Fuel

Fuel

This is a seemingly complex issue which can be simply broken down to provide clarity as most homes use several types of fuel with electricity and gas being the most common fuels in mains connected houses, these are used to heat and light our homes and understanding how they work is essential to our understanding. If the electricity supply is cut them our gas heating won’t work as it requires electricity for the boiler control circuits to operate the system, similarly, if you lose water it will also shut down which means that if you lose gas, water, or electricity your heating simply won’t work

Electricity is used for lighting and if this is lost then you lose your lighting; in addition you lose everything else running off electricity ranging from security systems to domestic appliances which may even include cookers and fridge freezers if you are on electric cooking, you cannot recharge battery powered tools and operate many DIY or industrial tools and anything else people take for granted. You cannot take a shower, wash your clothes in a washing machine, wash your dishes in a dishwasher, freeze or chill foods and even boil the kettle for a drink and if you have an electric car it cannot be recharged.

Gas is used for heating and cooking so losing gas means you lose your heating and your cooker so you get cold, as does your property, and you cannot cook yourself a hot meal or make drinks by boiling water using a gas cooker and a saucepan.

Many power tools are petrol powered as are many cars, some are diesel powered, while some are hybrid or full electric vehicles and in any major emergency people flock to fill up their vehicles with fuel and this means that if you join this exodus you will undoubtedly find most local petrol stations have power outages as you do, and those with power will likely restrict sales to conserve fuel for more customers, and raise their prices for profit to line their pockets by exploiting you.

Now you need to look at alternatives and prioritise, what are your priorities? Cooking is always the main priority followed by heating and there are alternatives which you can use. Camping cookers come with a choice of fuels with price tags to match and the most popular is bottled gas and by judicious selection and stringent buying you can get a cheap single burner gas cooker for around £10 at the end of the season, but the cooker is one thing, the gas is another. Many of these cheap cookers only use small disposable gas canisters which are either pierceable or screw on and they are the most expensive form of cooking as the cylinders are disposable, and they have a major drawback in that the cylinders lose their pressure over time and each manufacturer uses their own system. Pierceable cylinders suffer in that you cannot remove them once fitted as they simple lose their gas, and newer types use a self sealing or valved bottle which do seal if you remove them and can be switched between appliances without losing gas, so find your preferred system and stick to it, and always buy additional spare gas cylinders. Moving up from basic single burner gas cookers sees a large array of cheap two burner gas cookers and cookers with three burners and even grills fitted, so are they worth the cost when you have to factor in a large gas bottle and regulator? Actually yes they are because two burners gives much more cooking ability and the large gas bottles give a much longer cooking life for lower fuel costs and are better as a stand by unit, in addition you can get other gas appliances such as heaters and lights but these take away gas from your cooker.

Petrol cookers are the daddy of cooking as they can use standard pump petrol and they are a compact and durable unit but they are very expensive but this cost is outweighed by their durability, I have a twin burner petrol cooker which is over 70 years old and has had only a set of seals replaced when it was over 40 years old and my youngest petrol cooker is over 30 years old. Petrol cookers come with an integral fuel tank which is pumped up and it requires a specific procedure for lighting it which is a skill you would have to learn, but petrol is much hotter than gas so they are more fuel efficient and cook quicker and they come as single or twin burner cookers. Petrol lanterns are available and they need a mantle fitting and a very delicate touch is required to fit them but they are also very economical and give out an immense amount of light and heat so they can light and heat a room, often putting out more light than the original light in the room, but they are adjustable.

Dual fuel cookers are similar to petrol cookers but they use a special type of highly refined petrol for use indoors and can have ordinary pump petrol in them for outdoor use, again the highly refined petrol is expensive to buy and the cost is offset by their economy. In most cases people can keep a gallon of petrol, even if they have to buy an additive to prolong the life of the petrol to prevent it from becoming stale and unusable; similarly, diesel is safer to store as is aviation fuel.

Multi fuel cookers can run on an array of fuels which include diesel, petrol, aviation fuel, methylated spirits, white spirits, and any other liquid fuel but they only come as single burner units which fold away, and they are very expensive to buy, and you have to buy the fuel bottles which attach to them so you can fill them up and store them for an emergency which is an additional expense. In my opinion their excessive cost, relative small size and instability, and only being a single burner unit outweighs their flexibility.

