Heat Your Home

Staying warm is something which can be planned for in advance and it is not difficult to stay warm if you plan correctly and prepare in advance and prepare the important elements as the most important is the room you choose as your main living area during a meltdown scenario as it may well be different from the normal living room. What is already there? Is there an open fire or wood burner or other heat source, and which way do the windows face and do they get the sun as even in winter the solar energy can heat a room through the window; does it have double glazing and a door so it can be totally shut off from the rest of the house to retain heat.

Minimalist rooms may have been in vogue in the past but they are not good for heating as they leak heat out so to be thermally efficient they need things such as carpets to insulate the floor and ideally wallpaper to insulate the walls and doors which are good fitting doors so they don’t leak and ideally it should be an inside room with as few outside walls as possible and fabric furniture such as settees and chairs. Wall units or wardrobes also provide excellent insulation provided they have the right things, which insulate inside them and now comes the balancing act.
Ideally you want your room heating up through the windows as early in the morning as possible which means your windows being as large as possible and facing in the right direction and later in the day you want the smallest windows to prevent heat leaking out, so select your room carefully. Does it have to be downstairs? Actually no as heat rises and an upstairs room will catch more rising heat so check the criteria of upstairs rooms also and never forget a conservatory as they are predominantly glass and collect all the solar rays during daylight hours and can be a contender. Never forget the option of using a downstairs room during the day and moving to an upstairs room later in the day.

One thing people overlook is outside buildings such as sheds, garages, or workshops as those made from wood are natural semi insulators and a wooden frame with a wooden outer covering means insulation can be packed between the frame and a thin wooden inner lining put over it to provide an excellent insulated living area. If it has a small wood stove or log burner it can be efficiently heated while using the minimum of fuel and may actually have the ability to cook food and/or boil water to make drinks and provide either a nice day room or even living accommodation for the short term and people live in worse conditions.

Kitchens maybe a natural choice as they have the cooker which may be gas powered and if the gas is still on it can be used to cook and heat at the same time and if you have a single or a couple of gas cookers such as camping cookers they also give off heat as well as cooking.

Can your selected room be quickly and easily be modified to retain heat and if so do you or your family have the abilities to do this and do they have the materials as the worst offenders are double glazing as low quality or poorly fitted double glazed units as often fitted to social housing, leaks air worse than the windows they replaced as they were often fitted for money. Let me explain this, social housing get lots of revenue from many sources and the largest are EU and Government funding to update housing through grants or subsidies and to obtain this funding they have to show specific numbers of updates such as providing loft insulation and cavity wall insulation and replacing roofs with more energy efficient materials or fitting roof insulation and double glazed front doors. These will be the cheapest items they can get and a company will usually get a “supply and fit” contract. This often means they have a time deadline to complete the work and it may not be possible to complete the work correctly while rushing it which leads to leaking windows and doors.

Upgrading a room may include fitting the stick on foam sealing strip in windows to stop them leaking or fitting the silicone strip which flaps from the window and over the window frame and closing the vents which many windows have to stop hot air leaking out. Ensuring doors are fitted and actually close are an excellent way of keeping heat in and if you have a draught excluder this also helps and if you have single glazed windows then cover them with clear plastic to make then double glazed and the plastic can be stuck in place with masking tape as a temporary measure.

If you have a wood burner or open fire then keep it clean and at the end of summer or early Autumn you clean your chimney; if you have drain cleaning rods you can get the chimney brush which simply screws on and removes the soot, so why is this important? Because soot can ignite and create a chimney fire which becomes a huge rocket stove and they are difficult to extinguish. Secondly, you having wildlife and birds nesting in a chimney is not unusual and birds don’t clean up after themselves so they leave their nests which can ignite and cause a chimney fire, so clean it.
If you have a log burner or open fire it needs fuel and a means of lighting it and I suggest building your own dedicated log store and attach it to a solid structure such as a brick outbuilding and if you get scrap wooden pallets you have built your dedicated log store from fuel as you can dismantle it and burn it if necessary; and ensure the roof slopes and has a waterproof covering. Used pallets are plentiful and often free so get them and dismantle them into their boards and blocks/stringers and stack them neatly into your new store as boards may be useful for repairs and can be cut as and when you need them.
Hedge cuttings and things such as the trailing willow fronds are excellent fuel and if you have a willow tree then trim it and allow these whips to dry and cut them up and put them in buckets, hedge trimmings and also be dried and cut up and put into sealed buckets ready for use and if you have a chipper then put them through there and chip them before storing them. Collecting wood is easy and mid summer to autumn is the best time to collect fallen branches to fallen trees as the ground and weather is dry and this naturally seasons the wood and part seasoned wood is easier and lighter to collect than wet wood, so if you collect some every time you go out dog walking or similar, you quickly build up a quantity. Cut your wood into lengths when you get home and split larger diameter pieces to fit your fire as split wood seasons quicker and if you have a greenhouse you can put it on slabs under your bench to dry out and use the free summer heat.

Never forget fire lighters and a knife as these can cut into two or three pieces to light your fire and if you are a woodworker you can save any planing shavings you have and put them into a sealed bucket and save them for starting a fire. You can make your own from cotton wool balls and petroleum jelly and put them in a sealed glass jar to save them or you can get small pieces of wood and melt candle wax over them in metal containers and allow it to flow fully through.

I always advocate keeping fire lighting equipment in another sealed box and this should be ordinary matches, waterproof matches and a pack of decent gas lighters such as BIC or Clipper along with a couple of cans of lighter gas, flints and kindling.

Whenever you have combustion you need oxygen and if your room is too tightly sealed you may not get sufficient oxygen in the room, so ensure you do, and a battery CO and Carbon Monoxide monitor are recommended.

What do you wear? Actually so many people get this wrong it beggars belief, never wear one heavy type of clothing as they don’t work and the simple rule is to wear lots of thin layers of clothing as these trap air between the layers and this forms natural insulation to keep you warm and in cold weather you shouldn’t sweat as this cools your body down. If you begin sweating you remove a couple of layers to prevent you from sweating and remember you lose heat from everywhere so you need to deal with this. Beginning at the bottom you need good footwear and good boots are recommended and they must be waterproof and sturdy, good sturdy shoes are an option along with a good quality set of wool socks such as the walking/hiking socks which are thick and help prevent chafing from your footwear. If in doubt you can get these socks as thermal socks which retain the heat.
Trousers are ideal and a set of thermal underwear will keep you warm under your trousers and if you don’t have thermal underwear both men and women can wear women’s tights under their trousers to keep their legs warm. Keeping the upper body warm can also be done with thermal Staying warm is something which can be planned for in advance and it is not difficult to stay warm if you plan correctly and prepare in advance and prepare the important elements as the most important is the room you choose as your main living area during a meltdown scenario as it may well be different from the normal living room. What is already there? Is there an open fire or wood burner or other heat source, and which way do the windows face and do they get the sun as even in winter the solar energy can heat a room through the window; does it have double glazing and a door so it can be totally shut off from the rest of the house to retain heat.

Minimalist rooms may have been in vogue in the past but they are not good for heating as they leak heat out so to be thermally efficient they need things such as carpets to insulate the floor and ideally wallpaper to insulate the walls and doors which are good fitting doors so they don’t leak and ideally it should be an inside room with as few outside walls as possible and fabric furniture such as settees and chairs. Wall units or wardrobes also provide excellent insulation provided they have the right things, which insulate inside them and now comes the balancing act.
Ideally you want your room heating up through the windows as early in the morning as possible which means your windows being as large as possible and facing in the right direction and later in the day you want the smallest windows to prevent heat leaking out, so select your room carefully. Does it have to be downstairs? Actually no as heat rises and an upstairs room will catch more rising heat so check the criteria of upstairs rooms also and never forget a conservatory as they are predominantly glass and collect all the solar rays during daylight hours and can be a contender. Never forget the option of using a downstairs room during the day and moving to an upstairs room later in the day.

One thing people overlook is outside buildings such as sheds, garages, or workshops as those made from wood are natural semi insulators and a wooden frame with a wooden outer covering means insulation can be packed between the frame and a thin wooden inner lining put over it to provide an excellent insulated living area. If it has a small wood stove or log burner it can be efficiently heated while using the minimum of fuel and may actually have the ability to cook food and/or boil water to make drinks and provide either a nice day room or even living accommodation for the short term and people live in worse conditions.

Kitchens maybe a natural choice as they have the cooker which may be gas powered and if the gas is still on it can be used to cook and heat at the same time and if you have a single or a couple of gas cookers such as camping cookers they also give off heat as well as cooking.

Can your selected room be quickly and easily be modified to retain heat and if so do you or your family have the abilities to do this and do they have the materials as the worst offenders are double glazing as low quality or poorly fitted double glazed units as often fitted to social housing, leaks air worse than the windows they replaced as they were often fitted for money. Let me explain this, social housing get lots of revenue from many sources and the largest are EU and Government funding to update housing through grants or subsidies and to obtain this funding they have to show specific numbers of updates such as providing loft insulation and cavity wall insulation and replacing roofs with more energy efficient materials or fitting roof insulation and double glazed front doors. These will be the cheapest items they can get and a company will usually get a “supply and fit” contract. This often means they have a time deadline to complete the work and it may not be possible to complete the work correctly while rushing it which leads to leaking windows and doors.

