Points of Failure In My Home

I am having my chimney guy come over to talk to me about wood stoves.

I live on a very wooded lot, and over the years have had a few hardwood trees removed, which have been aging in a woodpile in my back yard. I have perhaps a cord and a half or two cords of wood, about a third of which I have split. I have a maul for splitting wood which does a pretty good job; it is also good exercise.

Many New England homes today are built around premises which, to our great grandparents, would seem foolish. Although my house is a pretty traditional design, it lacks some of the features a traditional New England home should have -- a root cellar, a well, and a cooking fireplace. All of these things would have been part of the standard equipment a hundred years ago, but homes built in the last fifty years (mine was build in 1972) are premised on a few questionable assumptions:

1. Unlimited municipal water.
2. Unlimited municipal sewerage.
3. Unlimited electricity.
4. Unlimited cheap oil.

I have town water, town sewer, electricity from a distant supplier, and oil heat. My stoves are all electric.

Worse yet, in my case, all of these things are tied to one single point of failure -- the electrical grid, because:

1. I live on a hill, and the water for my neighborhood is pumped to a standpipe. This standpipe relies on electricity to function.
2. I live slightly below the grade of my street, which means my house relies on an electric pump to move material up and into the sewer.
3. My oil burner has an electric starter. When I lose power, I lose heat.

So part of my preparation for a TEOTWAWKI event (I take the EMP scenario very seriously) involves removing this single point of failure and making my heat, water, sewerage, and cooking independent of the grid and of each other.

A wood stove would solve my heat problem somewhat; I have access to a nearby forest that, in a pinch, could keep me in wood for years. If I run it through my chimney, and hang curtains to block off the unnecessary rooms, a wood stove would let my wife and I survive the coldest New England winter. If it is of the right design, I could potentially use it to boil water for cooking.

Combined with my water barrel and emergency storage of potable water, I could do alright for myself for a time. The problem I then have to solve is sewerage. Two potential solutions I see for this:

1. Build a composting box out of wood, and convert my shed to an outhouse. With lime and sawdust, I then have a way of recycling waste, or

2. Dig up my connection to the sewer, unhook it, and build myself a septic system. Using buckets to keep the tanks full, I could then use my toilets.

I do not think my town will let me put in a septic system independent of the town sewerage, but in an end of the world scenario, if I could obtain a sufficient supply of gravel, cement, and PVC pipe, I could build my own rudimentary system.