Wood ovens and log burners are great as you can use most forms of wood on them, you can even use a simple metal drum as a fire pit and cover it with a metal grill to cook on, if you have a supply of timber and a chainsaw this is a viable option, but you also need petrol and oil for a chainsaw and this may be a finite supply so stocking up on seasoned timber is a must do. Always have a large bow saw and spare blades as once your chainsaw petrol runs out its back to the log saw.
Log burners can be installed into the home, and while not cheap a carefully selected log burner will save considerably on fuel costs as they keep the temperature up in the home during the autumn and spring when most people put their heating on at night or in the early morning, but you do need a supply of timber for them and for a 3.5Kw unit you would be looking at around 3-4 tonnes (wet weight) of seasoned timber per year. If a log burner becomes your sole source of heating them this would require the storage of much more timber, the upside to this is that you can add cooking to your list as basic foods such as soups which simply require heating through can be put in a pan and stood on the log burner for heating through.
In a real case study we have monitored a friend of mine who had a log burner professionally installed in 2013 as he had access to a reasonable amount of wood; he was running around like a headless chicken collecting wood in his first winter as he couldn’t get sufficient stocks and we were cutting wood as he went. During the summer he built a log store in a disused and awkward place in his garden and left small ventilation slots on the wall, during the summer we filled this with fallen trees in a nearby wood which a friend of mine owns and we took my 4X4 along with his and I had my large trailer fitted and he borrowed a smaller one and as I have access to the fields around the wood we went to the bottom and cut up some trees toppled over in the wind, it took two runs to fill his log store and I estimated this as 5 tonnes of timber. During the hot summer it seasoned the wood due to the heat, and due to the fact wind could pass through the wall slots and it was sufficiently seasoned for burning, after this he devised his system of timber rotation and he cuts wood during the summer and stores it for the winter.
Did this reduce his bills? Yes, his wife worked it out and he has reduced his gas bills by around 60-65% year on year by lighting it in the morning as he is the first up and he lets it establish and banks it up with logs before he goes to work and lets it burn out, when he returns home in the evening he lights it again and lets it run and banks it up before he goes to bed, and lets it burn out.
During spells of bad weather he runs it continually and it heats his 4 bedroom home and he runs it for a month at a time and lets it go out and cool down, he cleans it and relights it and lets it run for another month before cleaning it, he only removes the ashes in between. He regularly cooks home made soups on his fire as an evening snack.

If you have the old fireplace then this can be used and you do need to have the chimney cleaned and smoke test it, you can clean the chimney if you have drain rods and you buy the sweeps brush for them, but always smoke bomb the fire to ensure the flue is flowing and the chimney is clear and drawing. Always ensure you have a proper hearth and always install a fine mesh fireguard as timber regularly spits and these spits can spit out small embers onto your carpet and burn it or even set fire to your home, particularly as most carpets are made from combustible synthetic materials.

Make Your Own Logs

Making your own logs is easy but time consuming and you need a mould to make them in, take 2 parts waste paper and 2 parts sawdust or wood shavings and drop them into a dustbin of water, agitate or stir them to break down the wood and paper fibres and leave for a few days. You can add one part manure as this gives a hotter burn with a longer burn time.
To make a mould you can make a simple stand with a larger diameter pipe and a much smaller internal pipe with tiny holes drilled into it, this allows the water to drain from the logs as they are compressed.
Place your mixture into the larger pipe and fit a wooden or metal cap over the mixture and place a tube section of steel over the central drain pipe and compress with a cheap hydraulic jack, this compresses the mixture and allows the water to drain out, it does take a little experience to get them compressed correctly, and this is readily learned. Why a central hole? Because in burning tests it allows the paper log to burn from the inside and the outside and this gives a full log burn and helps prevent the paper log from going out if they are over compressed.

Now you dry your new logs out and most people put them in a greenhouse through the summer, on a lower or unused shelf and take advantage of the heat to dry them through and they are ready for burning as and when required.