You dont want to drink the water, well at least in Flint you dont
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Hi Matt,
Place called Oscoda. Looks like it’ll be a little over 4 hours and 230 miles from you. Once I get everybody moved. I would gladly make a special trip over to see you.
Give me a call sometime 724-815-5094. This phone number is for anyone on this site. I don’t have a huge wealth of knowledge like Steve, but if you have any general questions, or ANY questions relating to suspension don’t be scared to call or text me.
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It’s a very addictive high after 100 ft you’re hooked and won’t want to stop. I recommend at least an extra 50 lbs of fuel in the bed so you can get back home.
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Yes. Yes. Exactly my points learned from those time periods that I’ve experienced.
Efforts into Alternatives flatlined. Actual users lulled, seduced, allowing themselves to be bought off cheap.
Alternatives suppliers, developers starved for investment dollars, sales of systems and products.
Buying out energy users with the extra not spent out money-in-pocket then out binging on consumer glitz.
The cheap early oil 90’s, then going out of the 90’s cheap oil again killed off most Alternatives use and endeavors.
Way to use these “easy fuel price times” is to push ahead harder and gain forward progresses.
Key to that is to Focus, Focus, Focus.
DougB’s, wanna’, “Change the world? Change your (own) world!” first.
Only by actually proof USING continuously your endeavors are you ever going to have an impact on anyone else.
My little Honda EU2000i is out there in the PNW no-frigging-solar rain beating it’s little heart now on this sub-$2.00 gasoline.
Be the same use when gasoline goes to $5.00 USD.
Woodgas operating the much bigger Miller/Kohler is for times when gasoline would be dear, unavailable, rationed. Or I just feel like woodgas singing out loud and proud.
Do Realize I am still wood power energy using every day for my space heating. Woodsweating a bit every single day just to keep my body healthy, my use-hand-in, pissoff the Gaia/Greens tree worshipers all gravitating to here.
Traveling wood-warmly the road to better
Steve Unruh
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No plans on quitting here. Work truck getting close, Dakota’s health being restored in anticipation. Passed up on the cheep natural gas when it became available last year. Have enough firewood for home and shop heating on hand cut and over half split to last 8-10 years. Probably 100,000 lbs of patties for engine fuel. Planning for a passive solar southern facing attached sunroom / greenhouse and kitchen relocation with wood cook stove and a drain back solar water /space heating system. eventually tied to a liquid cooled genny. Theas prices will not last forever. As others have said it is freeing up a little money to move forward.
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Price is around 1.50 over here too, PER LITER (~6 dollars a gallon). 25% cheaper than 6-8 years back.
From April to September I pedal to work, 20 miles returntrip. I belive the human body´s ability is underestimated now days. In other words - most people are a bit lazy.
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“Wood IS THE Freedom Fuel”… a little ground level observation.
I spent the last week visiting a farm, where “freedom” is alive and well. They are doing a lot to live off the land, raise their food, and simplify their life.
Yet they are barely getting by. I keep seeing their problems… and thinking, the solution is wood.
A major job right now is cutting down all the privet hedge that has grown up like a weed. What do we do with all these big limbs of unwanted wood? (right now they’re building a bonfire.)
There are lots of decent size trees around, and some will be cut down soon to provide lumber. I wonder what becomes of the scraps?
Old buildings are plentiful, and are mostly rotting away. Some of the wood is recycled.
They do heat with wood. It’s purchased from off the farm. But to keep pipes from freezing in the old farmhouse, a few space heaters have been running non-stop. This month’s electric bill was shockingly high.
Electric water heating for showers, dishes, and laundry. Lots of each of those.
Electric clothes dryer.
Propane for the cookstove, and for wall heaters.
The farm chores beater vehicle (old Chevy van) is constantly running low on gas. Even at 1.40/gal.
An old gasoline tractor sits abandoned, too old and small compared to the new diesel. But, the diesel is on long-term loan a hundred miles away… so they get by with no tractor.
The garden tiller needs the fuel system rebuilt, because of junk gasoline.
The animal’s water supply is dependent on a gasoline pump, raising water from the river.
The barn has no power, because it’s a long ways back from the utility lines. They use a battery lantern at night for evening milking.
Do all these things need to have woodgas? No. But I am starting to see how much your energy supply, in all its forms, is make-or-break for a farm economy.
The more hard-sweat wood you can use to replace purchased energy, the more freedom you earn.
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Chris there are certain chords that ring across national lines. I live in the poorest county in Ontario. We cater mostly to servicing the cottagers who occupy their lakeside homes in the summer. I do ok in that world but come winter many of the seasonal service providers are hurting. For me what I notice in my wood covered poor rural economy is how much energy in terms of money is drained from us to pay for our brought in energy. Fuel for vehicles is cheaper now so is propane but electricity is very expensive. We are caught in a vice of technological buy in that has happened over 80 years. As fewer people live in the country the energy solutions that have come around cater more and more to the larger richer urban markets without wood. So you have propane on demand hot water with control computers ever so efficient but if you want wood fired hot water you have to build it yourself and probably go without insurance or a mortgage. If you don’t install electrical mains or have a source of heat other then wood forget a mortgage again… As a side note mortgage literally translate to “death wager” something I always find funny. My point is that the rules which make perfect sense for the vast majority of urban dwellers are hammered to fit into a rural setting. We made it work when jobs were plentiful and energy cheap but the squeeze is now on. As I play with my wood powered devices the underlying belief in my head is we have to build them and apply them ourselves as rural people with the resources we have at hand because those larger powers that are out there have written us off as irrelevant to their political or financial models. I don’t even blame them it makes good financial sense really it just leaves us out in the cold…
Good luck on the move, You belong in the country!
Best Regards, David Baillie
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Chris if the hedge row is hedge apple trees(monkey balls) that is some of the best, and sot after wood there is.
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Chris, I see a lot of opportunities there. It sounds fun. If only funding was available.
Have you determined whether you are goeto move there? If so, do you have a date set?
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Hi Bill, not for sure, no date yet. They want me and I want to go, we just have to work out an arrangement that’s good for everyone… ie. how much labor in trade for room and board, and how much time for my own pursuits.
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Good observations.
My grandad used to talk about the great depression. He was born and raised in a single room cabin with 13 brothers and sisters. They never considered having electricity or running water (except for the creek) until he was an adult. Of course, that was not uncommon in this area in those days.
Anyway, he always used to remark about the lack of “cash money” in the economy back in those days. Most “cash” in the economy came from various government patronage jobs, and competition for those jobs was fierce (and local politics was a very serious blood sport).
It strikes me that one of the first things a man might want to do is to decrease his dependence on cash. That is easier said that done. But certainly it starts with getting debt free and staying that way, even if you have to down size. From there, it is all about minimizing “recurring cash expenses” that are vital to living, such as utility costs, food, etc. Some are hard to escape (health care).
Another dimension to that is being part of a community of people that you can barter with informally (even if it is only borrowing each other’s tools and stuff, and knowing that it will be returned to you in good shape).
The modern world hides the true state of things from us. However, if people using EBT cards were standing visibly in soup lines like they were in the last depression, it would already look like we were in a greater depression (50 million or so on EBT I think).
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Hey ChrisKY
Ouch. Maybe I’ll have to make that soon ChrisVA, eh?
You can barter become their energyman.
Invest now in lots and lots of LED’s while they remain cheap.
Invest in at least one Honda EU2000i or three Harbor Freight inverter/generator units. You are smart/handy and can get along making two out of three, then later one out of three.
Right off the bat you can save them on gasoline for that water pumping. Give them night work lights in the barn. Extended growing lighting/water spraying in the green house.
Give you power to weld/fab with. You tubes showing these suitcase models powering Tig/Mig welders.
Just use pack/swap the power to the needs for now.
Use gasiline while it remains cheap.
Show them the buy-out immediate costs saving NOW you can provide.
Hustle butt to get woodpower sourced.
Give yourself a tight time line to get this done.
Priority on that old gasoline tractor. Then SELL it converted for what they can really use.
The trees and hedge/bramble will still be there seasonaly storing/growing.
Action this day
Steve Unruh
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I agree that a Honda EU2000i or multiple HF packable units sounds like by far the most bang for your buck.
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I came to an understanding about modern life a few decades ago from this man.
But I do not fool myself into thinking I am so smart and special I can avoid trouble completely.
Rather I tell myself I can make life easier for myself and others in the 21 days or less before the army shows up to save the day.
To believe the army will not show up is as dangerous an idea as the technology trap itself…
Non of us can escape the technology trap Steve.
So the solution is not to try and live without it, but rather find ways to make our lifestyle and technology sustainable.
How do we do this?
Look for low carbon solutions to our energy problems, recycle primary material where ever possible, avoid destructive practices primary resource extraction and farming.
We can not make the world a perfect place in short order.
But we can make the world a much more fair and less destructive place in our lifetimes.
But each must take his tern that the forge…
Added material I wanted to share.
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Room and board… You need your own land. Maybe trade for land. Or maybe they can help find the right land. Nice location over yonder.
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Well here we go again. Off on fears tangents.
Grow trees. Harvest trees for foods, medicines, building materials; and yes powers energies.
Too, too simple for change the whole friggin’ world missionaries.
Change the world, change your own little iddy bitty corner if it first!
Otta here guys
Washington State Steve Unruh
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Not fear:
We did that, it just made people all freaked out and goose stepping.
Hope my friend, we need hope and hard work.
Once things were very bad.
We came back from it, and this hick up we face is just a patch of rough.
But we must we choose to come out of the darkness and take flight.
Ya think about the real horrors of the past 100 years and this is nothing but some bad road eh?
We are on the cusp of a revolution in alternative energy.
It will turn the economy on its head and it will change the way we do everything for the rest of our time here.
The old fossil fuel industry will never hold the power over people it once did and we will never go to war over oil, Iron and wheat again.
If we choose that is…
We have to be willing to pay for this a wee bit more than the gas at the pump.
We just have to stop paying the fossil fuel and rip and dig industries a subsidy to keep people employed ( its a ransom more than wage subsidy when you think of the jobs we could create making things better more efficient and right here…)
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Hi Steve,
The message I received from that, wasn’t one of fear but one of stability. We must do what is necessary to bring stability into our daily lives so when technology fails us again, and it will, that we are prepared to deal with it and not act like a bunch of morons.
Well, my take away from it.
Jay
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And old topic but a still relevant one.
Wanna’ really know me? Read back. I weary now typing the same things over and over again. Summery? I only care/value those who are doing it for themselves, and for those they are immediately responsible for. Anything other is just arm-chair energy masturbating. Old boy’s in old-boys-club-talking, world solving. Young boys in sports bars teams idolizing.
This is now finally the short hot summer drought “solar” wood drying season for us here.
Could be as little as 45 days this year starting a week ago until not unusual/expected/hoped-for early September seasonal rains.
Some years we get 60-90 so days of this. Bad. Bad. Wildfire years.
I/we must get a full years usages of wood fuels processed and into dry storage in this short time. Be no net solar wood drying out side this narrow window of time.
This is actually no different than annual animal hay making. Or any other annual agricultural grow/harvest/store a whole years worth of consumptions using.
Be squirrel/chipmunk/bee busy to be winter warm and fed happy.
As humans not ant/butterfly dead with only next generations crystalis left behind to show for it…
But energy-needs empty rice bowls, begging, again. Bleating energy sheeples.
My working unit for my home site grown and made wood fuel is a practical: ONE Wheel Barrows Worth.
10 cubic feet in my over stacked 7.5 c.f rated commercial wheel barrow.
Some days in the dead of winter I/we will use 1wheelbarrows of heating wood a day. Practical because that if how it is brought up to the house.
Early/late shoulder season 1wbw will last 3 days.
~13 wheel-barrows-worth of wood fuel to make up a standard US, 132 cubic foot CORD equivalent.
As i recall it would take ~47 of my wheel-barrows-worth of wood fuel to make up a cubic meter of woodfuel. The rest of the world’s standard measurement.
For reference of my lighter weight seasoned Doug Fir wood one wheel barrows worth would be roughly one gallon US of gasoline.
So at my 67 year old best I can in this drought season heat process and move an honest 3-5 wheelbarrows of wood fuel a day.
Needing 100-200 wheel barrows of heating wood fuel a year . . . depending.
Depending on just how long and cold that year will be.
Depending on how much of that wood fuel is “Ideal” 15% moisture.
How much is just ok 20-25% moisture.
How much is still useable to me, but very sub-par 30-40% moisture.
I actually now in-stove do woodgas-then-direct combust heat at least 25% of the wood fuel we use now. Just part of the batch burn cycling process. Another 25% of the batch cycle burning is hot radiant wood charcoal glow.
I can now minimally home electric power now on just one gallon of gasoline.
I can IF Needs-must minimally home electrical power on one wheelbarrow of engine grade gasifier woodfuel a day.
You do the math’s I’ve layed out.
To woodfuel for our home electricity would use ~1 1/2 time the wood we use for home heating. Home heating only done for ~250 days with some of those days 1/3 wheelbarrow use.
Home electricity for 365 day at a full one wheel barrow a day. THIS wood fuel being best gasification exposed end grain chunked formed.
So I make no bones about still buying out our Big-Grid electricity.
I make no bones about still buying out our vehicle driving and small engines gasolines.
Commercial wood pellets? Compacted Bear Mountain Products fuel bricks? Commercial sawdust Presto-Logs?
Tried them all. With no gasses exchanging porous grains: densified wood/biomass products burn/gasifiy only from the surfaces. So ends up being weird specialized to use. Resulting in more equipment’s automation needed. Higher equipment’s failure rates. Higher to end of service life costs per year overall.
This is based on personal usage. Many family’s and friends experiences. The no-spin truth.
And since most of then could not/cannot electrical diagnose their systems stoppages, and control boards, motors, controllers repair. They have to specialized serviceman become depend. Nothing free about that. THIS topics focus.
So Northern Hemisphere you now in the prime wood fuels harvest processing season too.
What did you do today?
Hours in the day solar is fading away daily now.
Hustle butts.
Get to wood fuels sweating.
Regards
Steve unruh
There is just no longer the daily sweating left in my old body to sweat out much more fuel wood anymore.
Long gone are the days I could bottles-of-beers expense calculate my wood processing.
Measuring up the stack volume produced.
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