Jim:
 
D.P. 's article "Fire -Your Partner in Survival was very good! 
 
I would like to add that firewood storage life depends greatly on the type of wood.  Oak and other similar types can be stored for well over 20 years with no problems. (Especially if split and covered with a quality tarp or stored in a woodshed with a good roof.) But in contrast, un-split white birch will start to rot in a single year. Poplar and some other species also degrade quickly.
 
D.P. is right on about the type of heater to use.  When I built my house back in the very early 1970's, I just had to have a conventional Heatilator type fireplace for the open fire romance.  I should have listened to the old timers back then who told me to just put in a stone hearth and plain wood stove!  In the end, I wound up closing the fireplace damper, filling the flue with fiberglass insulation and putting a steel cap on it!   Now I'm just using the wood stove in the basement [with a separate chimney] to easily heat the entire house with lots less wood than the fireplace consumed.
 
Gasoline to run chainsaws can be kept for a very long time with the addition of PRI-G stabilizer. The same company also makes a stabilizer for diesel, called PRI-D.
 
(I recently started a gas engine that has been sitting for over 12 years with the original gas in the tank. Started right up and ran fine.  (I did add a little extra PRI G every few years during it's storage time)
 
I have no financial interest in PRI G or PRI D. I'm just a very satisfied user.

Mr. Rawles:
Although filtered HVAC systems make for comfortable and healthy inside air quality, even the most efficient draw heavily on AC mains. Insulated airtight walls and windows reduce heat loss and in windy areas reduce dirt infiltration. I would never consider powering a cooling system with solar power but heater blower motors can be so powered. This works well for dual stage furnaces that switch from heat pump to natural gas or propane for emergency heat. Fireplaces are as old as houses but rather than just building any old firebox, I researched fireplace design.

When building my ranch headquarters on the prairie, I thought about using bullet resistant glass but this was ruled out considering light loss and real value per cost. Instead I choose windows meeting Dade County, Florida hurricane specifications. Windows and importantly their frame extrusions and locks meeting these requirements are tested for shatter resistance and high wind load. Of course no window is better than the house framework into which it is mounted. Although not highly bullet resistant, these style windows present a considerable obstacle to someone seeking unlawful egress by breaking a window.

Windows meeting Dade County requirements are available in single or multiple pane configurations and in casement or sash design. Due to high wind loads in the Texas Panhandle I choose casement windows because the harder the wind blows, the better this type window seals. In retrospect, I should have included at least one sash window per house side. Sash windows are better suited for use with external shutters and afford easier egress in the event an emergency evacuation is required.

The main entry to my ranch headquarters is via a courtyard. Courtyards provide enhanced security and reduce wind. Inside the house, I designed a ten foot long entry foyer to further reduce heat loss and wind borne dirt infiltration. A second reinforced entry door was located at the end of the foyer for increased security. All external and bedroom doors are dead bolted and equipped with Rocky Mountain cane bolts. Internal doors are 2 7/8” thick mahogany. I chose sturdy Cantera metal clad exterior doors with of course a Dade County glass specification.

Portions of the house perimeter walls were constructed of fiberglass entrained, rebar reinforced, poured in place concrete. Now concrete is an extremely poor insulator so I framed with 2x6s, filling the framed in walls and ceiling with spray in insulation. Not wanting to introduce a fire hazard, I tried to burn a small piece of the insulation and was impressed by its flame resistance. I cannot recommend this insulation highly enough. A bottle of water was left inside all winter long in the unheated house during construction and it never froze even when the outside temperature dropped to -10F. Chilly this house might be if unheated, but one could live there without supplemental heat.

After product comparison, I choose two Lennox high efficiency furnace/heat pump systems with emergency propane back up. I added Lennox UV lights to these systems to reduce mold and bacteria along with Lennox HEPA electrostatic filters, and humidifiers.

Predominately downwind and several hundred yards down hill from the house I poured another concrete structure to house several 900 gallon propane tanks (propane is heavier than air). This propane fuels the HVAC emergency heat and kitchen appliances. The ranch headquarters has two fireplaces, both of Rumford design that may be unfamiliar to your readers. I equipped one with a fireplace crane in case I ever wanted to cook in it. Even though I have all sorts of backup electrical power options for the HVAC systems, I bought a Sopka Magnum cookstove for post-Schumer installation. These stoves offer a high value to cost and can burn both wood and coal.

Having a house that won’t freeze inside when unheated during the coldest winter is of incalculable value. Chilly it may be but with down and wool, one could live and thrive. Having multiple heating/cooking options are essential when Schumer hits the fan. The value of good insulation is apparent to anyone who has cut wood for heat.

I hope these comments are of value to anyone considering new construction.

Sincerely, - Panhandle Rancher

To say we have had a mild winter here in Iowa is an understatement to say the least. That was until recently. It would be safe to say that with temperatures in the 50 degree range I have gotten a little complacent this winter. Like many who read SurvivalBlog I spend time watching the news and trying to keep an eye on the big picture. At least in this case it came at the expense of some of the details. Like everything in life I would like to remind myself as well as all my Brothers and Sisters out there that might read this that like all things in life we need to take a balanced approach.
 
We did have a snow storm and nature reminded us that it was still winter. I guess this would be one of those situations that Attitude made the difference in the whole day. That was something else that I think I may have forgotten. At my house we don’t prep just to survive. If all I was interested in was surviving I would not put so much time and effort into what we have done. Personally I want to survive with a life worth living.  I personally am not someone that is going to wonder through the woods with a backpack eating bugs having lost everyone and everything I love. If they are going to get to the people and pets that I love and care for then they are going to have to go through me to get there. So if those things are gone they would have had to take me out to get there. So while I’m here I might as well enjoy the life that I have.
 
Instead of taking the doom and gloom look at what all went wrong let’s take a positive outlook on the day and see what I was able to learn from our experience. Life is a choice. Where you are in life is a sum of the decisions you have made so you are exactly where you have chosen to be. Look at it this way: If you are now willing to make changes to your lifestyle such as giving up cable or eating out then you have made a conscious choice. You have chosen to keep things exactly the way they are. Since you are not willing to do anything different you must be happy with the way things are in your life. So let’s take a look at where the choices I have made took me for the day.
Waking up to about 4 inches of snow meant that my first duty of the morning was to get out and get rid of the snow off the driveway and sidewalks. Not a big deal. My Cub Cadet has a two stage snow blower on it and I race my neighbor to see who can do the others sidewalk first.

