Power cut? A log burner is the bunny!

Storms happen every winter. Climate change means they’re not just happening more often, they’re getting stronger and scarier. We’ve seen some whopping winter storms recently, so powerful they’ve left tens or even hundreds of thousands of us without electricity, sometimes for days.

While power cuts are a pain in the summer when the nights are longer and the weather warmer, in winter they’re more of a nightmare. Luckily help is at hand. Here’s how a simple log burner might turn out to be a life-saver and sanity-keeper when the power’s been cut off.

First, a word about emissions

Before we begin, a hot environmental tip. You’ll need to invest in the latest, most fuel-efficient log burner to avoid contributing to the emissions problem and making climate change worse. Modern log burners are brilliantly fuel-efficient, a lot more sustainable than old-school burners designed before climate change became an issue. We’ve written about what to do with an old log burner, so if you already have one and it’s more than a few years old, it won’t have to go to waste.

Power cut confusion – One of the strangest feelings!

You know the score. The power goes off leaving you mid-task, usually when you’re doing something important: working from home, decorating, watching telly or cooking dinner.

Damn. It’s dark indoors in winter so you hook out your supply of candles and fire up the torch app on your mobile.  Aha – your phone’s almost out of charge so you’ll re-charge it… doh, you can’t do that, you’d better conserve the battery just in case.

The landline, if you still have it, is digital these days, and it too goes dead when the electricity shuts off. So how long before the power comes back on, and what’s happened? Maybe you can find out online. Hm, no internet. Maybe you can have a cuppa and think about what to do. Doh, you can’t do that either. Bit by bit you start to feel more and more cut off, something most of us find profoundly disturbing. Weirdly, the minute you know you can’t have a cuppa, watch telly, read or make a snack, you really want to do it.

It’s actually a really strange feeling having no electricity. You realise during the first half hour or so how many things you can’t do without power, how restricted modern life is when it’s dark, cold, boring, and there’s nothing to cook on. Last time we had an electricity cut, before we got our wood burner stove, we spent the whole day huddled on the settee reading by tea-light. We couldn’t even go out. There was an amber weather warning in force and we weren’t going to risk either walking or driving with trees falling down around our ears.

So picture this. You’re feeling chilly. A cold buttie is the last thing you fancy. It’s dark and miserable outdoors and in. You’d like some hot food, a warm place to wait out the storm until the power comes back, and a source of comfort. And that’s where a log burner really comes into its own.

Cook up a storm on your log burner

When you choose a wood burner stove with a flat top you also get a decent cooking surface. The bigger the stove, the bigger the cooking surface. A handy point-and-click laser temperature tool proves our log burner can easily get more than hot enough to heat up a tin of beans, boil eggs, make hot drinks, cook veg and do fry ups. It’s more than many a household had in the olden days and they managed just fine. Get creative and it’s a brilliant way to cook. Rice and pasta, couscous, soups and stews, it’s all do-able on a woodstove top as long as you’re careful and take things easy. It can all get madly hot.  

Open up the stove doors to make splendid toast or roast marshmallows on the flames, guaranteed to cheer things up during the darkest, chilliest, most miserable power cut. Make a hot toddy with wine, cider, spirits or beer, fruit juices, herbs, spices and even chilli powder for a bit of a kick, a treat to keep you going. Hot choc with or without booze is a wonderful winter warmer and cheerer-upper. Tea and coffee are easy-peasy with an old fashioned metal stovetop kettle or a small pan with a lip for pouring. 

The flickering of the flames will lull you into a calmer state of mind, adding light to the heat to make you feel safe – and feel human again. At times like this you’ll appreciate all over again the ancient, DNA-deep relationship we have with fire, with the safety, security and survival it represents.

Tips to make the most of a log burning stove in a power cut

The body of a log burner warms up like a huge radiator to give off heat. This might sound a bit mental but we stand a collection of small cast iron and bronze African sculptures on top of our stove, each of which also gets really hot. Adding all that extra surface area does seem to give us more heat. Obviously you need to take care around health and safety, so don’t take our word for it, but we love it. We’re in the habit of never leaving a burning fire alone, and because we’re grown-ups with no kids in the house we’re safe.

We also have a special fan on top that blows heated air efficiently around the room, which maximises the comfort. You’ll feel the warmth of the heated air instead of losing it via heat transfer into the surrounding walls and up the chimney. If you’re low on fuel or you’re keen to minimise your emissions, you might want to shut the doors and just heat the space you’re in rather than the whole house. 

Burning the right fuel makes a stove as efficient as possible, emitting the least Co2 as well as generating the best burn and the most heat. Make it as dry as you can and keep a moisture meter handy. If the wood is wet or not dry enough you’ll notice a dramatic difference in the burn itself and the heat it provides: basically the wetter the wood the crappier the fire and the less heat you get. We keep a supply of wood stacked either side of the stove so whatever happens, at whatever time of year, we always have enough dry fuel to keep us going for a couple of days.

Prepare and plan for a power cut that’s actually fun 

Have fun writing a simple bullet pointed power cut drill and practice it together so if it happens you’ll swing into action. Having a plan and roles to play makes everyone feel more in control, more confident. It might even be fun. Maybe gather together a load of things to do when there’s no electricity and stash it somewhere sensible so you can lay your hands on it straight away, even in the dark. By the light of the fire you can play Jenga, cards, board games, all sorts of simple fun to while the darkness away. How about ghost stories? They always go down well when it’s spookily dark! 

Worst case scenario, if being in ignorance is driving you nuts tune in via the car radio – which runs on the car battery – for power cut news and weather updates. Just don’t overdo it or you’ll run the battery down.

So, we wish you a happy power cut courtesy of a modern log stove with all the right environmental credentials. Take a look, see what we’ve got in store for you.