Upgrading a room may include fitting the stick on foam sealing strip in windows to stop them leaking or fitting the silicone strip which flaps from the window and over the window frame and closing the vents which many windows have to stop hot air leaking out. Ensuring doors are fitted and actually close are an excellent way of keeping heat in and if you have a draught excluder this also helps and if you have single glazed windows then cover them with clear plastic to make then double glazed and the plastic can be stuck in place with masking tape as a temporary measure.

If you have a wood burner or open fire then keep it clean and at the end of summer or early Autumn you clean your chimney; if you have drain cleaning rods you can get the chimney brush which simply screws on and removes the soot, so why is this important? Because soot can ignite and create a chimney fire which becomes a huge rocket stove and they are difficult to extinguish. Secondly, you having wildlife and birds nesting in a chimney is not unusual and birds don’t clean up after themselves so they leave their nests which can ignite and cause a chimney fire, so clean it.
If you have a log burner or open fire it needs fuel and a means of lighting it and I suggest building your own dedicated log store and attach it to a solid structure such as a brick outbuilding and if you get scrap wooden pallets you have built your dedicated log store from fuel as you can dismantle it and burn it if necessary; and ensure the roof slopes and has a waterproof covering. Used pallets are plentiful and often free so get them and dismantle them into their boards and blocks/stringers and stack them neatly into your new store as boards may be useful for repairs and can be cut as and when you need them.
Hedge cuttings and things such as the trailing willow fronds are excellent fuel and if you have a willow tree then trim it and allow these whips to dry and cut them up and put them in buckets, hedge trimmings and also be dried and cut up and put into sealed buckets ready for use and if you have a chipper then put them through there and chip them before storing them. Collecting wood is easy and mid summer to autumn is the best time to collect fallen branches to fallen trees as the ground and weather is dry and this naturally seasons the wood and part seasoned wood is easier and lighter to collect than wet wood, so if you collect some every time you go out dog walking or similar, you quickly build up a quantity. Cut your wood into lengths when you get home and split larger diameter pieces to fit your fire as split wood seasons quicker and if you have a greenhouse you can put it on slabs under your bench to dry out and use the free summer heat.

Never forget fire lighters and a knife as these can cut into two or three pieces to light your fire and if you are a woodworker you can save any planing shavings you have and put them into a sealed bucket and save them for starting a fire. You can make your own from cotton wool balls and petroleum jelly and put them in a sealed glass jar to save them or you can get small pieces of wood and melt candle wax over them in metal containers and allow it to flow fully through.

I always advocate keeping fire lighting equipment in another sealed box and this should be ordinary matches, waterproof matches and a pack of decent gas lighters such as BIC or Clipper along with a couple of cans of lighter gas, flints and kindling.

Whenever you have combustion you need oxygen and if your room is too tightly sealed you may not get sufficient oxygen in the room, so ensure you do, and a battery CO and Carbon Monoxide monitor are recommended.

What do you wear? Actually so many people get this wrong it beggars belief, never wear one heavy type of clothing as they don’t work and the simple rule is to wear lots of thin layers of clothing as these trap air between the layers and this forms natural insulation to keep you warm and in cold weather you shouldn’t sweat as this cools your body down. If you begin sweating you remove a couple of layers to prevent you from sweating and remember you lose heat from everywhere so you need to deal with this. Beginning at the bottom you need good footwear and good boots are recommended and they must be waterproof and sturdy, good sturdy shoes are an option along with a good quality set of wool socks such as the walking/hiking socks which are thick and help prevent chafing from your footwear. If in doubt you can get these socks as thermal socks which retain the heat.
Trousers are ideal and a set of thermal underwear will keep you warm under your trousers and if you don’t have thermal underwear both men and women can wear women’s tights under their trousers to keep their legs warm. Keeping the upper body warm can also be done with thermal Staying warm is something which can be planned for in advance and it is not difficult to stay warm if you plan correctly and prepare in advance and prepare the important elements as the most important is the room you choose as your main living area during a meltdown scenario as it may well be different from the normal living room. What is already there? Is there an open fire or wood burner or other heat source, and which way do the windows face and do they get the sun as even in winter the solar energy can heat a room through the window; does it have double glazing and a door so it can be totally shut off from the rest of the house to retain heat.

