Hurricane Sandy Generated Home Heating Crisis

[smiley]

Though I burn wood also, It might be noted that when the North East cities were burning wood at it's peak, Vermont and New Hampshire were logged bare to the very northern regions,

There is just not enough forest acreage as we "farm" it now

Cal,
Just out of curiosity, I am in upstate NY 90 miles from the Vermont border and hadn't really heard of any area's logged bare, when was this? I do remember hearing about commercial wood burning power plants in Vermont that were supposed to have self sustaining rotated woodlots. Do you know anything about that project?
Also in the 70's, there were studies done for Utica NY that a 10,000 acre plantation in rotation would continuously power the city of over 100,000 and huge tracts of scrub land were available within 20 - 30 miles. It never went ahead and I often wondered why as it seems like a great energy solution with locally renewable resources.

 

[newbury]

I am in upstate NY 90 miles from the Vermont border and hadn't really heard of any area's logged bare, when was this?

I'm sure "bare" was an exagerration , however up until the 1900's they did log and clear a LOT more land. A good portion of this was for farming, raising sheep and cattle on areas they wouldn't bother with now.

 

[davedj1]

You also have to remember that Vermont was 90% open at one time and there are far more trees now than there was back in the day.
I was discussing a very similar topic over dinner with the wife, I think it's a shame that people in the urban setting are so reliant on others that they can't and don't know how to take care of themselves in an emergency situation. I know that city dwellers typically don't have wood stoves or wood fireplaces but a simple barrel and some drift wood would keep you from freezing to death (not indoors but a place to huddle around). I know we are always prepared as that is the way we were brought up. As a child in the 70's in VT. we had electric heat, family of 8 and snow storm after snow storm. It was not uncommon to go a week at a time without power, nobody had generators back then either. We had home canned vegetables, a freezer with some stuff, my mom could get 3 meals out of a ham including pea soup and johny cake (cornbread). We had kerosene lamps and puzzles. We conserved, brought water from the well house next door and generally never gave it much thought. Of course it was always nice when the power came back on so we could shower and do laundry. Sometimes the road couldn't get plowed open so we were stranded with power, we always had ingredients to make bread (we had a gas stove/oven) and had powdered milk on hand. Try that today!
At any rate I feel sorry for them not having the ability to take care of themselves.

 

[toy]

Whistlepig: When you say "vent through a wall" I assume you mean the chimney and is it a double liner? Also how high do you need to have the chimney to clear the roof line?
Could you attach a picture as to what you mean. I was trying to generate something more as to a simple portable device that large numbers of people could gain access to an set up for emergency usage. For my own situation, I have a sliding glass door that I would replace 1/2 with a plywood or temp wood wall with an out let for the chimney and hook it up to a small indoor wood stove, but again how high does the chimney pipe need to be extended?

I have a woodchuck multi fuel furnace in my larger garage and heat it with coal that does a good job but I have a block and tile chimney that extends up above the ridge line of the building, but I kind of get the feeling that you might want something fast for an emergency. If emergency is the right reason then in my smaller garage I have a small wood coal stove that heats a cinder block 20 foot by 24 foot garage well and that garage walls are uninsulated. For the chimney I got a 8 inch pipe that was long enough to extend above the ridge line that I used for a chimney. I cut a hole in the side of the pipe and welded another pipe coming out the side of it and I ran the stove pipe in it, now mind you I am going through a cinder block wall and this arrangement works well and was fast to set up. I believe you were talking about going through a wall that is flammable if so you need to be sure you don't put the pipe in contact with anything flammable. A few people that I have seen that have put the stove pipe through a flammable wall used a piece of plate steel one side of the wall that put the heat far enough away from flammable material to be safe.I have also seen some just stick the stove pipe through a window but that looks scary to me even though they have gotten away with it for years. If you did any of these suggestions then you might want to check what effect it would have on your home owner insurance policy. I used to heat my house with a coal furnace[heated it for years that way] but my insurance policy was cancelled because of the furnace not because it wasn't put in right or anything like that but because there were some that seemed to have a lot of accidents that burned down their houses therefore we all suffered. At that time I also had baseboard heaters but that wasn't economical so I put in an electric heat pump and got back an insurance policy. I have recently put in a couple propane ventless fireplaces for emergencies and that is a good standby for emergencies and have come in handy a couple times [I put in carbon monoxide detectors to be on the safe side] and I keep my tanks full and ready in case. Hope through some of my ramblings you might get some kind of game plan for your situation. Hope things are better for you even as I post this, be safe.

 

[CalG]

Cal,
Just out of curiosity, I am in upstate NY 90 miles from the Vermont border and hadn't really heard of any area's logged bare, when was this? I do remember hearing about commercial wood burning power plants in Vermont that were supposed to have self sustaining rotated woodlots. Do you know anything about that project?
Also in the 70's, there were studies done for Utica NY that a 10,000 acre plantation in rotation would continuously power the city of over 100,000 and huge tracts of scrub land were available within 20 - 30 miles. It never went ahead and I often wondered why as it seems like a great energy solution with locally renewable resources.