The first thing I notice is this has got to be the heaviest and wettest snow I can remember in a long time. As soon as you step down on the snow it instantly turns to ice on the sidewalk under your feet. This is the first time I can ever remember my machine struggling to throw the snow out of the way. I’m usually having to angle the shoot down so the snow does not go too far and end up where I don’t want it. I happily spend an hour or so removing the snow from our property and a couple of my elderly neighbors. Rats, Rick has already gotten the sidewalk. Score one for him. I’ll get him next time.

I pull the tractor back into the garage and notice that it is unusually dark inside. I thought I had turned on the lights in the garage when I went in but must not have. Well no big deal there is plenty of light coming in from the open garage door. I put the tractor away and pull my truck back in and prepare to go back into the house. Like most people I go to walk out the door and hit the automatic garage door switch and nothing happens. Click, Click, Click? I looked over and I had turned on the lights but they were not on? I guess all this heavy wet snow has taken down some of the trees in the area.

A power failure is not a huge deal. I pull the release cord on the door to disconnect it from the drive and close the door manually. Here is where our first learning experience comes into play. Don’t you just hate those? With the door being connected to an automatic garage door opener there are no operating locks on it. Being an accountant by trade I’m not the most mechanical person on the planet so I have to subscribe to the K.I.S.S. principle.  So believing in this instead of trying to do something elaborate I just grab a set of vice grips and clamp them on the rail to secure the garage. It would have been no big deal if the door had been closed when the power went out but since the side was all the way back there was no way to secure the door. A nice set of Vice-Grips on the rail worked quite well in my opinion.

At this point my vicious guard dogs decide to wake up and come downstairs and see how much of my breakfast they can talk me out of. This is where I would really suggest one of those LED head lamps if you don’t already have one. The kitchen is on the North side of the house so does not have a great deal of outside light this time of year. Having both hands free makes tasks much easier than trying to hold a light with one hand and do everything with the other. Of course there is always the hold it in your mouth and slobber all over yourself method. Personally I prefer the head lamp. Slobber all down the front of your shirt first thing in the morning seems to bring a lot of pesky questions. Or at least it does at my house.

At this point the power has been out from probably an hour and a half at my estimation. With Winter having shown up with the snow the temperature outside was far from what we had gotten used to. No big deal “I HAVE PREPS”. Quite proud of myself for having thought ahead I have a backup heat source. I have a kerosene heater out in the garage that I keep around for just such an occasion. So closely watched by my ever vigilant guard dogs we go out to the garage to get the heater and bring it into the house.

I do have to interject here that I was quite proud of myself at this point. I have read here on SurvivalBlog quite a few times that you can never have too many flashlights and the read many praises on the new LED flashlights. Having done so a while back when I was at Home Depot I saw bulk packs of them on sale and picked up several. She Who Must Be Obeyed and I then went around the house and put at least one flashlight in every room of the house. Several rooms we put a couple. Luckily for me the flashlight was right where I expected it to be and worked great.

The Dogs and I then went out and brought in the heater and wiped off the dust and checked it over for proper operation before I tried to light it. I used to use it regularly to heat the garage before having a heating system put in. Since then it has sat patiently on the shelf waiting. This is when I noticed that last time I used it I had forgotten to refill it. Not a big deal. I was prepared. I knew I had extra kerosene in the garage. I had several unopened cans that I had purchased for just such an occasion. So the dogs and I trekked back out to the garage to get some kerosene to top it off before we put it into operation. I knew the cans were unopened and therefore full. I checked on them by looking over at them to make sure they had not been damaged several times a year but had never physically touched them since I had put them off in the corner against the wall. I know they were full because I had purchased them and put them over there.
 
This was when I realized that Murphy's Law had not been repealed. The cans were strangely light when I went to pick them up. Almost as if they were empty. I look at the top and the seal is still in place right there where it is supposed to be. They simply can’t be empty could they? They were new when I put them there and the seal is still on top right where it was supposed to be. I shake the can and there is no slosh like there should be. No one ever told me that if you put a steel can on a cement floor that the bottom of the can will rust out. It must have happened over a long period because I never remember smelling kerosene in the garage but the bottom of the can was rusted and the cans were empty.

Well we must keep our beautiful wife warm so we go back into the house and strategically place the heater in the kitchen on the bottom floor of the house and light it. I did this because heat will radiate up. So by putting it at the bottom of the house farthest away from the stairs the heat will radiate through the bottom floor and eventually upstairs. The sun has finally come out so I open up the curtains on the south side of the house to let in as much sunlight as possible. I was surprised that within a half hour I had to go back downstairs and turn the heater off. It was starting to get way too warm upstairs.

Not knowing how long my existing kerosene still in the tank was going to last I went to plan “B”. Being a believer in "two is one and one is none", I had recently purchased a backup heat source to my backup heat source. Truthfully I had picked it up for the 5th wheel we have recently purchased and placed out our bug out location. On another trip to Home Depot I had purchased a Mr. Heater tank top heater. I had plenty of propane. All of my back up cooking is based on propane if the gas were ever to go out I had stocked up with the normal grill tanks with the adapter to fill the small tanks our camping stove uses and had a supply of tanks for our grill as well as three different 100 lb tanks to take down to the 5th wheel. We are still in the process of setting up the camper so they have not been moved down there yet. All were fully charged for just such an occasion.  With no better time to test our new heater than the present I assembled our new heater and attached it to the tank. I was amazed at the heat this thing put out and had to quickly turn it back off. I was confident that we were going to be nice and warm for as long as we would be without power.

So that gave me a few minutes to sit down and go through my checklist to see what needed to be done:

• Shelter is in place and safe? Check
  
• Water? Plenty stored and water still running check
  
• Food? Well stocked for both 2 pawed and 4 pawed family members so Check
  
• Everyone Safe and warm? Check
  
• Light? Plenty of candles, flash lights with back well over 100 back up batteries (Sale at Bass Pro shops on back Friday), Oil Lamps with extra wicks and oil, all in place so check  

Not being the type that would be willing to leave a heater on and unattended this gave me some time to sit by the window and go over our situation and evaluate what still needed to be done and see where I had missed things. As I sat there in the a comfortable chair looking out the sliding glass door watching it start to snow again I noticed a few things. Please let me share them with you.
 
As I sat there in front of the window I had a sense of calm and peace flow over me. It had started to snow again fairly aggressively. I could see several neighbors loading up their cars forced to trek out into the storm looking for a warm place to go. Meanwhile I was sitting there in my chair warm and comfortable. Knowing my family was safe and warm. I didn’t have to care what the roads were like. I didn’t have to care how much it snowed. I didn’t have to care when the power came back on. For the first time in several years the house was quit. I could almost hear the house talking to me. Those subtle noises that a house makes that are always there but are hidden behind the background noise of all the gadgets of our modern life create. I had a calmness and peace that I had not felt in quite a while. The simple things in life were all taken care of because we had the foresight to prep not just for the big disaster but also for the little things.
 
