Well, as you can see I’m going to talk about the best prep investment that I’ve made to date… The good old wood-stove! The picture above is the stove we installed out at the BOL. The other picture is obviously the stove the way we bought it and before we got it cleaned up and refurbished.

 

   I’m sure that I had mentioned in previous posts how much I thought that having a back up heat source was critical for anyone but especially for anyone that wants to call themselves a prepper! There are more then a few options when it comes to getting setup with a back up for heat but the only one that made good long term sense for us was a wood-stove. We are located on 10 acres and it’s mostly treed, this means that I have more wood to cut then I currently have time for. Importantly too is that since I have trees and thus fuel on my own land the outlying areas around us have what on them… that’s right more wood and thus an almost endless supply of wood to be cut and or gleaned off of the surrounding land. As long as everyone doesn’t start using the woods as there only heat source, we should be in good shape as our fuel source is renewing at a great rate…

 

   The plan had been to install a wood-stove right out of the gate but shortly after moving the house onto the property I hit my financial snag. Money was tight and even an expense like the wood-stove had to wait. During this period of time my father, old man prepper, decided to start watching craigslist for me and came up with this little gem. He found this “LOPI” brand, “PATRIOT” model stove for a few hundred bucks not to far from our city place in Seattle. Knowing that I had been holding off on the expenditure, he purchased and gifted the stove to me – “Thanks Dad!” He actually did some horse trading and came up with a long length of insulated stove pipe and cap from another source for us too! I guess I can’t say he never did anything for me anymore – my being a complete angel all those years growing up in his house I’m sure were more of a blessing to him then me… I never did get a thank you for all of the teenage enlightening I provided, hmm, he must have forgotten?

 

   Seriously though, When we picked up the stove it had been sitting outside in the raion and was well rusted. It had garbage inside and broken firebricks under the trash… Not exactly a charmer but it was the perfect sized unit from a mainstream manufacture. What I mean by “perfect size” is that since the mobile home is roughly a thousand square feet, a larger stove would cook us all out and not serve as well as a stove on the smaller end of the spectrum.

 

   So, we used the condition of the stove to get an even better bargain from the seller, got her loaded up and we were off! All that needed to be done was spend a few hours with the wire brush and a new coat of black stove paint for us to have her looking much better. While still a long way from looking show room condition the little stove came out real well! The picture above doesn’t really do it justice, I should have spent more time to be sure I had a good shot before leaving last time… Anyway, we got the unit moved over to the BOL and waited for some additional money and the dry season to roll around before cutting into the roof for the install.

 

 

   During the lag time the hearth went in. As you can see it’s a slightly raised platform and topped with ceramic tile to match the color scheme we have in the house. I think it came out really good. My wife on the other hand has determined that she is unhappy with the size. I designed the hearth to be wider then was necessary so there would be a warm spot to sit or stack a little extra firewood next to the stove. While she does like the project overall she would have preferred that I stole less floor space.

 

   We are now in our second winter using the stove and other then kicking the furnace on for a short time when we first arrive, this stove provides all of the heat we could need. If you’ll notice also that there’s enough of a top surface for a tea kettle or even a frying pan. The ability to serve multiple rolls is always good when it comes to prepper investments. I’m sure you noticed the glass in the door, this allows the fire to light the room to some degree in the evenings as well. It provides more then enough light to move around by but not really enough to do any reading… The ambiance it provides is really wasted on reading anyway, if catch my drift… the benefits to a wood stove are many!

 

   As an investment this stove shines as well. The total costs of purchasing, fixing up and installing the unit (to county code) came to less then $1500. I know that there are always better deals out there and that the right person might have done this job for as little as several hundred bucks. I believe the money spent was well worth the return we get. We now have a primary heat source, at least when we’re there, that is fueled off the land we already have. A back up cooking surface and a great place to heat water, for any number of reasons, if the need were to arise. All of these uses are things that we will need weather times get tougher or even if they end up getting better by some miracle. We are far better positioned as preppers with this stove and it will have paid for itself in only a few years of full time use in electric bill savings alone during the winter months.

 

Keep on prepping cause – “Prepping is the answer”

 

 

Prepper

 

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