Cooking during power outage

[Yorkshire Andy]

[Carbon Monoxide is the biggest issue, beyond the risk of holding gas carts.

Carbon monoxide from gas stoves / heaters is a risk but not as big as some portray .... Providing the stove is burning correctly a clean blue flame is the sign of a clean full burn.. it's the lazy sooty yellow flames that are a major risk..

Just think of all the homes with natural gas cookers and ovens which have no flues.. likewise caravans / camper vans / static holiday homes they do have some ventilation ( mostly to prevent gad leaks pooling LPG is heavier than air)

so do most houses we have legacy air bricks in our kitchen from I'm guessing an old range and one in the living room from a gas fire which should be more than sufficient plus the uPVC hit and miss trickle vents when did you last clean those out? One thing that gets forgotten they fill with cobwebs band muck .

I've several carbon monoxide alarms and would always recommend that you have 2 in the area of fuel burning appliances ... Why.. you can't see it smell it or taste it changes of 2 detectors failing are slim.... And the bsi regs for new static caravans specify 2 Vs only one smoke alarm.....

Same with gas heaters....

https://youtu.be/XVsfXuq1KFA

Good tip looking at tenant agreement Yorkshire Andy as states not to store eg calor gas cannisters (makes sense on safety terms) your ideas on bio ethanol etc & use of hobo stove (obviously on open ground as suggested) worth looking into, thanks all for the ideas

Ours forbids paraffin heaters and calor gas heaters in the house (exact description) now I could push my luck and buy Flo gas I thought outside the box I've got a bio ethanol fireplace and a diesel heater for alternative heating

[Rusty74]

rayburn
log burners
brick rocket stove
various camping stoves(gas,hexi blocks,green gel,etc)
bbq
disposable bbqs
open fire in an old car wheel if needed

[grenfell]

Interesting you say never to use 100% propane. In my younger days on building sites before electric hook ups were the norm we had propane burners. Ok so in part that was probably because the plumbers used a propane torch to warm up the lead but either way we'd have a cylinder and what was known as a motorbike. That was a burner surrounded by steel mesh which heated up and acted as a radiator and toaster with a stand on top for a kettle or saucepan. It got it's name motorbike from the sound it made. I wouldn't think it would be cost effective compared to electric nowadays and health and safety would probably have a fit too but they worked for us.
Going back to the original question I can't help thinking that a camping stove would suffice and in an emergency I'dworry more about getting warm food than a minor infringement of rental agreements. Chances are the landlords would have other things on their minds if all the power goes off. If any sort of flame is a concern there's always flameless ration heaters available. They are normally supplied with ration packs but I seem to recall reading that it's possible to purchase them seperately. They are just a pouch to which water is added , chemical reaction and hot food. Downside is the obvious expense as it wouldn't work out cheap. There were and may still be self heating cans available but again work out expensive.
Another simplier option should you have some outside space would be the humble bbq. You could either heat food directly on one or if you don't want to attract unwanted attention warm up a couple of stones and place them in a pot with the food and put the whole thing in a haybox or other insulated box.

[rik_uk3]

Don't worry about gas canisters, they are in fact over engineered for the job and very safe but they are expensive. Your in a flat so no woodburner and you don't want to be going outside to use a twig burner so my suggestion would be a trangia stove.

They burn meths/ethanol. I'd go for the model 25 full set, the bigger of the two (model 27 is smaller) and you get two pots, kettle and fry pan although I'd say use a non stick fry pan.

Trangia burner holds abour 120ml of fuel giving about 20m burn time at full or around 40m using the simmer ring so lets say a typical burn time of 30m per 120ml of fuel so a litre of meths gives you about 8 full fills and a litre of meths/ethanol is around £4 a litre if you shop around around

https://www.diy.com/departments/la-haci ... oreId=1348

So about £1 an hour to run (less in reality once you get used to the simmer ring). A gas canister will cost you best part of £5 and run for about two hours flat out so the alcohol stove will work out cheaper and even the cheap butane cartridges (which don't work at 5c or less) have shot up in price and only give about an hour full run on a good day.