I realized the mistakes I had made. I had gotten complacent in knowing my preps were there and had not taken the time to periodically check and make sure they were still in operational condition. Luckily I had subscribed to the "Two is one, and one is none" theory and that had saved us.
 
My pointed out an area I had thought of once and had completely forgotten about. As unromantic as it sounds at this point feeling so good about how well things had gone overall we forgot about the toilet. Where we live we have a high water table so the sewer system cannot be buried very deep. Because of this we have what is called a grind pit in our back yard. All the waste from the house drains down into this pit and a device in the bottom grinds up all the solids and then pumps them “UP” to the sewer system. With no power there is no pumping action and the pump would become full rather quickly if we did not monitor how much water went down the drain. Of course this is when Murphy decided to make his presence known again. I had not really worried about it too much because I had a nice Kohler generator. Well as you might guess we don’t currently have our generator. It is over being worked on by the small engine person of our Mutual Assistance Group. We are experimenting with retrofitting the generators of our group with automobile mufflers in an attempt to quite them down considerably so they will be safer to use at our bug out location in a SHTF situation. The loud roar of several generators will carry for quite a ways in that type of situation and we are attempting to lower our decibel output as much as possible. Because of this my generator is not currently available.  Not a severe problem I can always grab one from work and bring it home once the storm passes if necessary but defiantly something that I need to work on.
 
At this point there is only one thing left on the list to do. So I go upstairs and see my beautiful wife and my vicious guard dogs all curled up on a pile of pillows on the bed. This is a scene that would make the cat proud. My wife is comfortably reading a book basking in the sunlight coming in from the window. My lab is comfortably curled up on my pillows and my Shepherd is sprawled out across what is left of the bed.
 
I update my wonderful wife on our situation and my conclusions. Then I inform her the only thing we have left to do to insure our survival is work on shared bodily warmth and comfort. That this is a critical part of our survival plan. The fate of the world could depend on it.
 
My loving wife then looks up from her book. She looks at me with those beautiful hazel eyes. Her long beautiful hair cascading down across her shoulders and pillows. The absolute picture of loveliness. A gentle smile crosses her face only to be replaced by her tongue sticking out followed quickly by a raspberry thrown in my direction. Dejected and rejected I was banished to the couch where I had to spend the afternoon taking nap lessons from the cat.

Some of my long-time friends can’t believe me now.  I was definitely a “city girl,” but now I’m a “wannabe homesteader.”  We’re living in the country now and I’m having fun learning to do a lot of “new” things.  Some of these things are just ordinary, every-day chores for people who grew up on farms, but for me, it’s a whole new way of life.  I’ve really enjoyed making butter and yogurt from the fresh milk we buy from the local Amish.  The first day I bought a gallon of milk from them, I told them I’d never had fresh milk before and the look on the young man’s face was priceless!  He couldn’t believe it.  Making laundry detergent and dishwasher detergent is saving us money, too – and it’s fun for me.  Something else that’s saving us a ton of money is heating with firewood.  Cutting firewood is something my husband and I do together several times a week and we really feel like a team, working our land together.  Working out in the timber, I feel so blessed that God gave us all those resources to help us.

My husband and I spent our honeymoon in the Ozarks and fell in love with the area.  A friend had found a very nice, reasonable mobile home near a big lake to use as a cabin.  We told him if he heard of another good deal to let us know and it wasn’t too long and we had our own “lake cabin.”   We lived in a major city in the Midwest and had high pressure jobs, so it was really good to get away as often as we could.  We enjoyed our lake cabin for a few years, but we both knew eventually we’d want to have an acreage with lots of trees and some kind of water like a pond or creek.  I was always watching the real estate ads and found an interesting acreage listed.  We called the realtor to get directions to view the property.  She was very nice and offered to meet us there, but we said no, we just wanted to take a look.  The directions were from the south end of town and we started from the north end, so the mileage was off and we had trouble finding it.  We stopped at a farmhouse to ask directions and after visiting awhile, discovered the man’s grandfather and my husband’s grandfather were brothers!  We really hadn’t thought of it, but my father-in-law was born in the area and moved away while in his teens and then his father moved the rest of the family later.  We didn’t even think about possibly having relatives in the area.

My husband started having health problems in 2008 and was in the hospital five times in three months.  In 2009 I had surgery for melanoma and had a second surgery in 2010 which turned out to be benign. (Praise God!).  We decided it was time to make the move, so as soon as we could get our house sold, we were heading down!  Our house was an old farmhouse I bought before we were married.  My dad helped me do a lot of repair when I bought it (because it was a dump!)  He was a contractor for over 50 years, so his help was greatly appreciated.  Later on we did more improvements, like aluminum siding, building an additional shed, an additional driveway, etc., but I wished we’d kept on doing little improvements and updating through the years.  When we were getting it ready to go on the market, we had so much work to do, it was overwhelming.  Our retired friend Jim, who had worked in construction for many years, offered to help us and I don’t know what we would’ve done without him!  The house was finally listed August 1, 2010 and we made a deal with prospective buyers on August 30th.  The deal fell through, but with much negotiation, had another deal with the same people towards the end of September and we closed on November 2.  Our last day at work was October 28.  We signed the paperwork at the title company ahead of time, so we were already enjoying a little time in Missouri, to celebrate.

It was several months before we actually felt like we actually lived at the acreage, instead of vacationing.  Part of that was due to several little trips we took within that first year.  I’ve told several people that feeling like you’re always on vacation, is not a bad problem to have!  My husband says retirement is a good job, if you can get it.  The only way our life could be any better, is if we had more money.

In the late winter and early spring, I started some seeds for the first time and boy, did I have fun!  My plan was for container gardening since the soil is very rocky and has a high clay content.  Unfortunately, there was a terrible hail storm while my plants were sitting out on the deck hardening off and they were hit hard – literally!  A neighbor down the road received $19,000 in hail damage and the people across the road from him had $25,000 damage.  We are ¾ mile from them and we had our roof checked out and the roofer said he only saw three dings!  Later our neighbor said he thought he saw damage on our roof, just while standing on our driveway, so we had another roofer check it out.  He said he saw a couple places where it’d be good to pound down a couple nails and caulk, but that was all.

I had a big container garden to try out a lot of different plants to see what I’d prefer.  According to many long-time gardeners, I picked the wrong summer to try gardening for the first time!  People that had gardened for 50 years were not very successful that year, so it’s no wonder my gardening efforts were pretty much a flop.  With the extensive heat wave and the “varmints,” I didn’t have much to show for my efforts.  I learned a lot. One of the lessons was to do a better job of fertilizing!