Proper husbandry could do wonders for the prospects of renewable bio fuels from New England forests.

If you were to visit any of the public libraries etc in the small towns of northern New Hampshire or Vermont, you may see on the walls photos circa 1900 of the last of the great log drives down the Conn. River. You might also note the absence of any trees on the hillsides beyond. I lived in Bethlehem NH, and similar photos seen of those times in that region (the shadow of Mt Washington) displays the completeness of the timber and fuel wood harvest. Except for the ornamentals lining the streets, there is not a tree to be seen until you look almost to tree line of the White mountains.

Now I live in S. Vt. My own property is populated with sugar maple and hemlock scattered with hickory cherry and red oak. None of these trees are much over 100 years old, and I cut some of them every year . And I do count rings! The hemlock that blew over in the front yard with the recent storm was only 58 years old and nearly two feet at the butt.

There are some big old beeches that are plenty old that must have dotted the open fields. Now they seem to pop out of no where during a forest walk. In all their ancient decay. (Of all the fuel woods, field grown Beech is my least favorite to split ;-) There was one of these in the back corner. It's rotted down now, only a couple of hollow logs next to the pond that forms in spring. Broken and gone, all it's glory past.

There is a generating plant between Littleton and Whitefield NH, At least there was. Last I heard of it was some years ago when they had a fatality. Something about a steam valve and a scalding.

That was a commercial option for some of the loggers in that region.

On another note, when folks come around wanting to "preserve and protect land the way it was", I can only say "Was when?" Give me a break, this is NOW!

This year I have more fuel wood than I know what to do with, guess I'll burn it up, just like every other year ;-)

 

[Oaktree]

We conserved, brought water from the well house next door and generally never gave it much thought. Of course it was always nice when the power came back on so we could shower and do laundry.

We even have running water when the power goes off...our well is gravity feed...certainly not city water pressure, but we get ~30-35 psi, enough for decent pressure in a shower. Gas HW heater & kitchen stove so we're all set. It was one of the selling points when we bought the house.

There is a generating plant between Littleton and Whitefield NH, At least there was. Last I heard of it was some years ago when they had a fatality. Something about a steam valve and a scalding.

That was a commercial option for some of the loggers in that region.

Yep, still there. One of my neighbors does logging, and sells them wood chips. I forgot what he said they paid per ton, wasn't much.

 

[BHD]

Originally Posted by BHD
most any pellet stove I have seen needs electricity,
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Yes they do, a small Honda generator will run them just fine.

Also a lot of discussion on how clean that electricity needs to be without doing damage to the computer boards that operate them.

if you need two pieces of equipment to make heat, then why,

with a generator, why not just run the furnace? in the house, (I took and put a receptacle and plug end on my first houses furnace and had a small generator that I would run a cord to the furnace and plug it in, if needed, it is still that to this day, (house is still in the family),

unless your pellet stove is a part of normal living, I guess I do not see the plan needing special wood fuel, (pellets, and then gasoline or other for the generator),

yes I have a fan on my wood stove but it is not needed to use the wood stove, (we can cook on our wood stove, (not a cook stove, but it can be done), and there is a stove pipe oven on it,

the wood stove is a stand alone unit, the water is windmill, and storage tank, and will gravity feed, (the electric pump is my back up), porta pottie, out house and the great out of doors for toilet back up,
and have three generators (one is a welder generator), and a portable and one stationary unit.

I have considered a battery and small inverter for the fan circulate on the wood stove that would be charged off the generators, or grid, as the fan does help heat a larger space,

 

[smiley]

Proper husbandry could do wonders for the prospects of renewable bio fuels from New England forests.
If you were to visit any of the public libraries etc in the small towns of northern New Hampshire or Vermont, you may see on the walls photos circa 1900 of the last of the great log drives down the Conn. River. You might also note the absence of any trees on the hillsides beyond.

OK, Gotcha, I thought you were talking about recent times. The same thing happened here in the Adirondacks. Now the Adirondacks have gone the other way with the forever wild law where nothing can be touched and must remain in the wild state. That's fine for easily seen or heavily used public area's, but it is a shame to see all those trees going to waste when a properly managed forestry program in areas out of public view, could provide a lot of benefits to the economy and the forest itself.
My business was road building and I worked in the Adirondack Park (6 million acres off limits) many times. One thing I never figured out was that we weren't allowed to use a machine to clean a streambed for proper drainage, but dynamite was OK. Actually that was a fun part of the job.

 

[BHD]

I do not know the legality of the UNvented, gas heaters, there legual in most states, but not all and some citys limit there use as well.

(I my self like the infared units) have them in the milk room and another room of the barn,

but they need no electricity and they are either propane or Natural gas, (usually not interchangeable), but for most would recommend a window cracked if living in the space, (battery powered, CO detectors would be recommended)