sewers. Having a backup heat source is pretty comforting. Much like you, I used to rely on just gas with a generator for backup, but I’ve experienced frozen gas mains, so I like having a woodstove and a couple cords of wood to burn as a backup source of heat. Plus it’s very cozy on damp, cold days, and nicer than the fireplace channel on Christmas.
Canonical_Warlock@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
At least in my area, propane is the goto if you have no city gas hookup. If you want to go oldschool then you have a fuel oil furnace. Keeping enough wood on hand to heat a house over the winter just isn’t practical for most. Even just heating his wood shop just while he is using it my dad can burn through 3 full cords of wood every winter. My grandpa used to heat his trailer house with wood and he often went through 4-5 full cords in the winter.
I 100% agree that wood is cozy but it’s way easier to just keep a tank of propane or fuel oil on hand.
Grabthar@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
For sure, most use oil or propane as a primary heat source when gas isn’t available. But those rely on both expensive fossil fuel and electricity to run, so a backup that doesn’t depend on either is handy, especially with all these once in a century storms we get every year now. Wood makes for a cheap, effective backup. Used to be so common in housing too. Now we just get gas furnaces and gas fireplaces for show. Still, I wouldn’t go out of my way to get a woodstove. I agree that a backup generator is plenty for most situations. But if you have an older home with a fireplace, keep a half cord around and make sure the chimney is clean.
HumanoidTyphoon@quokk.au 3 weeks ago
Yeah, I thought I was missing something as I was read that and thinking, “ok, fair, but where does the gas come from?”
Bronzebeard@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
My in laws have a massive tank on their property for their natgas powered backup generator (which apparently kicks on a few times a month…
Montagge@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Gas isn’t an option here unfortunately