I was looking forward to canning bushels of produce from my garden, but that was not to be.  Even without a successful garden, a friend was church taught me how to can and I’ve canned peaches, apples, apple butter, loose meat hamburger, meatloaf, chicken, chicken soup, ham, bacon, navy beans and beans with bacon.  I’ve also had fun “vacuum canning” dry goods like pasta, rice, beans, sugar, salt, etc.

I had hoped to invest in solar power, but we just didn’t have the money for it.  We have a Hardy brand outdoor wood burning stove to heat the house and the water.  We love it!  Since we have a double wide mobile home, we weren’t able to “plan” any of the construction details, like insulation, windows, etc., so we try our best to be frugal and conserve energy.  I’m extremely frugal anyway, so it’s kind of a challenge to see how little electricity we can use during the month.  I keep track of the actual usage – not counting the connectivity fee or tax.  The lowest we’ve used is $29 for the month.  We’ve had a couple $29 months and a $30 month.  It was harder when we had the heat wave last summer.  I think the highest was $77, so after the fee and tax it was almost $95.  That month some friends had a bill of over $300, but they have a two story stick-built home.

In past years, there have been some serious winter storms with some areas being without power for more than two weeks.  After experiencing a terrible storm several years back and being without power for a few days, we wanted to do the planning and prep work to be able to sustain power for our home during an emergency power outage.  We have two generators – a small one and a new larger one.  We had a licensed electrician come and figure the best way to avoid trouble.  Now if there’s an outage, we’ll throw a power transfer switch and plug in the generators and we should be okay.  The smaller generator will service the water pump and larger one will be for the house.  We still have to go through and identify the primary circuits we want to power during an outage.  It feels good to prepare as well as we can to avoid trouble.  We have built up a reserve of gasoline and have treated it with stabilizer to keep it good.

I believe that everyone needs to prepare as much as possible for other types of emergencies as well.  Last year we installed a storm shelter and I’ve been putting supplies in the shelter.  It’s pretty small, so I’m being selective about what to put in there.  The devastation of the Joplin tornado gives cause for reflection and inspiration to stock our shelter well.

An economic emergency is something else I think people should consider.  The state of our government is a big cause for worry for many people – including me.  It wouldn’t take much to disrupt our normal distribution system, which could mean that the grocery stores would be empty within a few days or maybe even a few hours.  I believe it is very, very important to keep that in mind.  Too many people only have enough food and other supplies for a few days or weeks.  A friend of mine told me her son and daughter-in-law in New York shop for their groceries daily.  Their apartment is so small that they don’t stock any groceries.  Apparently, that’s common in New York – yet another reason why I prefer to live in the Midwest.  In case of any kind of disaster, there would be a whole lot of hungry people in that big city!  Imagine the unethical people thinking they’d just take what they need from others.  I think everyone should be building up their supply reserve – even if it’s just a little at a time.  When you’re grocery shopping, try to prioritize so that you can buy a little extra of the basics that will store long term.  Space is an issue for many people, but what I’ve found is, the more you look around and the more you organize, the more space you can find.  It also inspires me to get rid of excess “stuff” and ours goes to a thrift store that benefits the Humane Society--one of my passions!  The more you prepare, the more peace and security you will have – regardless of what’s going on in the news.

Thinking of the evil people who were too lazy to prepare and thought they’d just take what they want reminded me of something I heard a few weeks ago.  We’ve been attending some readiness meetings put on by a discount grocery business that specializes in helping people prepare for emergencies.  A man in attendance said he has a bumper sticker on his truck that says “Don’t tread on me.”  A young guy at a gas station asked him where he got it and he told him.  The man was suggesting that he start preparing for difficult times.  That young guy said he didn’t have to prepare – that he and his ex-military buddies would just take whatever they wanted from others.  He said they could go into anyone’s place and just take what they want.  That was right here in our little (ostensible "safe") town!  One year in the 1990s our town was voted the safest city (per capita) in the nation.  Something else that some of my long-time friends probably would be shocked at, is one of the ways we chose to prepare.  Both my husband and I decided it was wisdom to get our concealed carry permits.  The world is changing – and not for the good!  I truly believe we have to be prepared for all kinds of trouble.

I don’t know your religious beliefs, but I believe that my husband and I were being led to prepare.  Our preparing isn’t like some people, with bomb shelters or the like.  That could be due to financial lack, but I like to think it’s more the path of our leading.  I felt that we were being led to “prepare for difficult times.”  I believe that God has been leading many more of His people to also "prepare for difficult times."  Part of His plan may be to have certain people strategically placed so that they can help others.  I’ve known for several years that part of my calling is to help others – this may be one of the ways.  The friend at church who taught me to pressure can foods at home also feels that she may be called upon to share her reserves with her church family.  That’s why she and I both have been packaging some of our long-term storage into smaller containers – in case we need to share a quart or two of beans and rice or whatever with our friends and neighbors.  If everyone will prepare with the thought of sharing with friends, relatives and other people in need, then those difficult times may be a little easier! 

I want to encourage people – everyone – to prepare.  A little at a time, can by can, jar by jar – week by week, and month by month. Before long you could stand back and admire your “investment” in peace and security.  If an ignorant “city girl” like me can learn how to make butter and yogurt, to can all kinds of food, to make her laundry and dish soap, to help cut firewood almost daily – and to actually enjoy it, then anyone can learn the skills necessary to start on the road to self-sufficiency!

Mr Rawles,
To chime in on the "heat to electricity issue": A Stirling engine or "hot air engine"), might be what Dale from Vermont is looking for.  There are not many commercially available - one company was making them in New Zealand before the earthquake, but a quick Google search has also revealed that they moved their manufacturing to Spain. There may be others.  According to their web site they haven't yet resumed their 'off-grid' line of  engine production.

They can be quite efficient, and run off any heat differential.  For example: Hot air temperature and a cold spring, or a wood stove and cold air outdoors.  They do need the heat differential, or in other words a heat sink, to provide convection and motive power.  They are several generations/styles that have been developed over the years.  I believe they could be made to turn an alternator.  There are many 'do-it-yourself" videos on the net by people from all over the world. Hope that helps! - E.B.

 

James:
In response to article Some Thoughts on Burning Coal, writer Dale from Vermont:
 
There are possibilities for building a 12 or 24-volt low voltage direct current system using automotive or aviation industry components and a wonderful little device known as a RhoBoiler, devised by the Rhodesians during the time of economic boycott by the world's bully nations, which drove the Rhodies to greater self-sufficiency. The RhoBoiler varied in design and construction materials [often a former 44-gallon fuel drum] but was in general a low pressure remote boiler from which hot and sometimes pressurized water was supplied.
 
