BEST LAID PLANS OF MICE AND MEN.
I have an electric heat pump and a wood stove. no gas, no oil or anything else. During the blizzard of 93, I was without electricity for 9 days. The house I was living in didnt have a wood stove. I cooked on top of a kerosun heater that I kept around for emergency heat. Those heaters wont do much more than heat up a can of soup. I sold that house in 99 and bought the one I am currently in. I threw out the old wood stove in the basement because it was rusted thru. The first coupe of years, I relied on electricity and the back up kerosun heater. I came home from work one week in Oct and to my surprise my wife had bought a wood heater. Of course I didnt have a stick of firewood on the place. I scrounged what I could and burnt mostly green wood that winter. Now whenever we have a big storm and the power goes off, the kids, inlaws, friends, all come over to my house because my stove keeps them warm. I have a 40qt stainless stock pot I keep full of water on the stove during the winter and three or four of those 30gal plastic barrels I keep full of water also. This gives me some cooking and drinking water, as well as water to flush toilets for a few days. With my wood heated hot water system, I also have 80gal of water I can drain out of the tanks if things get desperate. While I dont make it a everyday thing to cook on my wood stove, I sure aint going to rule it out if I start getting hungry. I also still have a kerosene heater and 5gal can of kerosene stored in the basement. I might need to check out that kerosene as I have had it for at least 10 years or more. Does kerosene go bad???