Minimalist rooms may have been in vogue in the past but they are not good for heating as they leak heat out so to be thermally efficient they need things such as carpets to insulate the floor and ideally wallpaper to insulate the walls and doors which are good fitting doors so they don’t leak and ideally it should be an inside room with as few outside walls as possible and fabric furniture such as settees and chairs. Wall units or wardrobes also provide excellent insulation provided they have the right things, which insulate inside them and now comes the balancing act.
Ideally you want your room heating up through the windows as early in the morning as possible which means your windows being as large as possible and facing in the right direction and later in the day you want the smallest windows to prevent heat leaking out, so select your room carefully. Does it have to be downstairs? Actually no as heat rises and an upstairs room will catch more rising heat so check the criteria of upstairs rooms also and never forget a conservatory as they are predominantly glass and collect all the solar rays during daylight hours and can be a contender. Never forget the option of using a downstairs room during the day and moving to an upstairs room later in the day.

One thing people overlook is outside buildings such as sheds, garages, or workshops as those made from wood are natural semi insulators and a wooden frame with a wooden outer covering means insulation can be packed between the frame and a thin wooden inner lining put over it to provide an excellent insulated living area. If it has a small wood stove or log burner it can be efficiently heated while using the minimum of fuel and may actually have the ability to cook food and/or boil water to make drinks and provide either a nice day room or even living accommodation for the short term and people live in worse conditions.

Kitchens maybe a natural choice as they have the cooker which may be gas powered and if the gas is still on it can be used to cook and heat at the same time and if you have a single or a couple of gas cookers such as camping cookers they also give off heat as well as cooking.

Can your selected room be quickly and easily be modified to retain heat and if so do you or your family have the abilities to do this and do they have the materials as the worst offenders are double glazing as low quality or poorly fitted double glazed units as often fitted to social housing, leaks air worse than the windows they replaced as they were often fitted for money. Let me explain this, social housing get lots of revenue from many sources and the largest are EU and Government funding to update housing through grants or subsidies and to obtain this funding they have to show specific numbers of updates such as providing loft insulation and cavity wall insulation and replacing roofs with more energy efficient materials or fitting roof insulation and double glazed front doors. These will be the cheapest items they can get and a company will usually get a “supply and fit” contract. This often means they have a time deadline to complete the work and it may not be possible to complete the work correctly while rushing it which leads to leaking windows and doors.

Upgrading a room may include fitting the stick on foam sealing strip in windows to stop them leaking or fitting the silicone strip which flaps from the window and over the window frame and closing the vents which many windows have to stop hot air leaking out. Ensuring doors are fitted and actually close are an excellent way of keeping heat in and if you have a draught excluder this also helps and if you have single glazed windows then cover them with clear plastic to make then double glazed and the plastic can be stuck in place with masking tape as a temporary measure.

If you have a wood burner or open fire then keep it clean and at the end of summer or early Autumn you clean your chimney; if you have drain cleaning rods you can get the chimney brush which simply screws on and removes the soot, so why is this important? Because soot can ignite and create a chimney fire which becomes a huge rocket stove and they are difficult to extinguish. Secondly, you having wildlife and birds nesting in a chimney is not unusual and birds don’t clean up after themselves so they leave their nests which can ignite and cause a chimney fire, so clean it.
If you have a log burner or open fire it needs fuel and a means of lighting it and I suggest building your own dedicated log store and attach it to a solid structure such as a brick outbuilding and if you get scrap wooden pallets you have built your dedicated log store from fuel as you can dismantle it and burn it if necessary; and ensure the roof slopes and has a waterproof covering. Used pallets are plentiful and often free so get them and dismantle them into their boards and blocks/stringers and stack them neatly into your new store as boards may be useful for repairs and can be cut as and when you need them.
Hedge cuttings and things such as the trailing willow fronds are excellent fuel and if you have a willow tree then trim it and allow these whips to dry and cut them up and put them in buckets, hedge trimmings and also be dried and cut up and put into sealed buckets ready for use and if you have a chipper then put them through there and chip them before storing them. Collecting wood is easy and mid summer to autumn is the best time to collect fallen branches to fallen trees as the ground and weather is dry and this naturally seasons the wood and part seasoned wood is easier and lighter to collect than wet wood, so if you collect some every time you go out dog walking or similar, you quickly build up a quantity. Cut your wood into lengths when you get home and split larger diameter pieces to fit your fire as split wood seasons quicker and if you have a greenhouse you can put it on slabs under your bench to dry out and use the free summer heat.

Never forget fire lighters and a knife as these can cut into two or three pieces to light your fire and if you are a woodworker you can save any planing shavings you have and put them into a sealed bucket and save them for starting a fire. You can make your own from cotton wool balls and petroleum jelly and put them in a sealed glass jar to save them or you can get small pieces of wood and melt candle wax over them in metal containers and allow it to flow fully through.

