Trins: I don't think you answered TJ's question from the last post...

 

How are we to keep from freezing our pants off?

Good question, thanks to my friend Matthew back in VA I think I found the answer.

Employ a rocket stove.  For now this is a prototype just to prove that the concept works.  So far it works very well considering the heat it generates with a surprisingly small amount of wood while producing very little to no smoke.  Combustion essentially happens twice -

1st where the wood is placed (notice that the flame is sucked into the inside of the barrel) and 2nd...

 ...inside of the insulated stainless steel tube that is inside of the drum.  The heat intensifies inside of the tube which combusts the smoke in addition to creating a draft and pulling in the flame from the tee on the left.  What is left exits thru the hole on the right side at the bottom of the barrel.

We've also tested it inside for a week and I've already discovered a few things to improved (the temperature can easily exceed 500 degrees so I'm sourcing cast iron tube for the initial burn chamber [the tee] and I'd like to add more turns to the exhaust tube in order to retain more heat in the house).

But first we need to finish moving these materials that will be used for a few outbuildings (or small barns).

Trins: All of this driving has given me time to think...

...what if we had a long term well failure, then what would we do?

Good question, a solution for that is on the todo list. It's not complicated, the problem is solved by a manual well pump (by Oasis Pumps) made out of polymers.  It can reach water 100s of feet below unlike a cast iron pump because the sucker rod is made out of light weight sections of 1/2" PVC (the casing is 2" PVC).  It's also easy to install.

Keena:  What if we have an extended electrical outage?  (This pic is from a dramatic interpretation for speech and debate class).











Another good question, coupling the charge controller on the left with the inverter on the right and a few panels provides 400+ watts of charging power (panels and deep cycle batteries are connected to the controller, the inverter connects to the batteries and the appliances connect to the inverter) to run a refrigerator, freezer and smaller items (we'll see how long we can run big appliances).  A smaller panel and controller will connect to the same batteries and run 12v LEDs to supply all the light need.  (Also required are fuses between the batteries and controller & inverter on the + side).



TJ:  What if we freeze our butt buns pants off (spouse edit) like we did on our recent camping trip?

It was cold inside my shelter (except when a wild animal would crawl in and snuggle with me).

Blaise: At least our food was warm (this is one of the animals you snuggled with?).

But cold enough for the van to get stuck on a trip to the dumpster.  The trash still got there thanks to our sleds.

Trins: What if... you have one spare but two flats? (I thank the Lord that these failed just before a place we could pull off. There were a 1,000 other much worse places they could have come apart).