I just wanted to introduce myself. Being a bit of a country girl (although now living in a city!) brought up by very outdoorsy parents, I've always had an interest in survival and bushcraft. The recent news reports about possible power cuts this winter got me thinking about my current lack of preparedness for this (or any!) situation. I currently live in a city centre flat with my Husband and our 2 cats, and found the UK-preppers forum when looking around the internet for ways we can be ready to look after ourselves when/if anything untoward happens. Our flat is all electric so if the power went out we'd have nothing! My first step is to buy a little gas camping stove so that we'd have hot food and water, I've got my Dad looking over a couple for me as I type. I hope to learn a lot from this forum, what I've seen so far looks great!
I had considered fumes when thinking about what kind of stove to go for, and (probably very naively) thought that a gas camping stove would just be the same as someone cooking on gas, no? Obviously we can't have any smokey fuels in the flat which limits us a little. We do have windows that open though which could help to deal with fumes.
Might I suggest a "bioethanol fireplace" incase the power does go and you need to raise the temperature by a degree or two? Also have hot water bottles at hand plus a kettle to go on the small camping stove because if you can heat water and you have thermal clothing and hot water bottles you can keep your body temperature up.
reperio a solutio
Resident and Co-Ordinator of AREA 2 Area 2 = Hampshire, Berkshire, Oxfordshire, Bucks
Thanks hobo, can't forget about CO! We do have a detector but I'll make sure that if it ever becomes necessary to use the stove I'll put it near an open window for ventilation. We've got 1 or 2 good flasks, 2 hot water bottles and some thermals. I will need some camping pots and a kettle though as I've only ever used my Dads in the past. We've also got our 2 cats who very usefully double up as furry hot water bottles.
nickdutch I'll have to look in to these bioethanol fireplaces. We're in the process of replacing our ancient heaters with new ones... but all electric! I'd be relying on whatever heat my candles would be able to provide for space heating if the power went. However it would be awesome to have a proper fireplace that doesn't rely on electricity. I'll need to look in to start-up and running costs, I'll get the hubby on it too.
On Amazon, £40 will get you a stove, heater and 12xgas canister bundle.
The stove is quite efficient. For two people, cooking indoors without wind (for food and hot water) you might stretch a couple of days use per canister. I got about a week per canister cooking two daily meals for myself. Although this might depend on your cooking vessel - thin aluminium messtins heat faster than, say, a cast iron skillet.
The heater is an unknown to me. I have one but have only used it once, to make toast lol. I don't know how much heat it kicks out, I doubt it could heat a room any appreciable amount.
One thing I would advise against is using hexamine indoors - you may be tempted by the cheap price and shelf life but those things are quite noxious.
Achoo!!!