Keep Things Toasty and Cheap With a Wood Pellet Furnace

You read the headlines. "Home Heating Oil Hits Record Highs!" You see the TV reports featuring interviews with struggling families who are afraid of another cold spell because they can't pay their gas or electric bills. You don't really need those media reports to understand the situation, though. You've seen the evidence in black and white every month when you open your bills. It is getting expensive to heat your home. That's why you're going to install a wood pellet furnace.

A wood pellet furnace is more than a glorified fireplace. It is a top-notch way to keep your home toasty and comfortable without spending a small fortune on fuel. These marvels of engineering can transform simple, cheap little pellets of wood into enough heat to make even the most severe winter bearable.

If you don't already have a wood pellet furnace, you should be looking for the right one to meet your needs. If you don't have one and you're not shopping for the best option, you need to hop on the bandwagon. The price of petroleum products isn't going to suddenly bottom out overnight. Electricity isn't getting cheaper. Natural gas may be plentiful and readily available, but the gas companies want to keep posting their record profits. If you don't switch to a wood pellet furnace or some other alternative heating option, you can be certain that you'll spend more money than ever before in an effort to maintain cold weather comfort.

A wood pellet furnace has a number of advantages over other options. The first, as noted, is cost. The price of those little wood pellets isn't going up, either. In fact, the increasing popularity of these heaters is bringing more people into the pellet business, which is boosting supply and decreasing prices!

These pellet-burners are efficient, too. The old-fashioned fireplace leaks like a heat sieve. Your comfort and your money drifts right out the chimney or lingers just feet from the fireplace, failing to circulate. A good wood pellet furnace will create sufficient heat to keep things cozy from the basement to the second floor. They extract so much out of those pellets that it's almost unbelievable.

They're a flexible option, too. Some people do away with all other forms of heating, relying exclusively on a whole house furnace. Others invest in a smaller unit to supplement heat or in a fireplace insert. You aren't stuck with one option when you've added a pellet stove to your home.

These stoves--which have really only been readily available for the last few decades--are becoming popular, well-recognized options. That isn't an accident. Pellet stoves supply outstanding warmth with great efficiency while sporting a price tag that puts other options to shame.

Things to Cconsider for Surviving a Disaster

Safety

I believe our bug out bus named "The ARK " is the best insurance available, for you and your family, against natural disasters, economic and governmental collapse, loss of home, or a medical pandemic.

It gives you the ability to flee to safety from harm's way. It could be used for a 72 hr. escape or could even become a permanent year round home, even being able to ride out the hardest winters.

Like the saying "If ye are prepared ye shall not fear". The greatest peace of all comes from being prepared.

The best money was spent on the best design, for the safest bus ever made, for our greatest resource, our children. Have you ever seen an R.V. in an accident? It looks like a pile of wood and insulation sitting on the side of the road.

Have you ever seen a school bus in an accident; it looks like, well, a school bus.

There is no comparison between the two. Having the ability to support you and your loved ones at all times is important. It is also prudent in today's uncertain times the best place to place your money is in the ability to always be able to provide shelter and food for your loved ones, thus the need for... the bug out bus.

#2 Shelter

This brings us to the topic of shelter during a bug out event. No one knows what time of year a disaster will happen, nor do they know how long it will last. It seems reasonable that you should be prepared for anything, whether it is a warm summer day or a below zero night in the dead of winter. Which proves to be a challenge for the best bug out shelters let alone a bug out vehicle, to add to this challenge is the ability to be able to stay out indefinitely. This may all sound over whelming, but we have found our bus meets this challenge. With its cast iron wood stove and its soon to be solar and wind power, its large battery bank and its large multi-fuel supply, it is capable of providing you shelter in any climate. With it being just less than 40 feet long it has ample room for you and your family and all of your supplies.

#3 Mobility.

Another problem with bugging out is having your supplies with you when you need them. With the bus parked next to your house it will always be ready to go and you are able to keep a close eye on it. Unlike your house far away in the woods, where it is vulnerable to theft and vandalism. Since it is a super R.V., you take it with you when you travel. So if disaster strikes while you're at Disneyland with your wife and kids, you're ready to go.Your stuff is not buried in some hill a thousand miles away. Being able to adapt and overcome is priceless in an emergency situation. Not being bound to one location or limiting yourself to one chance of survival, truly gives you freedom and independence. Being able to move to a safe location, dependent upon the situation, instead of a permanent guess is key. We all know there is strength in numbers and you cannot be a one man army (unless you are John Rambo). Being mobile allows you to travel in groups of people of one heart and one mind, while being able to be flexible in your destinations with each other. If one area becomes hostile you could go to another, or even move with the seasons, or move to advance your positions of offense or defense against your enemy. You could take your bus to go and rescue grandma while on your way. With a 1400 mile range between fill ups you could cover a lot of ground without stopping. It's really hard to do all those things with a bunker buried in a hill some place you figured would be safe only to find out it wasn't.