A recent web search turns up a few descriptions and pictures. An obvious starting place might be a scrapped-out water heater boiler, but obviously, pressure release valves are critical, lest a boiler explosion result. Most of the RhoBoilers were wood burners, given the local availability of wood as a fuel source, but the concept can certainly be adapted to coal-burning and electricity generation as well.

See:

• GreatNorthRoad.org
• Panoramio.com
• The Rhodesian boiler at Claviantica.com
• Flickr.com
  

Regards, - George S.

JWR:
Dale from Vermont wrote about the idea of a coal-fired home generator. Here's a link to a $13,000 steam engine unit. The electrical output isn't specified, but based on the 3 horsepower rating of the steam engine and
assuming about 40% heat-to-electricity efficiency, it might be as much as 1,000 watts - D.B. in Oregon

Sir,
Probably the biggest gap in our survival preparations at present is having a good source of energy if we have to stay underground for an extended period. If surface conditions are such that we cannot venture outside, then most likely there will be problems with our photovoltaic panels, solar water heater and hydropower, all of which are above ground. With currently available technology, propane seems to be the only reasonable solution to support heat, hot water, and electricity. Propane can be stored indefinitely and furnaces, stoves and generators that run on propane are readily available. However, storing enough propane underground to support our group for several years would be impractical. I'm also uncomfortable storing large amounts of propane for many years, since it seems inevitable that it will leak eventually, presenting a safety issue as well as a loss of the resource. Most people, including serious preppers, don't plan to rely on propane for more than a few days. For those with solar and hydro solutions that can work without pause for years, a 3-day backup system in the form of propane seems superfluous.

I keep coming back to coal. Like propane, it can be stored forever [if protected from weathering.] (Before it's mined, it's basically being stored indefinitely underground in a mine.) With existing, mature technology, coal can support all the things propane can be used for: heat, hot water and electricity. Unlike propane, there's no danger of leaking, and it's much more practical to store tons and tons of coal underground than it is to use buried propane tanks. There's only one problem: unlike propane, electrical generators that run on coal are not readily available for individual household use. This seems strange, since coal is the number one energy source for electricity generation at the utility scale.

Are you or my fellow readers aware of any practical, reasonably efficient solutions for home electricity generation using coal as an energy source that don't require an engineering degree to implement (if I had the skills I'd just build the generator from scratch myself)? I would be willing to pay a significant amount of money for such a system.

Thanks in advance, and best wishes. - Dale from Vermont

[JWR Replies: When ever wood heat or coal heat are mentioned in the blog, invariably someone will then Thermoelectric generation (TEG) technology . Unfortunately that technology hasn't matured sufficiently to be reliable. Sadly, TEG circuits burn out with alarming regularity. So steam power--at least for now--seems to be the only reliable way to turn heat into electricity. Perhaps some readers would care to chime in with some alternatives.]

Dear Jim,
I was very interested to read about the heated greenhouse in this article. I wondered if people have also tried insulating a greenhouse and designing it to maximize solar gain? I've seen a design used in the Himalayas which allows them to grow vegetables throughout the year despite -25C conditions, designed by the charity GERES. I uses a UV-resistant polythene sloping roof facing south, high-mass insulated walls to store the sun's heat and keep it in, some internal walls painted black and others white to help the solar gain, and finally a manually controller ventilation hatch - though I guess this could be automated if desired. There's a case study including photos at the Ashden web site. Thanks, - M.

Dear Editor:
Check out this web page: Directory:Walipini Underground Greenhouses.

Regards, - Roman

We now have indoor plumbing and a Wal-Mart, along with the millions of acres of wooded wonderland. Some of our forests are so dense and vast that even the DNR officers have become lost. We are alive with moose, wolf, cougar and black bear, to name a few. My husband and I are in our mid 50s and bought our 40 acres of forest in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula 20 years ago. Can you believe it; we paid only $13,000 for our woods and small cabin? Back then, no one in his or her right mind wanted to live in this harsh, almost Siberian-like wilderness, especially in the winter. It was a time when the only good paying jobs were in logging and mining and we still had a four party telephone system. Many places did not even have electricity. It is crazy how much things have changed in a few short years.

Back when we were settling into our new forest environment, we quickly discovered that the old-fashioned back yard garden becomes a lesson in futility until one learns that Mother Nature owns your butt. You do not do anything in this neighborhood, without her permission. Mesmerized by the warming of your world in early spring and the arrival of the first fawn, the chances are good that you have forgotten who is running the show. By mid spring, dear Mother will send a massive cloud of no see ems to eat out your eyeballs. By late summer, her army of Deer flies and Mosquitoes arrive to finish the job of reminding you that her justice is real.

At the beginning of winter, which can come anytime after the second week in September, Mother Nature unleashes her heavy cloud formations and delivers them in off Lake Superior. By mid-December, cranky, old man winter gets his gears moving and orders his cold winds to storm down from the Canadian arctic. The old guy mixes it up with Mother Nature and together they can dump an average snowfall for the season of 100 to 300 inches depending how close to the pristine, moody, Lake Superior you are. The Upper Peninsula is rich in soil minerals, however most soil for growing crops is horrible. A soil PH of 7 is a great find and is much treasured.

My reason for setting the stage is that one of the biggest obstacles of living up here will be fresh food. Having the ability to hunt and loads of dehydrated food is great but we need live, fresh food too. Therefore, the question is; how do you grow food in such an inhospitable climate and rotten soil? There is very little farming in the upper peninsula, and only one or two families make a living from strawberry u-pick farms, a couple of blueberry farms and a select few potato growers, that is it. Notice the crops mentioned like an acidic soil?

Our mission has been to grow a years worth of food without spending a shipload of money. Our ideal system would be a sturdy greenhouse and a low or no cost heating unit. Solar is almost useless during the time that we would need it the most, so we crossed it off our list. In the beginning of our homestead, we built a makeshift greenhouse out of windows the neighbors had donated to get them out of their garage. It was fun to build and use. Glass is wonderful for use as a greenhouse but the wooden frames eventually rot due to moisture and mildew. It served us well for almost 8 years but the needed repairs exceeded our budget, thanks to a lot of wind and a falling tree branch.

With paper and pencil in hand, we figured out the size of the new greenhouse we would need and the amount of cash we could afford to spend. We wanted to be able to extend the season by two months in both directions since our growing season barely makes 90 days some years. (Some of the old timers say that they have seen it snow at least once, in every month of the year.) It is also not out of the realm of possibilities for the temperature to fall to -40 or -50 on a clear night, although normally it only gets 20 below. There is just no growing anything from November to February here either, even if you had megabucks to spend on heating a greenhouse or had a good south-facing window. There just is not enough sunlight to do the job without very expensive artificial lighting. People living in Maine for example, do not seem to have the problem we do with dark cloud cover for those 3 months of the year. During December and January, it is totally, 100% dark at 4:30 P.M. (central), in the afternoon, another reason we won’t even try to grow in that part of the winter.

