Saturday, October 19, 2013

Life Without Gas: Day One

     The cramps are gone, and people no longer leave a 20-foot clear circle around me.  Flames no longer leap to twice their normal size whenever--

   Oh.  Whoops!  Wrong kind of gas.  Hehheh.

     Let's see: did dishes in the sink, using hot water from the large electric teakettle.  Washed the three new Pyrex bowls and electric skillet.  Coffee as usual this morning, though I did have to warm up the preheat water for the thermal carafe in the teakettle instead of using tap water.  Cold cereal.

     There's a bowl of warm water next to the washroom sink and I'm heating up more.

     I'll see how I feel about that after I'm done spluttering and swearing, washing up in the nearly-dry tub or rinsing my hair under the spout.   ...Which I am dreading and which I have to go do now.

9 comments:

Douglas2 said...

Sierra Trading Post or Sportsman's Guide or someone like that once had a wall-mount "instant water heater" that runs from a propane bottle. It was some sort of overstock buyout deal. I considered getting one as backup for the cottage at the time -- there was a "direct vent" model with the propane and exhaust arranged so that you could just mount it over a hole in an exterior wall. They sold out too quickly though. And it's not like most normal places have unreliable gas service.
I've passed up a number of these "I can see where that would be useful if X happened" bargains, and I'm beginning to wonder if I shouldn't just combine them all into "it would be really handy to have an equipped camping trailer in the backyard, so that I've got a 4kw generator for power failures, a water heater, a toilet to use when the septic backs up, a shower to use when the well pump fails, a kitchen to use during renovations...
But I haven't needed any of that so far, because we have really nice neighbors.



Drang said...

Like I said on the other post's comments, there are several options for portable hot water for showering and washing up: Coleman Hot Water-On-Demand Portable Water Heater is the way we went.

Stranger said...

Having been raised for the most part with neither electricity nor gas, or sometimes with gas lighting, I understand all too well what being forced to turn off the hot water heater means. You have my sympathy, for sure.

But there is one good thing about it. Come the 31st, the neighbor kids will not turn the bathroom over. Or move it back a few feet and cover the slide to the pit with scrap sheet metal, leaves, and gravel.

There are few things that are less fun than cleaning up grandpa and his faithful dog after a trip "down below."

Stranger

Unknown said...

A cold water rinse (if you can stand it) leaves hair shiny!

jed said...

After the last long power outage here, I made sure to have various things on hand. That's part of what influenced my decision to get a Chemex coffee maker. And dig out my camping stuff from storage. I'm now stocked on isobutane, and have 2 stoves to run with it. Then there's the hexamine tabs and other incendiary means. If I have to gather sticks in the back yard, I will have my coffee!

I'd be a wimp and warm up the water for rinsing my hair. But then my hair-do is a buzz cut, so that's a bit more practical.

Jeffro said...

Out on the farm, when I lost hot water, it was because there was no electricity. One can take a very quick shower with very little water in the hopes that there will be just enough water pressure to get 'er done.

Roberta X said...

Perhaps I'm too selfless: I used the last of the hot water to run the dishwasher. One nice thing about city water: I can lose gas and electricity and still have running water; also, well water around here tends to be very rusty. --All the water is hard as nails but city water doesn't turn one's hair orange.

Alien said...

www.zodi.com - the single burner hot shower water heater is $90 at walmart.com, about a c-note+ local camping store retail, $140 amazon.

Mine got me through the electricity-less Florida hurricanes years ago, and the camping stove and old style percolator did the cooking and coffee chores. Big plus was never losing running (city) water.

Will said...

@Douglas2:

some municipalities no longer allow RV's of any type to be parked on residential property, even if it was designed with that in mind.

Something about trying to raise the property values, or elevate the class of the area. Idiots. Some cost as much, or more, than a house.

I've even heard of the police ticketing RV owners that were merely loading/unloading at home, with the RV stored at a commercial storage site.