Oct 24 No Heat

In the cold I centre myself and my breathing to transfer all my heat into the centre of my body.

Wim Hof

There is no heat in my house. The good news, some of the parts are in for my diesel heater. Bad news my back that I injured two days ago will slow down the install to two days work at least.

How did I get like this? I replaced a rotted stove-pipe that needed replacing. I used part of my grocery budget to buy that. When I was replacing that, I discovered a problem with the chimney. Three hours on the roof later, after pulling all the chimney pipe, I discovered two more big problems. All of the chimney and the ceiling support kit needed replacing. The very next day, winter arrived with a vengeance.

Snow and extreme cold all in one day. I didn’t have the money to buy the chimney, I had only a small emergency supply of wood left.

So what’s the plan? Drive into the village, pickup the diesel heater parts, drive home, begin the install. Temp where I sleep 7 in the daytime. The woodstove room is plus 3. By tomorrow I expect both to drop below zero overnight. Forecast says -19 tonight.

I do have some alternatives. I have a propane heater under my desk that burns a small bottle of propane every three hours. I have three bottles in stock. I do have a rig to fill small bottles, never tested.

I have an electric 1500w oil filled heater in the garage. To use that I need to run the gen. 7 liters of gasoline every 6 hours. Too expensive to run.

I ordered a small electric heater that might just heat my room. I will still have to run the gen to fill the solar batteries every two days. That doesn’t arrive till Friday. It will not heat the rest of the house.

My only option is to try to get the Diesel heater installed. I would have liked to bench test it first but I am out of time and heat.

I did remember something just now. I have a second wood stove installation in my garage. The ceiling support kit might be in better shape. That installation is older, it may be just as bad. I will have a look. I think I already stole the chimney from there. After looking at the pipe I decided no to that.
I made the drive to the village and back again barely. When I got there, I was too hurt to walk, too hurt to carry my water bottles. I knew that I could not even start the diesel heater install and proved that. I just wanted to see if the new exhaust pipe fit. I dropped the heater, bent some tin.

I walked away from that project. I went to the garage and grabbed on full 1 pound bottle of propane. I was sure I would need to fire up the new propane heater then.

Deakes was taken outside to the cat funeral pyre and covered with boards and bricks to keep the predators out. When the snow is deeper I will light that.

The temps my room 7, the used to be fire room 2, my woodwork shop -10. I am not shivering so no hypothermia, it’s all ok.

Dark cloudy day and the BF solar panels still producing 5 Amps. Wish I could have afforded the other two panels.Two more panels would give enough power even on cloudy days to keep me in electricity all winter.

With winter here and my body the way it is that may not happen till spring if we survive the cold.

Somehow the chimney support kit slipped into the right place. So I did the unthinkable, I added more paper and lit it. After ten minutes I added cardboard, another ten minutes, I added floor sweepings, mostly sawdust kicked out of the litterboxes.

I sat as long as my back could handle it. No smoke, except from a little cat pee. Yes, they had to christen the new pipe.

I will secure the pipe with screws before and wood fires. For now that will do I raised the fireroom temp up to seven and expect more.

It was nice to see flames in there again. Most likely the floor sweepings will strangle the open flame but may smolder all night.

My back pain is worse now. I just did the thing, the thing I haven’t done for a very long long time. I made a hot coffee. I cleaned up my desk enough to gain access to my single burner propane cook top.

Add propane, hot water, find the coffee strainer, a filter, some powdered hormone free, dried whole milk and a few minutes later hot coffee. As a side benefit my room got a little warmer.

It’s a big thing, maybe not for you. For me, it’s gimongus. The coffee and powdered milk are not fresh but to me tastes great. Oh BTW hot coffee and a stainless steel straw don’t work well. I promised myself that I wouldn’t play Starfield if my LFP battery was less than 80 %. It is at 78.55. If I didn’t charge my Bluetti I would be flying through space. It’s ok, I can watch online Series or catch another Eastwood flic. I got sucked in to watch a Rock Hudson movie. Clint never even got a credit. He had 5 seconds of dialogue and 5 secs of appearance. It was a sappy love story but ok.