I saw an article this morning. The headline was "Maine Fireplace Businesses See Boost Amid Pandemic." Much of the article is focused on the fact that due to the pandemic more homeowners and businesses are investing in outdoor heating. Here in Maine, heat is necessary, of course, and since there are restrictions regarding indoor gathering, restaurants are trying to adapt to stay in business.
But there was also a section of the article that focused on home heating, with the comment that "more people are staying home and doing projects."
Well ... maybe people are trying to make their homes more pleasant by adding a fireplace.
And maybe, like so many of us in the prepper world have mentioned - a few times ... and then a few more - being prepared to live without electricity and other "modern" conveniences is not a bad idea. The worst thing that will happen is, there's a nice fire in the fireplace to take the chill off and help save a few dollars in heating costs during the winter. The best thing is, if the power goes out, there's a way to heat one's home.
The Organic Prepper published an article recently by J.G. Martinez, who survived the economic and social collapse in Venezuela. Mr. Martinez writes about the four things he wished he had known prior to experiencing that collapse. The first is about supplies, and it's very much what many preppers have been recommending. Skills are better than things. Ingredients are better than items. For instance, knowing how to source and purify water could, in reality, be a life saver. Knowing how to make soap from wood ash (to make lye) and animal fat is superior to storing a dozen bars of Ivory soap. The reason, as Mr. Martinez points out, is that those bars of soap will run out, because the emergency will likely last longer than you anticipated.
So, the fireplace article was interesting, and I wonder how many of those people who have been having fireplaces and woodstoves installed or updated in recent months have done so because they are starting to see something unsettling in what's happening in our world.
If any of you are new to the prepping scene, welcome! Please feel free to ask questions. Either I, or one of my regular readers, probably knows the answer :).
That's one of the reasons we chose this house when we moved - there are a few historic neighborhoods with homes that still have the original fireplaces. I figured it would be a huge boon if we lose power, or just for supplementing the furnaces.
ReplyDeleteNow if we could just get the maintenance department to actually respond to our work order about it....... *blink blink*
I figure in a mid-term power outage scenario, we can still use it when awake and ready to call the fire department if needed. I'm so leery, though, since others have already had issues. Darn. :(