We began saving some our limited dollars and eventually were able to purchase a corrugated polycarbonate greenhouse, 16ft. X 20ft. (It is smaller than what we had hoped for, but money being hard to come by we settled on what we could afford.) I want to kiss the person who invented this type greenhouse. I was in love! It was delivered the second week of March during a blinding snowstorm. Needles to say, we did not get it up until June and much bad language from hubby. For the first couple of years we were unable to use it from late October to late April. We could only extend the season a couple of months in the spring and a few weeks in the fall, we wanted more. It needed heat to take advantage of what this beautiful polycarbonate building had to offer. After a winter’s worth of research, we came up with a plan. Using ideas and experience from several authors, we put something together that is relatively inexpensive to get started but holds up well and works fabulously. Most of it is made from scrap or junkyard salvage. For the very first time, I grew beautiful sweet potatoes. (These critters are delicious but space intensive. I just wanted to see if I could do it.) Here is what we did.

Before we put up the polycarbonate greenhouse, we had 3 yards of gravel brought in and dumped. At the time, we were only interested in making a level spot for the greenhouse. The spot we had chosen had a great south facing view but had a sizable slope to it. The hill had too much of a slope to put up a greenhouse without added material. The dump truck left a mountain of gravel right where we wanted it. We hauled and leveled the huge pile by hand which took about three full days. The instant the area was leveled and smooth, we unboxed the greenhouse parts and got things sized, measured and eventually, up.

When the time came to put in some sort of heating, we decided on a modified version that we found in a book called “Solviva”, by Anna Edey. Anna had a grant to build her experimental greenhouse, so she was able to have solar panels and all the gizmos and gadgets that go with solar as a back up heat. Too expensive for us, but what she covered in the book that we used was the example for a wood fired device she had in the center of her massive greenhouse. We used her idea and modified it to fit our greenhouse.

Parts list;
55-gallon metal barrel cut in half, long ways.
An old metal bed frame, taken apart.
Angle iron, one eight footer should be enough.
Steel plate 26” x 40” 1/8 inch thick. Thicker would work but this is what we had on hand.
4” chimney pipe, purchased~ not very expensive.
Two small hinges, taken from a barn door.
Woodstove gasket
First, we found an old 55-gallon barrel and cut it in half-long way. Make sure the barrel did not have toxic material in it. Next we hand dug a hole in the back center of the greenhouse, deep enough to fit the half barrel. I think the hole was about 20 inches deep, 45 inches long and 30 inches wide. You will need room to lower the half barrel into the hole and backfill around it.

Next, we found an old metal bed frame and dismantled it. We kept only the sidepieces, the two pieces that hold the mattress. Hubby then cut two lengths to fit either side of the half barrel, since the sides will be weight bearing. Next, he found some sturdy angle iron and cut four of them slightly longer than the width of the barrel; these will sit on the bed frame sidepieces. Fill in any gaps with wood stove gasket. (The first year we had this up and running, we put the barrel level with the gravel as that is what Anna did in the book. She also used longer angle iron across the barrel and sunk them into the backfill before laying down the sheet metal. Her model was much bigger due to the size of the space she was heating.) Next, hubby cut a sheet of steel plate ½ inch longer and wider than the half barrel. Looking at the steel plate long ways measure in 14 inches and make a cut on that line. On this, you will put two small hinges before placing it on the top of the barrel. The hinged flap becomes the door where you load the wood into your new in floor wood stove. Our design worked great for the first year but the second year we had such heavy snowfall that when the snow melted it filled the greenhouse with water. We have found that if our half barrel sticks up from the gravel about two inches or so, the spring melt will not leak into the barrel and put out the fire.

The first in-floor woodstove we made: Hubby cut a 4-inch hole in the end of the half barrel, and this was where the original chimney connected. It worked fine for the first few years but the connecting elbow filled with creosote, which clogged the pipe. We had to dig up the pipe from the backfill to clean it. Since then we made a new stove and put the chimney on top through the steel plate. It is much nicer but limits the space on top of the unit. The chimney should extend 2 feet above the surface of the greenhouse roof. It is better for draft and heat and smoke will not damage the plastic roof material. The re-enforced steel plate is used because once your in floor woodstove is finished and ready to fire up, you will want a waterproof container sitting on the steel plate. Once your bucket or barrel is filled with water and is heated, it acts like a pan of water on the kitchen stove. The heat and moisture add comfort back into the room. In addition, what we have found is that the gravel around the woodstove stays warm for a long time even when there is no fire in the stove. This area makes a nice place to put seed starting flats. The bottom heat is perfect for little sprouts to come alive. Even when it is minus 4 degrees outside and I will have little pale green life making their first debut against the rich black soil.

Here we are, the second week in December and we have just finished the last of the salad fixin‘s. We served a robust tossed salad for our Thanksgiving meal of Butterhead lettuce, green and red spinach, Tah Tsai (spinach mustard), Pac Choi and Kale. Once the last of the salad greens are harvested, it is time to clean the greenhouse and put her to bed for the winter. About the second week in February, I start the seed flats with new potting material and lovingly place the seed into their new home. Depending on weather conditions, how cold nighttime temperatures, I may let my seed flats stay inside the cabin for a week longer. Hubby cuts an extra cord of firewood in the fall just for the greenhouse. I do not want to use it all right away, so I may wait to fire up the greenhouse. In addition, I have better control of germinating temperatures when the seedlings are in our cabin at super cold night temperatures. About the end of March, I can use the greenhouse floor for germinating.

Another maneuver I used before the woodstove was installed, that turned out well, is making a greenhouse inside the greenhouse. I made a small wooden frame about 24 inches tall X 48 inches long X 48 inches wide and covered it with plastic. Place this mini greenhouse over the growing seedlings. Cover with a blanket at night to keep the daytime soil heat from escaping. It is surprising how efficient it is. If you do not mind using a little electricity, you can place a small electric heater in there too. I have started spinach and mustard greens and kale in September, placed them under the mini greenhouse in the greenhouse raised bed and had them spring to life when there was enough sunlight to make them happy. They were in a kind of holding pattern during the dark months.

