Off the Grid Sustainable Housing Options

Common Technologies for Off-Grid Living: Heat Stoves

Finding the appropriate heating source is a challenge for Off-Grid living and while solar heating can provide some measure of relief is variable duped climate.  Either a wood stove, gas or propane stove or furnace is needed for supplemental heat. While heating with wood is a great option, it’s not perfect. Wood burning stoves are pretty much limited to heating the room that they are in. So if you want to heat your whole home, you either need a very open floor plan. Wood burning stoves provide much more heat for their size than fireplaces do. That’s actually how wood burning stoves got their start. Most of the heat from a fireplace goes up the chimney, but a wood burning stove can radiate heat from all sides, making it a much more efficient heater than a fireplace could ever be.

Construction Material: Wood burning stoves are either made of welded steel or cast iron. Both provide about the same amount of heat. Cast iron stoves need to have their panels reset ever few years to eliminate air leaks. This is a minor inconvenience, but necessary to keep the stove working properly. Steel stoves don’t need this maintenance, but can have a problem with high stress panels burning. The solution to this is to make sure that the steel is at least 1/4″ thick and the high stress panels are replaceable.

Firebox Orientation: One of the most important and most rarely mentioned design criteria is the orientation of the firebox. Most wood burning stoves are built so that the firewood is loaded crosswise to the door, as you look at it. This only allows the firebox to be loaded about half full, as any fuller will cause the wood to fall against the door while it is burning, creating a potentially dangerous situation. A few have the firebox designed so that the firebox loads so that you are seeing the end of the wood when it is loaded. This allows the firebox to be fully loaded, so it will produce more heat and burn longer than the other.

Catalytic or Non-Catalytic: Modern wood burning stoves fall into two categories; catalytic and non-catalytic. The catalytic type actually put out less emissions when they are new, but the emissions gradually increase throughout the life of the catalytic element. This element needs to be replaced after every four to six years, depending on how much you use the stove. The trend is towards non-catalytic stoves. If you are buying your stove for the purpose of heating your home in the case of a disaster, you’ll probably be better off not having a catalytic stove, as you may not be able to find a new element when you need it.

Efficiency: Efficiency is one of the most talked about and least important specifications on a wood burning stove. Modern stoves, which have been built since 1988, have to meet newer EPA regulations on emissions. This has caused the efficiency of these modern stoves to increase. In other words, you will actually burn less wood to get the same amount of heat on the new stoves, than you did on the older ones (“www.survivopedia.com/how-to-choose-a-stove-for-off-grid-house/"

nod., Para 1-5).

Gas Appliances for off-grid living look very similar to traditional electric appliances and provide the same features.

All natural gas stove and appliances, come in all sizes to fit your needs, space and budget:

•Refrigerators from a 3.5 cubic foot model complete with freezer to a full sized 14.5 cubic foot model

•Stoves with four burners sized from 24" to six burner models and 36" wide

•Freezers fueled by gas sized to 8.5 cubic feet and a 7.8 cu. ft. kerosene fueled freezer

•Tankless hot water heaters from 40,000 BTU to 380,000 BTU, with capacities to 49 Liters per minute

•insulated (blanket type); porcelain smokeless broiler pan & tray; four leg levelers; and heavy duty rigid construction.

Figure 1: (Left) Typical wood Stove for Off-Grid Living

Figure 2: (Right)  Gas or Propane Appliances for Off-Grid Living