People do stupid stuff when cold.

[ratso]

Here are some examples of what I have heard
1 turn stove on with all burners
2 propane tanks inside with burners mr. heater ,ready heat etc.
3 plug strip with multiple heaters
4 open air kerosene oil heater

The cold season is just starting more to come feel free to ad to list

 

[Guido Salvage]

After I graduated from college I had a summer job in the Housing Maintenance Department at the University of Virginia. I worked into September and one day it was cool. A private contractor was doing a roof repair and put a 5 gallon bucket of tar in a gas oven to heat it up.

Needless to say, several apartments burned before they put the fire out.

 

[stihl in ky]

Some buddies of mine went duck hunting last year and it dropped into single digits that night so they thought it was a good idea to turn the stove on in the camper for heat. Well after too many beers they fell asleep and woke up in the morning with all the knobs melted off the stove. Could have been a lot worse.

 

[Nosmo]

Back in the 1940's over in France during WW2 my ex-father-in-law told what happened. It was far below zero in the dead of winter. They pulled into a small town and were told to bed down with cots in the second floor room of an abandoned bakery. One guy was said to sleep walk so they tied him into his cot.

There was a wood burning stove in that room but no firewood. One guy got the bright idea to fetch a 5-gallon can of gas from a jeep. He found a copper pipe with a valve and made a drip by drip from the can into the stove. All was well and working good and the room got good and warm.

Trouble ahead ---- well everything was going good until some guy got up in the middle of the night and fumbled around and knocked the gas can over which set the place on fire. My ex - FIL - had to jump out the second story window with only his skivies on into a snow bank.

Oh yeah, I asked him about the guy strapped to the cot. He said he got out OK -- we pitched him and the cot right out the window before we started jumping.

Nosmo

 

[Iron man]

We need to stay warm to survive so I wouldn't call a lot of things stupid.When I was a kid my Mom had to take care of me and my brother and we were always flat broke.I remember standing in front of the open oven in the winter getting dressed in the morning because we couldn't afford oil.

 

[zogger]

Read it in the news

Some years back there was a big storm here, ice and snow, and massive power outage in Atlanta. The power stayed down for some days for a lot of people. People in apartments with zero heat were burning trash fires inside in like wastebaskets, the sink, etc.

 

[GrizzlyAdams86]

I posted this in another thread but there is a person at my work who does heat their trailer house with a kerosene radiator and one of those mr. heater propane heaters. But I did hear about someone who was using 3 charcoal grills trying to heat their house.

 

[anymanusa]

hmmmmmm... let me see.

I've been known to open all the windows in my house and fire the stove full on when it was 15*F outside and have it 80*F+ in my house. Does that qualify as stupid?

 

[anymanusa]

Okay my for 'reals' answer: go to sleep with a kerosene heater on in the bedroom after you've closed all the doors and windows.

 

[ratso]

Okay my for 'reals' answer: go to sleep with a kerosene heater on in the bedroom after you've closed all the doors and windows.

I spent the night at a friends shack some 25 years ago woke up with black soot covering the walls and my lungs

 

[Aaron441]

Generators running in the basement, garage, porch, breezeway or whatever when the power is out. We had one family die near here that way, and another that would have died if the neighbor had not come to visit after that ice storm last winter.

 

[Highbeam]

Not sure what you folks mean by kerosene radiators but there are actual kerosene heaters that are meant to be used inside to provide room heat. They have a wick and actually work very well. It is not a cheap way to heat though since kerosene is very expensive.

I would not fault someone for using one of these legit kero heaters in their home.

People, usually non english speaking, die every year in my area from burning charcoal BBQs inside the home and the CO kills them. Same folks die from running generators in their attached garages.

 

[cedarman]

had a couple of friends who got lost duck hunting.

as night fall came, they set the boat on fire (they were on a marsh) to stay warm and for signal

I also heard of hunters huddling over their gunning dogs, hugging them to retain body heat off the dog.

being cold sucks

 

[turnkey4099]

Sorta OT but...

Heating season has started and I am waiting for the annual report of joe dumb nuts setting a pail of ashes on the deck resulting in a houise fire. There is a running record of at least one of those every winter in Spokane, Wa.

Harry K

 

[ratso]

Pale not bad for ashes grocery bag now that's bad. My friend the fire chief gets calls like that all winter garage goes up in smoke and then the house.

 

[Toddppm]

The crazy lady that lived in my house before me set the woods on fire by dumping her ashes in the woods next to the house. Could've been bad as I live near the bottom of a mountain. Neighbors say she got pissed cause the Fire truck was in her driveway to put out the fire

 

[anymanusa]

Not sure what you folks mean by kerosene radiators but there are actual kerosene heaters that are meant to be used inside to provide room heat. They have a wick and actually work very well. It is not a cheap way to heat though since kerosene is very expensive.

I would not fault someone for using one of these legit kero heaters in their home.

People, usually non english speaking, die every year in my area from burning charcoal BBQs inside the home and the CO kills them. Same folks die from running generators in their attached garages.

Not in a closed room. They will use up all the oxygen and possibly kill you, or at least give you a splitting headache.

 

[Highbeam]

Not in a closed room. They will use up all the oxygen and possibly kill you, or at least give you a splitting headache.

So can lots of things. This is a case of RTFM where you are instructed to crack a window.

 

[Dalmatian90]

Just thought of another one. Be too damn cheap to buy oil, so they spend inordinate amounts of time cutting and splitting their own firewood.

 

[turnkey4099]

Just thought of another one. Be too damn cheap to buy oil, so they spend inordinate amounts of time cutting and splitting their own firewood.

Buot because of all the excersize they get they are fare healthier and live longer than the couch potatoes.

Harry K