Money is an issue

No money for a fancy greenhouse? Not a problem. For the price of a few feet of 6-mil white/clear plastic, you can have a nice greenhouse and can still use the woodstove idea. We experimented this year with an almost no cost way to extent the growing season.
We had some scrap 2 x 2s which we used to erect a frame. We also had on hand, scrap fencing material, some galvanized cattle fence and some chicken wire fencing. Whatever the material you use, it needs to be bendable. After we were satisfied with the frame construction, we mounted the fence over the framework and stapled to the 2 x 2s. Next came the plastic sheeting, which was also stapled onto the 2 x 2s. Because it can get quite windy in the fall and winter, I used regular clothesline rope to tie it down. We drove 6 stakes into the ground, three on either side of our new greenhouse. Next, I took the rope and went back and forth over the plastic knotting the rope around each stake as we went until all the rope was used, leaving enough to tie the end to a stake.
We have not yet, put a woodstove in this plastic covered greenhouse, but there is certainly no reason why you couldn’t. I would recommend, however, that you use a section of plywood to mount the chimney through the roof. The heat coming off the chimney can wreck havoc with plastic. Our plastic covered greenhouse sits in the garden where we previously made a raised bed. For this winter, I placed over wintering perennials in it. It held up very well through all the nasty windstorms we have had this fall. I was very happy with this setup.

You can see pictures of the in floor woodstove and the wire and plastic covered greenhouse here.

Some key reference books from our library:

• Cold-Climate Gardening: How to Extend Your Growing Season by at Least 30 Days by Lewis Hill
• The Winter Harvest Handbook: Year Round Vegetable Production Using Deep Organic Techniques and Unheated Greenhouses by Eliot Coleman
• Solviva: How to grow $500,000 on one acre, and Peace on Earth by Anna Edey
• Introduction to Permaculture by Bill Morrison with Reny Mia Slay
• All New Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew
• Greenhouse Gardener's Companion, Revised: Growing Food & Flowers in Your Greenhouse or Sunspace by Shane Smith
  

I am writing this because I have talked to so many people who believe that there is little they can do to prepare because they have no job.  There is a difference between having a job and working and although I have not had a real job now for over three years, I continue to work six days a week.  I had already been unemployed for almost a year by the time I started reading your books.  Having moved to this small city for a job in finance, I paid cash for an old mobile home in a trailer park rather than rent an apartment.  When I found myself out of work a few years later, I owned the mobile home and my aging sports car free and clear.  I also had a little money in a retirement account and what I had saved from the difference between trailer lot rent and an apartment.

Disadvantages to Riding Out TEOTWAWKI in a Trailer Park:

• No privacy – Several other mobile homes can see everything you bring into the trailer
• More crime – One night I came home to find police officers looking for drugs someone had thrown in my yard while being chased.
• Nowhere to hide – 2” thick walls and no basement or even a block crawlspace
• Nowhere to run – Mobile homes lots are small and there are only more trailers in every direction.
• Public water – Even if mobile homes had gutters, hundred of other people would see the rain barrels.
• No storage  – I had a shed, but no such thing as a cool, dry, place.
• Rented lots – Most leases state the mobile home is security for the rental payments.  It’s like having a mortgage that never pays off.

    
Within every problem lies the seed of opportunity.   Looking for work takes less time than working 60 hours a week.  I qualified for the unemployment which was more than my modest living expenses.  Leaving my employer meant I could move or withdrawal my retirement.  Knowing the withdrawal of my retirement would incur a 20% withholding for taxes and penalties, I opted instead to borrow out some and roll some of it over into a self-directed IRA capable of owning real estate.  This gave me the added benefit of asset protection as retirement plans are generally exempt from bankruptcy or attachment by creditors.  Most people decide where they want to live and then look for properties in that area.  I decided to look for good deals and then evaluate their appropriateness. 

Finding Good Deals in Any Market

• Never deal with just one agent – Search the MLS web site every morning and contact listing agents directly.  I found this by visiting several local realtor pages until I found one of them had embedded it in their site.  Good deals go too fast to involve a whole other firm.
• Watch the auction sites – More rural foreclosures are showing up as the economy worsens
• Tax Sales – Most of these are unimproved, abandoned lots or land.  Make sure you are in a state where you actually get the deed and do not have to wait out the redemption period.
• Ask around – Maybe another prepper will sell you some of their land.  It takes several people to defend a position.

(These tips come from the YouTube video)

It did not take long to hit pay dirt.  One morning the MLS spit out a few acres about an hour from my home.  It was about half the price I had seen for comparable properties so I followed the directions on the MLS page.  It was on a former logging road off a road that dead ends into a hollow near a national forest.  This forms a natural cul de sac where vehicle access to the community can be controlled at one bridge.  I immediately called the listing agent, met with her and the seller and made an offer on behalf of my IRA for full asking price.  The seller had been forced to sell the property as part of a divorce settlement so he listed it with his sister not caring what it brought.  She had listed it for the minimum price her broker allowed and I was the first person to whom she had shown it.  To her credit, she had a list of interested parties by the time she met with me.

I borrowed enough from my retirement account to buy a monster box of silver when it was $16.16 per ounce from what was left in my retirement account after transferring the funds for the real estate purchase.  During the same period that the stock market recovered about 10%, my investment in silver has about doubled.  I have to repay around $100 a month to my own retirement account, but the only consequences of defaulting on this loan would be that the balance would be taxable as income in the year of default.

While the seller was showing me the property lines, he made a comment about the disagreeable hermit that has the only other residence on this gated former logging road.  Instead of confronting him about a key to the gate, I left a letter in his mailbox introducing myself and inviting him to lunch.  After lamenting that he would have bought the property for privacy (I can't even see his property line), we became great friends and he willingly handed me the key.  He has been a great resource and informed me that we do not post our properties with no trespassing signs.  Later this may change, but for now I can traverse hundreds of my neighbors acres without worrying about breaking the law.  This being different from the laws in my home state, I confirmed it with the largest land owner adjacent to my retreat.  He is an elderly cattle rancher who works and lives on the other side of the mountain.  One day as I was loading up my truck I heard someone yell 'Hello' which is really rare.  I peered through the trees to find an old man sitting on a stump.  I walked up the gravel road to meet my neighbor.  He had been riding his fence lines on a four-wheeler when it broke down.  I went and got my truck and ferried him back to his side of the mountain.  During the ride I made sure I can use his land. 

It took longer to sell my mobile home than I expected.  I finally got an offer the following winter contingent upon waiting for the buyers tax refund to arrive so he could pay me.  Since I needed the funds from the mobile home to finance building materials, I redeemed the time by meticulously searching Craigslist for things I need.  Here is a partial list of acquisitions:

• 1980s diesel 4 x 4 pickup (I gave my friend a great deal on my sports car to pay for this.)
• Wood/coal stove
• Windows and doors for the cabin
• A couple CB radios and a CB base station
• Rabbit hutches (free for hauling away)
• 2 one year supplies of Emergency Essentials survival food packed in 2008 from a guy who was moving to Mexico
• Food grade water barrels (not the soda pop ones as sugar feeds bacteria)
• Steel 55 gallon barrels with clamp on lids

Because I believed that food inflation would soon come, I also purchased a thousand pounds of various grains during this time which I packed with oxygen absorbers in Mylar lined buckets using dry ice as per the instructions in JWR's book, How to Survive the End of the World As We Know It.  When others were hitting the Black Friday sales for flat screen televisions, I was picking up solar power kits nearly half off.