Another thing to remember is that the Trangia is maintenance free, no moving parts, nothing to fail.

I was a stove collector, sold most but still have some but for a beginner I'd say Trangia every time and practise cooking on it before the SHTF.

[Rusty74]

Interesting you say never to use 100% propane. In my younger days on building sites before electric hook ups were the norm we had propane burners. Ok so in part that was probably because the plumbers used a propane torch to warm up the lead but either way we'd have a cylinder and what was known as a motorbike. That was a burner surrounded by steel mesh which heated up and acted as a radiator and toaster with a stand on top for a kettle or saucepan. It got it's name motorbike from the sound it made. I wouldn't think it would be cost effective compared to electric nowadays and health and safety would probably have a fit too but they worked for us.
Going back to the original question I can't help thinking that a camping stove would suffice and in an emergency I'dworry more about getting warm food than a minor infringement of rental agreements. Chances are the landlords would have other things on their minds if all the power goes off. If any sort of flame is a concern there's always flameless ration heaters available. They are normally supplied with ration packs but I seem to recall reading that it's possible to purchase them seperately. They are just a pouch to which water is added , chemical reaction and hot food. Downside is the obvious expense as it wouldn't work out cheap. There were and may still be self heating cans available but again work out expensive.
Another simplier option should you have some outside space would be the humble bbq. You could either heat food directly on one or if you don't want to attract unwanted attention warm up a couple of stones and place them in a pot with the food and put the whole thing in a haybox or other insulated box.

remember them very well when i started my bricklaying apprentership in 1990,we used to have one in a rickety old wooden shed in the winter months and id use a metal wall tie to toast my cheese and onion sarnies on it

[Nurseandy]

Think I may have mentioned this but after storm Arwen we had no power for five days and cooked for a family of five using two trangias no bother.

I suppose if you're really worried about fuel storage then solid fuel stoves that use hexi blocks or dragon gel are probably the safest but it's an expensive and not particularly flexible way to cook.

[diamond lil]

I don't understand why you can't use propane? I cooked for 30 years on a big Cannon calor gas cooker on cylinders of propane.

[Deeps]

Surprised nobody has mentioned the briefcase stoves for indoor cooking. They're not really any different to using a gas hob.

https://www.halfords.com/camping/cookin ... BNEALw_wcB



Fuel is easily obtainable from B&M etc too.

[WomanOfTheWoods]

I'm all for keeping it simple. No gadgets, gas canisters, disposable barbecues or fancy equipment for me.
I have the usual modern kitchen set up in my house,,, but I can cook on the woodburning stove, and outside on a firepit absolutely for free.
I did during Storm Arwen when the hill road was closed and power was off for a week.

Le Creuset pots and dutch ovens are the simple way to go. You can even cook bread in them. And they sell for tuppence in my local charity shops.
Anyone with a garden can create a small firepit.

Eventually I'd like an outdoor wood fired bread oven. But that's a project for another year.

[rik_uk3]

The briefcase cartridge stoves work well but the price of gas is shooting up and butane don't work at 5c or less and a cold house can easily hit those temps and even a cool summer morning temp when camping can kill them. If you use them don't buy butane cartridges, go for at least the propane/butane mix or better still the tri gas types propane/butane/isobutane such as these

https://www.argos.co.uk/product/3408252 ... az:1:299:2 more expensive but they work so much better than just butane.

Don't use hexamine stoves indoors, the fumes really are bad, other solid fuel blocks give of as much heat as sucking a polo mint. Meths/ethanol is fine to use just employ a bit of common sense when filling your burner and don't fill a warm/hot burner let it cool first. Water will put out a meths/ethanol fire because its hygroscopic and absorbs water (and don't dilute meths/ethanol to use in your Trangia, all it does is slow the cooking down).


You can mount other burners in a Trangia, gas insert and some multifuel burners, here is the burner off a Kovea Booster