Today’s reading: Matt. 14:22-36, Ex. 4,5,6
In an attempt to appease certain people, and as a contingency plan for the flocks in the event if extreme cold weather like we had last week…. -50C before wind chill…. I have opted to pickup a small diesel heater, I have a similar one but smaller for my Jeep. It allows me to heat the bunk of my Jeep in the winter quite efficiently.
The unit pictured below is the one I have chosen. It is a Chinese diesel heater, however my dad has found a place where I can buy parts made here in Canada or the USA.
The purpose of acquiring this piece of equipment is to keep my Yurt above +15C , specifically when the wood stove runs out of fuel. Now to clarify, the wood stove I have is more than capable of heating my home, it actually still gets too hot, even when it was -50C I was sweating in the house.. so the purpose for when this heater is to be used is when I leave home for work and am in the city for up to 18 hours on my double shift days. The heater can be set to automatically turn on and maintain the desired temp. Then when I get home the fire may be out but the home is still warm. I can then start the wood stove and shut the diesel heater off.
Now initially this is simply trading wood for diesel. And to some extent Yes. The benefit is that by keeping the Yurt even just moderately warm at 10-15C while I’m out, I burn less wood to get the house back up to the 20-25C that I like to keep it at when I get the stove going again.
Once I have this set up and running my plan is to pickup the appropriate micron filters and pumps and save the spent vegetable oil from the fryers at work that get dumped every other day as per AHS guidelines. Then use the filtered oil as substitution or at least additive to the diesel which drastically reduces the cost of running the heater. I could effectively have free heat….
Further to that, I will be taking the smaller unit and attaching it to the chicken coop in a safe way so that when the temp drops again I can heat them a little bit. Ensuring I don’t lose any birds.
Thanks for tuning in, be safe and love first!
-Howl.