I always advocate keeping fire lighting equipment in another sealed box and this should be ordinary matches, waterproof matches and a pack of decent gas lighters such as BIC or Clipper along with a couple of cans of lighter gas, flints and kindling.

Whenever you have combustion you need oxygen and if your room is too tightly sealed you may not get sufficient oxygen in the room, so ensure you do, and a battery CO and Carbon Monoxide monitor are recommended.

What do you wear? Actually so many people get this wrong it beggars belief, never wear one heavy type of clothing as they don’t work and the simple rule is to wear lots of thin layers of clothing as these trap air between the layers and this forms natural insulation to keep you warm and in cold weather you shouldn’t sweat as this cools your body down. If you begin sweating you remove a couple of layers to prevent you from sweating and remember you lose heat from everywhere so you need to deal with this. Beginning at the bottom you need good footwear and good boots are recommended and they must be waterproof and sturdy, good sturdy shoes are an option along with a good quality set of wool socks such as the walking/hiking socks which are thick and help prevent chafing from your footwear. If in doubt you can get these socks as thermal socks which retain the heat.
Trousers are ideal and a set of thermal underwear will keep you warm under your trousers and if you don’t have thermal underwear both men and women can wear women’s tights under their trousers to keep their legs warm. Keeping the upper body warm can also be done with thermalas you put on the layers you need, followed by a sweat shirt and a good coat or jacket and site work coats come as insulated with a totally waterproof outer and inbuilt hood, many are called “Thinsulate” as they are insulated and water just runs off them.
Keeping the extremities warm is vital and many people forget these and beginning with the head, underwear covered with several T shirts and ideally the long sleeved variants to suit the conditions you can get insulated beeny hats made by Thinsulate or other manufacturers which are insulated as a good proportion of heat is lost through the head, and if you have a site coat or similar with an inbuilt hood it will go over these types of headwear; and gloves come in many types so a pair of ordinary and waterproof gloves are recommended and ideally with the insulated inner removable linings.

Most clothing will normally be in most households and they are merely added to when the sales are on as you can get cheap T shirts in the summer sales at the end of summer and into the autumn and work or hiking boots are cheaper in spring or autumn and hiking boot socks are available all year round; so buy at the correct time and in unpopular colours as these are cheaper and won’t really be seen as it aint a fashion parade.

At night you can use a sleeping bag to sleep in and you need decent sleeping bags and not the cheapies and these can be covered with thin blankets to trap more air and help keep you warm but if you have cold furniture such as leather it can be covered with a blanket to protect you from the cold and if you heat one room and sleep in there on a leather settee you should cover your settee. If you have a double blanket it can be folded over and doubled up, or use two single blankets as you get the same results, and you can get things such as fleeces in various sizes and a double fleece for each person means they can wrap themselves up in it and keep warm as fleeces trap a lot of air to keep you warm.
You can get Arctic sleeping bags which contain insulation and inbuilt insulated hoods, and are totally waterproof, so are they worth it? Yes if you live in a polar region and no for nearly everywhere else as you don’t sleep outside in the rain or directly on snow and ice. Look for a decent quality sleeping bag with a good tog rating but don’t go overboard and look for niceties such as side zips so you can unzip them and make a blanket out of them so you don’t need a fleece.

If you go outside in bad weather you need to prepare as maintaining the bodies core temperature is essential to staying and feeling warm as a warm core temperature means a warm body and the best way to stay warm is physical activity which can be done inside or out and in light clothing or multiple layers; if you have a heated workshop or shed you can go in there to do something such as repair things or simply make something.

No log burner or open fire, then worry not as you still have options and the first thing to understand is something called thermal mass and how it works as we can use this to our advantage and this works by having solid things such as concrete, bricks and other masonry along with sand which heat up fairly quickly and release that retained heat slowly over a long period of time. Those of us old enough to remember Economy 7 electricity will know this was cheap rate electricity used throughout the night; and electric storage heaters which ran on Economy 7 which used thermal mass technology to exploit this cheap electricity and still provide heat throughout the day, and that it did not work effectively as then homes were not so well insulated, but the principle was sound and still valid today. Storage heaters (Economy 7 heaters) were extremely heavy and ask someone who handled them! And they worked by housing a lot of rocks as thermal mass, covered by oil, usually vegetable oil and an electrical element immersed in the oil. Early manual versions were switched on manually at night while later automated versions had a clock or timer inbuilt and switched on automatically and the element heated the oil which heated the immersed rocks all night and they switched off at, or near the end of economy 7 and the rocks released their heat throughout the day, or that was the theory; a theory which better works today in practice.