#4 Multipurpose

My family spent 5 months on the road living in "The Ark" it traveled 22,000 miles up and down the east coast then out to the west coast while on a U.S. history tour for my home schooled children. Now that was a field trip! The bus was very comfortable and very capable. We averaged 12miles per gallon. That's as good as our suburban! If your wife or significant other is not into prepping, build her an awesome "R.V.", like I did. Then take her and the kids and go travel and camp, spend time with each other, without fear, knowing you're prepared for just about anything. Our bus is also a fueling station, with a 50 gallon tank just for chainsaws and motorcycles. Or filling up the Honda Civic. The bus can also be a great place to have the in-laws stay when they come to visit, or you could stay in the bus when they come to visit. It could be your new full time home, being capable of living totally off grid using only the sun, wind, wood and veggie oil to power, drive and heat the bus. Wait, all those things are free! The point is you can enjoy your bus now. If you have to move to a new location, say for work, you can take all your preps with you. You don't have to leave them behind buried in the dirt. Some of you may be saying that bus is too big it cannot maneuver well enough to travel down the mountain road or down the long dirt roads in the desert. That's what they were designed for. (That reminds me of an adventure my wife had in the bus being lost in the backwoods of West Virgina at 4 am, but that's another story). Anyways, anybody that has lived in rural America has seen the routes these buses have made every day come rain or shine. Not everybody cancels school when it snows. As you can see its one heck of a machine.

#5 Comfort

The last thing I want to talk about is comfort. There is nothing more soothing to a person than being warm, comfortable and full of food during a "disaster". When it seems the world is collapsing all around you, your family, your wife and children won't be soaking wet from a leaking and flooded tent, they won't be shivering uncontrollably with the wind howling and the temperature well below zero, making it hard for your furnace in your motor home to keep up or perhaps the propane just ran out, nor will there tummies be growling for some hot and tasty home cooked foods. They also will not be sick because of exhaustion, because of lack of sleep, because of the cold hard ground and wet and dirty sleeping bags, but they will be warm, dry, comfortable and safe, eating a hot cooked meal, enjoying the flicker of the flames coming from the wood stove and their own soft dry and comfortable beds. These things will become priceless to you, if and when your world collapses. Having your bug out bus will prove to be one of the wisest decisions you have ever made. Remember, food, warmth, comfort, and mobility will soothe the troubled soul like nothing else will, except, of course, your spirituality, but even then you will be cold wet and hungry. Be prepared!

For more info and complete list of items in the bus along with pictures and stories go to...

Pellet Stove Inserts Warm Things Up!

The fireplace was a great invention. For centuries, fireplaces have been used to keep homes warm, for aesthetic reasons and even for cooking. It is hard to imagine a world without them. However, they are becoming ever so slightly outdated. Fireplaces don't really heat homes efficiently--too much of the temperature is lost through the chimney. Plus, the wood we use for fireplaces doesn't really burn that efficiently--it doesn't provide maximum return on temperature. As a result, pellet stove inserts are becoming more popular.

Wood pellets burn faster and longer than good ol' chopped wood. Pellet stoves provide better, more efficient heating. Pellet stove inserts are basically fully operational pellet stoves that can fit within your existing fireplace. You get all of the good looks of a fireplace but you also get twenty-first century-quality heating. In fact, many of the inserts you can buy are actually more attractive than your average fireplace. You'll be upgrading in terms of home comfort, efficiency and appearance with a pellet stove insert.

The prices of home heating oil, furnace coal, natural gas and electricity are all increasing. This winter promises to be just as expensive as ever. When one considers the amount of money they're investing in home heating, it's easy to understand why these stoves are so popular. They provide the cozy comfort everyone wants at a fraction of other heating options' prices. Almost unbelievably, pellet stoves function at up to 90% efficiency. Old-fashioned fireplaces just can't compare with those numbers. These stove inserts are an amazing way to keep your residence comfortable.

You don't need to add an entirely new heater to your home to make use of wood pellets. You can maintain your existing fireplace and its role as a centerpiece to your family's living area. All you need is one of the many inserts currently available. These handy devices aren't overwhelmingly expensive to install and operation is often considerably less costly than alternatives.

Chances are they won't replace the fireplace and its unique role in our lives. Nothing can hope to erase that kind of history. These great heating devices may, however, change the way we use and think about our fireplaces. If you're looking for a great way to heat your home and you currently have a fireplace in on your property, investigate pellet stove inserts. They offer numerous advantages and may be exactly what you need.

You can still gather in the living room by the fireplace. You can still put the family snapshots on the mantle. Life won't change much. What will change is the quality of your environment and the balance in your bank account. They'll improve when you use one for your fireplace.