Are you ready for winter?

[Marianne]

Are you ready for winter?

What I still need to do:
Order a couple things from Lehman's (crank type flashlight, lantern)
Check batteries
Get straw bales for shelter for barn kitties and figure out something for the peacock that moved here
Scrounge up or buy three more cords of wood!
Clean the chimney pipes from the woodburners and check everything - we usually do this in the spring, but life happened
Start saving milk jugs to use to store water for us and critters. No power means no water out here
Starting on first passive solar window heater this weekend - Mother's Heat Grabber - Yay! Wheels on the bottom, handle on the top, easy to move around to store
and I need to get a few more things on the shelves, but not much. Freezer is just about completely full - yay!

Hmmm...vehicle stuff, too. Antifreeze, windshield washer stuff...I have a lot to do!!

 

[BarredBuff]

Im ready for it but not got all my ducks in a row yet..........havent finished the pantry...........or got meat put up...........or firewood..........and its goes on and on.........


I wanna get the good almanac soon...........

 

[MorelCabin]

My freezer full of cow comes in October, the pantry is really getting there, I have a wall to put up on the chicken pen, and would like to get the garage and pen painted before it gets too cold. Hopefully this week.
Everything else i have had ready for years, candles, lanterns, etc

 

[GaFarmGirl]

We are really not ready. At the very end of last winter our heater broke. "They" came out to fix it and said it was going to cost $600. That is a LOT of money to us! So we put it off... not smart but you know, you do what you have to do. Now we have saved up and we are ready to get some heat going for winter. But, here is the problem the heating system is inside of a 12 year old a/c unit. If we put 600 into fixing the heater and next summer the a/c goes out then we are really out some money. So, we are thinking of just getting an insert gas heater for the fireplace in the living room and putting oil radiator heaters in the bedrooms. We looked into getting a wood stove, we had someone come out and look at our chimney and we were told that it would be 1200 just to fix the chimney (house was built in 1934) plus the price of the wood stove. Well if 600 is a lot of money 2000 might as well be a million. I am not convinced that the oil heaters are enough to heat the house. In the past we have used them as a back up heat source but I am not thinking that they can pull the load all alone. Also, since the oil heaters are electric I am adamant that we get at least one propane gas heater in case the power goes out.
We would really like to keep this under $400 and we need to heat 1300 sq ft so if anyone has any bright ideas I am more than willing to listen. Oh another thought to keep in mind is that these older houses are very "chopped up" there is no great flow to the rooms so the heat will not spread around to much... hence the use of several heaters in each room.

 

[MorelCabin]

We've never heated bedrooms. Just put down duvets on each bed with a good flannel backed quilt overtop and flannel sheets. Warm and toasty.
Now if you put the woodstove on an outside wall and ran a flu elsewhere instead of fixing the existing chimney would it be cheaper? Not sure about the laws for you guys, ours all have to be certified and insulated pipe now so it would be expensive here, but maybe there is another way around it for you.
But I really wouldn't worry to much about heating bedrooms unless you have a baby to keep warm in one of them

 

[BarredBuff]

Right now at my house we have electric heating......the firewood is at grans. But we have a gas fire place to heat the main room. But the bedroom are frigid. Like they arent even getting heated...........we might be getting a wood stove hear to next fall........I hope.........

 

[Marianne]

Our first winter here, we didn't have our permanent heat in yet, so we used space heaters. Anything with a fan was sooo much better than the oil ones. (Deleted a bunch of just rambling here.. ) We had one kerosene heater just in case.... Put plastic on the walls, closed off areas of the house, etc.

Anyway, the best investment we made was a wood burning furnace. Our SIL got a used one really cheap $150?, spent $100 for a squirrel cage fan to boost the air flow. There's sits in the far side of the garage, ductwork comes thru an opening and hooks on to the existing furnace ductwork. Blows heat all over the house thru the vents. We had to do seperate ductwork, but now it heats the entire north side of our house, both stories. Ours was new, on sale for $999. What we saved that first year in electric rates vs buying firewood paid for the unit. But it's $$ and more for pipe, etc.

Just throwing out some ideas -

Are you somewhere that you have to follow codes and restrictions? If not, Mother Earth News has directions to make a wood burning stove on the cheap. I wouldn't pay to get the chimney fixed. Can you find a place to put a newish wood burning stove and then run the new chimney? The double wall pipe is really expensive, and you have to follow instructions on height, etc. But it can be done correctly by someone with basic skills. Lots of info on the web, kits available for ceiling/roof connection. You'll still have to use heaters in other rooms, but an array of fans might help, or ceiling fans pulling the air up will help move the warmer ceiling air down around the outer walls of the room. Google rocket stove. Lots of passive solar stuff at builditsolar.com that can be made on the cheap. At least you'll get some free heat when the sun is shining.

If you're not allowed those things, then what about looking for a used wood burning stove? You can buy new seals and stuff to fix them.

Our first wood stove is still here in the family room. It's steel, not as hot as a cast iron one, but I can still cook on it. The blower went out after one year, so now I use a little fan behind it that actually works better. It catches some of the heat from the black pipe, too.

Have you tried to google how to fix your furnace? We did that with our heat pump when it had an issue.

 

[Bubblingbrooks]

Ready for winter?



NOOOOOOOO

 

[FarmerJamie]

Ready for winter?



NOOOOOOOO

Thanks for the voice of reason here, BB. I am with you!

 

[Bubblingbrooks]

Ready for winter?



NOOOOOOOO

Thanks for the voice of reason here, BB. I am with you!

HA! You got more time then we do!