If you have an existing fire such as a flat topped log burner you can add bricks or blocks to the top and around the fire to capture the heat and warm up while the fire/log burner is lit, then let it release the heat over several hours after the fire goes out, let me explain, if your fire is lit for 3 hours and for these 3 hours it heats up your thermal mass before the fire goes out, and for 6 hours after this the thermal mass releases heat you have 9 hours of heating for 3 hours worth of fuel.
If you have an open fire and a hearth you can stand concrete slabs and bricks on the hearth to capture the fires heat and if you leave slight gaps between the bricks you have more area to heat quicker and more area to release the heat.

If you don’t have an open fire or log burner then don’t despair as the more competent can build their own heater using a fuel called alcohol or specifically isopropyl alcohol often called rubbing alcohol with a percentage of purity measured as a percentage and the best quality is 99.9% pure and lower qualities vary so we will stick to the 70% purity as it is cheaper at less than £70 for a 25 litre drum or around £17-18 for a 5 litre container at the time of writing.
If you can make an alcohol stove you can cook, if you make an alcohol stove you can add a couple of components and make an infra-red heater and a reflector to reflect the heat as alcohol heaters don’t give off any toxic fumes and are generally safe for inside use but you need to remember combustion needs oxygen so ensure you have sufficient oxygen, and if you add thermal mass you can get several hours of heat for an hours burning time if you use your brains.

To make an alcohol burning stove you need two cans and one should fit inside the other and be about the same height, you take and discard the tops of both cans then take the inner can and drill small holes around the side, next to the discarded top and then turn it over and make a hole in the bottom as this is the filling hole for your alcohol.

Option 1

Take this inner tin and wrap it with carbon fibre felt until it is a snug fit inside the outer tin and put it in, fill the inner tin with alcohol, but not too much, leave for about 1 minute for the carbon fibre to absorb the alcohol and become a wick and light it, you will get a real flame with quite a lot of heat.

Option 2

Take the inner can and put in the outer can and push ceramic wool between the two cans instead of wrapping in carbon felt and this becomes the wick, once packed you fill the inner tin through the filling hole, leave for 1 minute to absorb it and wick it up, then light and again you get a real flame and a lot of heat.

For cooking you place this on a worktop which is heatproof, or put a small piece of slab on it and then your burner, put a pot stand over your burner and light and put your pot or pan on the stand and let it cook, now you have an alcohol stove.

To turn it into a heater you need a couple more components and these are something to turn the heat into infra red heat and a reflector to reflect this heat into your room and again it was made from scrap materials. I began with the reflector which was made from an old stainless steel kitchen bin which was slit open lengthways and opened up, or you can slit it in half lengthways and have two reflectors for two heaters, an old saucepan was found and the reflector was stood in it and both the reflector and saucepan were drilled and bolted together with a gap between the saucepan and reflector. To make the top I found a stainless steel cake tin and drilled and bolted this to the reflector with no gap and fitted a carrying handle; the saucepan was filled with dry sand including the gap between the reflector and saucepan and levelled off, we now had some thermal mass ora small sand battery. To make the infra red section some fine stainless steel mesh was used and this was folded around the bottom outer can and the ends turned over to form two J shaped ends which were hooked together and flattened down, another can exactly the same as the outer bottom can was found and had a series of small holes drilled around the circumference and this mesh was pushed inside the top can and slotted over the bottom can so they were a snug fit, it was removed from the bottom can which was filled with alcohol and lit, the mesh was slotted over the bottom can. The heat soon heated the mesh to glowing which is the infra red heat and the reflector reflected it into the room and it conducted some heat into the sand which became the thermal mass and the one I made produced around 3-4Kw of heat and raised the room temperature in a 17’ X 15’ room very quickly and dried it out, we were running this with 1 litre of alcohol and it was for around 6 hours burn time and in reality 3 hours burn time would have been better.

One other variant of this is to make the burner element and make separate thermal mass and you can stack bricks to make a brick base on your hearth and built two sides and a back from bricks and leave a small alcove, cover with a concrete slab and light your burner and put it in the recess and let it heat the bricks, and you have instant thermal mass heated and emitting heat for hours.

One simple trick is to take the air lock approach if you go outside and come out of your living room and close the door and if nothing is being burned then put the draught excluder there, go to the back or front door and ensure you have socks and shoes on and go outside and close the door behind you and do whatever you have to do so your feet remain warm. When you return to the house quickly get inside and close the door behind you and remove your shoes and if your socks are wet then take them off, dry your feet, and put new socks on then some slippers so your feet remain warm and you or your living room lose any, or minimal heat.


