🚀 go-pugleaf

Dave Garland <dave.g...@wizinfo.com> writes:

> While gas heat mostly requires electricity these days even for hot air 
> systems (blowers, thermostats, control systems), it wasn't always the 
> case.

Just so.  I've recently acquired a propane space heater for my
electrically heated micro-greenhouse.  Thermostated, convection.  And,
unvented, it boosts the CO2 in the greenhouse on the occasions when it
was needed.  I could, in a pinch, use it in the house although I'd
need an hour or two to contrive a vent into the fireplace flue.

> My family's coal furnace was hand stoked when I was a kid, and 
> would continue heating through power outages (though the 
> thermostat-controlled damper may have stopped working). 

Had that in a rented farm house 50 years ago.  Everything
convection/mechanical so no elecricity needed. Hard coal could be
delivered to the basement then so it was easy.  The kitchen range had
coal grates, too, and heated the gravity-fed running water.  Very nice
setup.  I would have bought the place in '67 had the owner not had a
previous commitment to another buyer.

> Such "octopus" systems (gravity hot air) were often converted later
> to gas (with a pilot light). IIRC oil did require power (pumps,
> fans, igniters). Some neighbors had kerosene space heaters that
> didn't require power, though those were considered dangerous. Today
> it seems that most gas ovens require electricity, but not until
> recently. That's a bit of a CO hazard, though far less than kerosene
> was.
> 
> In northern rural areas, winter power outages of as long as several 
> days used to happen occasionally (mostly after ice storms). Maybe 
> still do (I've lived in the city for a half century).

They still happen here. The powerco puts its money into new
megaprojects, hastens to do emergency repairs but has abandoned
preventive maintenance.  In a place where episodes of horrendous
weather are not unusual, that will eventually lead to worse & worse
outages as infrastructure deteriorates and trees grow up over lines
more and more.

-- 
Mike Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada