What's new
By:
GrowWeedEasy.com
You're browsing as a guest. Sign up to join the conversation, share your grows, and get help from thousands of fellow growers — it's free and takes less than a minute.

My girls got chilled, can we talk alternative heating?

R

Rwise

New member
With this arctic blast that came through the USA, many found their selves without power. I was lucky and did no loose power, however I also dont use electricity for heat (cept in the grow room). In 2007 we had a major ice storm with power lines on the ground all over, after that gen sets came up on CL for cheap and I bought 4. I have used them but not for emergency power.
I use natural gas for heat which I thought was fool proof, however that thought went out the window when the well heads started freezing up, and a line froze as well (only 20 homes were out for that).
In the past I use wood heat, and I luv it but, my back cannot handle the work involved with it. From using and maintaining the chainsaws, splitting, stacking covering etc.
Solar panels fail when covered with ice/snow, and the wind energy was going down as well, IDK what froze up with them but off line is off line.
I can heat my home as long as the gas flows, but the gas in areas has been over sold (they cant supply that amount to that area), the same issue exists with electricity, they cannot supply what they said they can. As for electric I dont have enuf service capacity to run electric heat, not more than a bathroom heater or 2.
So I sat here watching folks in Texas get hit harder than me, and the whole time thinking just how would I get enuf heat in the grow room for my girls to survive.
What this tells me is if I want to stay warm I need to find another method of heating. I am thinking of pellet stoves, but that would also need a power backup as it is my understanding they ignite from an electric heating element, but after started they run without it. So, anyone using a pellet stove for heat? What can you tell me of your experience with it? Would you recommend it?
 
I don't have a pellet stove but my neighbour have one and you know we have here really cold winter and long period. I remembered one day late in fall a delivery truck pulling in his entrance some wood pellet bags. I would guess they delivered over 200 bags if not more. Since he live alone I went and help him. The bag must have been close to 40 lbs. I asked him by curiosity how long will it last and he sais just for the winter, he explained to me that a bag would last only one day during our coldest day of winter.


I'm fully electric but in case of a major outage i have a solar system as a backup with heavy duty batteries good for 24 hrs. For heating I have a couple of propane 30,000 BTU heaters just for that.
 
Last edited:
I had a pellet stove in my house in Denmark. For the house and not the plants of course. And I hated it. Mostly because I needed to fill the stove every day or so. I rather chopping of wood then. The pellets bags can be quite heavy and you need a storage for the pellets also, a dry spot.
I bought 1000kg at the time, it was cheaper. But damn it’s a lot of kilograms to move down to the basement and in the storage area
 
I might be confused about your situation but why wouldn't you use a gen set to run small electric heater in grow room?
 
LP, I did not even go into that, not available at this time, every one is sold out, try back in August. I do have a 500 gallon tank not in use, and the old home here had a 1000 gallon tank.
Thats a lot of bags, it wont ever in my life time get that kinda cold here, I hope!
 
I can see that, reminds me of folks here that in the old days used coal, the truck would dump it through a shoot into the basement. The wood heat i used had to be feed every few hours, every day or so would be an improvement.
 
And yes I could, but hang on to your shorts for the price of fuel to go ^^^^UP^^^!. BTW the electric heat I have in there now with the extreme cold, drops the temp 10-20*F in 3 hours with the room closed up. For this event, I opened the room and turned out the lights in the rest of the home. ('cept for that 3 hours)
I am looking into the future for when the entire grid goes down at the wrong moment. Oh the grid is larger than a few states. A power plant north of me gets power from South America when they buy instead of make enuf power.
 
I got a guy coming out here this week to give me a quote on solar system with power cells sufficient to run totally off grid. He says I might have to get propane tank and generator for emergency well operation. Anxious to see if it will be possible with funds available.
 
I don't know about you but here we have long winters and during Jan and Feb the temp is really cold. Sometime in the morning a solid -40F. Why I try indoor during spring or fall.
 
For the last 30 years or so, we have not had much in the way of winter, this one caught many with their pants down. Over 240 hours below freezing, and those further south of me, just watch the propaganda.
 
Good luck on it! My Sis just put in solar, but no batteries, so when the light is blocked shes got nothing from them and nothing stored. I have heard the batteries not only cost a lot but fail to fast as well (these things improve all the time, and I dont keep up)
Do tell us how it goes!
 
Rwise Solar system backup a good one could cost you a fortune, it took me 3 yrs to build one with solar panels, batteries and inverters. I have a hunting cabin up north and we converted to solar from generator but we keep our generator as backup.
 
I run propane for heat. Over the past couple years OG&E has been getting less and less dependable on supplying consistent power. I will be purchasing a whole house generator that runs off the propane and automatically kicks on when I lose power.
 
I run a pettel stove and love it. I buy the pellets a ton at a time. Bags are 40 lbs each. They have electric start on them but can be easily started manually with a blowtorch. They do need electric to run and can easily be ran of a generator if need be if say the power went out. Auger motor, room fan and exhaust fan. Personally I love my stove.
 
What size tank do you have? I could run from the natural gas, but both of these are/were is short supply while it was cold. Also do you buy LP in say August for the year?
 
This is info I want/need, I had heard they need power to run.
Are there models that gen this power without external source (after lighting)? I bet that would make it cost more LOL
 
I have a 500 gal. tank. During the winter they stop by and top it of once a month. Don't use much from March to October. They killed my power for 8 hours when it was -15 , froze and busted everything in the well house.
 
Man that sucks, but it also shows that we need our own energy source that we control and not the Company. The wll is something else I am restoring, the pump, pipe and foot valve are here. Need a tank yet..
 
PLreef Interesting concept, do read the bad reviews. Actually they seemed to work better before they went to china for production.

Something I am finding also, natural gas is being banned in new homes, must total electric, talk about adding problems to the over sold grid!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top