Our next small heater is made using fine mesh and an old travel sweet tin in which the lid slides over the base and we begin by taking the base and putting it on the mesh and marking round it, cut it about ¾” or 20mm outside the marked lines and put this over the base and fold the oversize down until you have a mesh circle with turned down edges.
Take your tin and use Rockwool as the wicking medium and tear pieces off and pack them quite tightly into your tin and push the folded edges of your mesh into the tin and not over the outside, until it is flush with the top and holding the Rockwool in, fit the lid until it is needed. Remove the lid and fill with fuel and let the Rockwool soak it up and it can be alcohol, paraffin, methylated spirits or basically most flammable liquid fuels, light it and it will give a good flame and depending on fuel, a lot of heat.
Once again your basic burner can be turned into a heater by the inclusion of thermal mass and if you make a brick structure on a hearth or slab with an alcove built in you can fit your small burner inside to heat this thermal mass so it releases the heat all night.

Convection heaters are an excellent way of heating and need no electricity, or can be used with a small battery fan or the small 12 volt computer fan if you have a 12 volt battery and something like a small solar battery charging system and I will describe will use old computer fans running from 12 volts. Before you begin you need to know one limitation is the amount of air you can get into the combustion chamber as this limits the amount of items burning as they will receive insufficient air to run properly as their one benefit is they emit no fumes into the living area as they suck up cold air from the bottom and the fumes exit through the chimney at the top.

A heated pipe runs side to side through the main combustion box chamber and it is this which provides the heat and from whatever type of heat source you choose, it can be candles, your alcohol burner, a paraffin burner with multiple wicks or a simple meth’s burner made from a travel sweet tin as you can choose a fuel which will not conflict with a fuel you need as it sits in the combustion box, under the cross pipe. I used 100 x 50mm stainless steel and while you can connect them with heatproof glues such as JB Weld which is popular, I chose to TIG weld my prototype to ensure it didn’t leak and used preformed bends which were flared to slide over the straight pipes.

I began with a site box which held a defunct tool and had a flip over lid with a rubber seal which was removed and a log burner seal was fitted as it was fireproof, I marked the box with a central air inlet on the underside and on the topside the exhaust pipe was fitted; and for the cross pipe I cut slots on either side of the can and ensured the right hand side was slightly higher. Although this prototype was fitted with a small 2” (50mm) computer fan sloping the heated tube meant the hot air would rise and still heat the room without the fan, such as a failure to charge the battery or the fan itself failing as hot air rises and it would rise and exit the heated pipe. Making the door transparent is optional and I managed to obtain a circular piece of boiler inspection hole glass which was fitted to a hole in the door so I could see inside the combustion chamber and see what was happening and this was fitted to a stone wall for the purposes of the test. If you build such an item it needs fixing to something fireproof or you need to fireproof your mounting place as it can be very hot.

With the unit mounted, the bottom air inlet to the combustion chamber was fitted and as one end was reduced it simply slotted in and was riveted and a high temperature jointing paste was used, similarly the chimney was installed and fitted with a bend which went through the wall and this was sealed with Rockwool as it is a high temperature capable insulation. With the combustion chamber complete we can look at other options, for the purposes of testing the combustion chamber air supply was drawn from inside the room but you can extend the air inlet and draw combustion air from outside to keep the two pipes totally separate if you choose.

We used different types of burner to heat the cross pipe in the combustion chamber and they all provided useful heat to warm a small room and as we used candles and home made burners I will list the options, and remember the limiting factor is the air inlet pipe which dictates how much you can burn.

1) Candles used were tea lights stood on a steel plate to raise them and we used four with their flames in contact with the underside of the heating cross tube and with the small fan activated it raised the temperature from 9°C to 17°C . One major problem with candles, particularly standard size candles is them burning down and their flames not being in contact with the cross heating tube as efficiency drops massively and the running time with these candles was low, replacement candles would be regularly needed and used.

2) Next was a home made burner and this was a long tin with a push on lid which was removed and 3mm round wick was purchased and two were left in their lengths and the third was cut in half, the lid was removed and marked with 5 points equally spaced and these were punched through with a centre pop (a nail could also be used) and the centre pop was 3.2mm outside diameter leaving 5 X 3.2mm holes. Our wicks were pushed through from the inside, the first and second hole was fitted with one length of wick as were holes 4 and 5 leaving only hole 3 which had the cut wick pushed through, the bottom part of the tin was filled with paraffin to nearly full and the lid was pushed on and time given for the wicks to draw fuel up. The burner was installed under the cross tube and the wicks adjusted for height and lit, the door was closed and all five flames were in contact with the cross tube and raised the temperature from 7°C to 20°C which is excellent for an uninsulated stone building. Run times with paraffin were about 10 hours per pint.