The pickup truck was one of my first purchases because without it I would not have been able to pick up many of the things I found.  The mountain retreat is so remote that even in the summer I have to shift into 4WD.  Winter snows require tire chains.  By the time I closed on the sale of my trailer, the rear of the retreat property looked like a junkyard with little piles of material covered with camouflage pattern tarps.  Since the cabin site cannot be seen from even the gated former logging road and I built no driveway, everything was perfectly safe.

The thought of moving out of my mobile home and into a tent in the middle of winter was not very attractive.  Just because I can build a debris shelter does not mean I want to spend the winter in one.  Fortunately, I knew a single mother whose maternity leave was running out.  She did not want to put her child in a daycare so we made a deal whereby I stay with the baby during the day in exchange for room and board.  I continue to collect parts and inventory which I store in a rented storage unit a few miles from my retreat property.  During this time someone I knew from high school was arrested on felony charges.  Since he would soon be unable to own firearms, I picked up his entire gun collection complete with ammunition at a very good price.  When winter turned to spring, I was ready to start building on weekends.  The basic structure of the cabin is complete and soon comforts like the solar electric system and hot shower will be finished and I will be able to move on to the outbuildings.  I already found a multi-unit rabbit hutch free for the hauling and I am waiting on a chicken coop to not sell before another party accepts my offer to do the same for them.  Everything I build is mobile so as not to be improvements to the property itself which would violate the terms of my IRA.  Once I move there and start using the retreat, the funds I spent on the land will be considered a distribution from my IRA.  As this will only happen if I do not find another job, the penalties and interest should be offset by my standard deduction and exemption as I will have no other income in the distribution year.  

I continue to look for work in my field, and despite having several interviews I still have no offers.  The last interviewer told me that about a hundred people had applied for the one position.  Hopefully my experiences will help those in similar situations realize that as long as we practice thrift no matter our circumstances, we can turn obstacles into opportunities.  Complaining about setbacks do nothing but waste time better spent progressing toward the goal.  Steady plodding brings success.   

Thanks for the blog. I have been been one of those avid readers that does not provide very much input, but I have some useful "how-to" information on heating your house in the temperate climate.  I live in Iowa at the current time.   A lot of this is hard to even put into words, because this style of heating is unique, and even more unique as I built the heaters my self.  I recommend anyone trying to do these, to do additional homework before attempting any of this.  I also studied “The Book of Masonry Stoves: Rediscovering an Old Way of Warming" by David Lyle, and “Living Homes: Stone Masonry, Log, and Strawbale Construction ” by Thomas J. Elpel.  What I built was the “Missouri Masonry” stove which was and is a free booklet PDF from the Missouri DNR web site called the “Missouri Masonry pdf”. After I called Roger at the DNR, he said the booklet was made almost 20 years ago and he was not to worried what I did with my information I got from them.  At the time they had worked with the Missouri Department of natural resources and the US Department of energy to come up with the guide. Also I should note there is a company called Temp Cast.  If you want to buy them pre made, and some Russian Masonry heaters on You tube that are really neat.  I am a cable television technician by trade, but I took on all the brick laying skills myself, and by all means I'm no expert.  Any mistakes that I made were entirely mine, and yet the bread oven masonry stove that I built has been working  for years.   

Why would you want a masonry heater versus a wood stove or ordinary furnace?  I think the ultimate advantage I enjoy is that I don’t have to wake up at 2 a.m. to feed the wood stove.  Also, once I have fired the stove on around four loads of wood, I have to do nothing, for around three days in my not so well insulated house.  I do believe if my house was insulated correctly, that I would last for four to five days with doing absolutely nothing.  Yes wood is a pain to chase, and dangerous to fall but it feels better and is radiant, and has been cheaper than normal sources of heat.  The Masonry heater is more efficient in the use of the wood as it burns the creosote more cleanly.  The ash tends to be more fine and whiter.  The Whole of the heater is placed in the middle of your living quarters and acts like a big battery for heating anything within range of the heater.  A lot of people are going out and installing, outdoor wood stove furnaces , which throws a lot of smoke on their neighbors, and is less efficient because the heat is wasted around the heater and up the chimney.  With my masonry’s you can’t hardly tell I’m firing because after the initial start up smoke, there is very little smoke afterwards. It even feels good to cuddle the Masonry when sick or when your hands are almost frostbitten.  Kids can touch all parts of the stove except the metal parts, and not be burned.  The heat does not really blow since the heat is radiant, you could almost open all the windows, but the warm air escapes, but heat remains. 

First I made the Missouri Masonry with a Bread Oven,  I had moved into a brick building, with a thick concrete floor.  I got my Firebrick from some old clay tile kilns nearby.  Also to my advantage was that there was some arch brick which is important for temperature gains in the initial combustion.  I used a refactory cement called flue set on the fire brick core.  On the outside layer I used Menard's cement for the base and Menard's masonry mix for the ornamental brick. I built the chimney from Menard's double layer stove pipe.  The Glass Door I bought from a wood stove dealer, a blacksmith made the adapter for the door to swing on.  The little clean out doors are all from Menard's.   I built a homemade damper into the brick right under the chimney pipe with a metal plate. 

Okay, the second Missouri masonry is without a Bread Oven but has extra Flues to grab extra heat.  This time I used new Fire Brick  and parts similar to the bread oven. The square footage for each room with a masonry heater is 486 sq feet,  I think these spaces come out about perfect for the heaters, down to 30 below ;  could place a inside temperature around 62 degrees requiring more firing to keep heat up.

I feel that a lot of people, could benefit from my videos on you tube. I do have still photos as well. Since the design is a free download I hope to encourage masonry heaters instead of most other options. I am sure I made some mistakes, but I improved each time. I now know that I would not use aggregate brick and mix for fill, instead on the second one I cut all my bricks to fill in the arch gaps to make it sturdier and more square.  Also my clean out doors did not come out perfectly flat.  I also did not care if I had the bricks clean, and shiny as I just wanted heat not good looks.  Using a Miter saw with a diamond blade to cut bricks and a rubber mallet became invaluable.    
Here is a video on my bread oven.
And here is a video on my later masonry stove project, sans the bread oven.