3) This was repeated using methylated spirits and the temperature increases were similar, but the run times were lower and around 8 hours per pint and when isopropyl alcohol was used it ran hotter at around 22°C room temperature but only ran for 7 hours per pint.

4) Next were our home made sweet tin burners running on paraffin, IPA, methylated spirits and diesel and due to the space and air input only 3 tins were fitted as no more could be accommodated and these gave the best heating results as their larger flames totally engulfed the heated cross tube, and due to their size they also gave the longest run times on paraffin or diesel with around 11 hours per pint of fuel. One problem with diesel is the amount of smoke which is emitted as you can actually see some smoke, while minimal if does clog everything with soot eventually, and much faster than paraffin, and this is NOT insufficient air as it is totally the diesel fuel.

One potential issue may be the exhaust temperatures as for the purpose of this test the chimney from the top of the combustion chamber was short which culminated in exhaust temperatures of around 90 - 100°C which could be reduced by making the chimney longer or by welding some fins on to dissipate more heat, we left the chimney the length we did as it was representative of it fitted in a real house room. Of the fuels we tested we found paraffin gave the best balance of heat and run times with little soot or combustion residues and as a stand alone fuel it doesn’t conflict with anything else, and most people could build such a system and leave it in readiness for use. Paraffin, IPA, and methylated spirits can be bought in readiness and stored and you can build your own burners so you can remove a hot one without leaving it to cool and replace it with a cool, but full one and light it with no breaks in your heating and you can switch between fuels or go to candles. In essence this type of convection heater works well in smaller rooms and for more heat you can scale it up in size, and if you get 6 hours runtime on a pint of fuel you can run it for 2 hours in the morning to heat your room up and another 4 hours to heat it for the colder night time temperatures, particularly in winter.

If you have a rocket stove to cook outside and you are cooking outside with your rocket stove and you cook your meal and the rocket stove is still burning you can make a simple sand battery or thermal mass heater, quickly and easily using predominantly waste material; to begin you need a steel bucket and NOT a galvanised bucket as the galvanising emits toxic fumes. I made a few stainless steel buckets which were ideal and not too heavy to carry and these were:

1) A stainless steel bucket simply filled with sand, just ordinary building sand for mixing for brick mortar for laying bricks.

2) A stainless steel bucket filled with medium size stones of around 2-3” (50 – 75mm) diameter which were placed in layers in the bucket and the voids filled with dry building sand and more stones added until you have a full bucket of stones and sand with no voids as air doesn’t conduct heat as well.

3) A stainless steel bucket filled with standard dry concrete ballast as used for mixing concrete.

4) A standard concrete or breeze block.

Prepare your room by getting a couple of concrete paving slabs and an old rug or similar and lay the rug in the ideal place to put your heated bucket and lay your first slab on it, get 5 standard bricks and put one at each corner of your first slab, and one in the middle and lay your second slab on top of the bricks giving you a sandwich of concrete slabs with a brick filling.
Take your rocket stove and cook your meal and use the surplus heat by standing a bucket on it while it burns itself out of fuel and let your thermal mass bucket heat the rocks/sand up and when it is hot take it off and put it on your prepared concrete slab and if your rocket stove is still lit, put your second bucket on it.

You are not confined to rocket stoves as if you have made a cooking frame with a mesh inner which you can make a fire under then put your bucket on there, or go the whole hog and put your bucket straight into the embers.

If you have the foresight to collect old camping gear you may be fortunate to get old petrol lanterns and if you have one you need to identify the mantle type and get several spares as these are excellent sources of light and heat, then check the pump works and you can light it and it burns cleanly. You can get other versions which run on paraffin and again they are mantle lamps which heat up and glow and any mantle which glows also heats up and burns very hot to make it glow and if you light one at or after dark you get a lot of light and a lot of heat, more than enough for an average room and a paraffin version is the better option as it is a stand alone fuel the downside is often you need a burner to heat it up and methylated spirits for the burner.

Gas lanterns provide around 80 watts of light and about 4-6 hours of run time on a standard canister gas refill, or around 200+ watts of light from a petrol lantern with two mantles, and you can turn these down to half light output and halve your fuel consumption as petrol is a conflicted fuel potentially used in a generator or cars normally, or can be mixed with oil for 2 stroke appliances such as chainsaws to cut your wood.
Older gas heaters were designed for caravans and these evolved for motorhomes and tents and if you have a gas bottle, regulator and pipe you can potentially run this gas heater and heat your room.

I would offer a word of extreme caution if making an alcohol burner, I tried this myself and upon lighting, it exploded in my face and literally set my head on fire.
I found the best option for me was a diesel heater,i never used my gas CH through the winter & saved a lot of money as a result.