Chile imports all its petrochemicals and even though our
casa has a modern furnace that runs on fuel oil, we have been encouraged by our landlord to use a sustainable energy supply for our central heating instead. That means stoking the
caldera, or boiler, with firewood to warm the water that heats the radiators. Now we've learned to make a fire in the
caldera and keep it going all day long. It is amazing the amount of wood required, but wood is plentiful and inexpensive, and temperatures have not yet fallen into the frigid range we expect this winter. Indeed, only the hours from
medianoche through
madrugada (midnight to 6am) are particularly chilly, and we have plenty of blankets, so we've been letting the fire burn down overnight. Come winter we will have to use the other boiler.
The only other concern is that there is no thermostat to shut down the flame when you use firewood and the whole system requires an electric pump to move the hot water around the house through the radiators. Should there be a power failure on a cold and stormy night when the wood is burning hot,
por su seguros, for our safety, we've been warned to remove the burning logs from the
caldera lest it overheat and explode!
Chile imports all its petrochemicals and even though our casa has a modern furnace that runs on fuel oil, we have been encouraged by our landlord to use a sustainable energy supply for our central heating instead. That means stoking the caldera, or boiler, with firewood to warm the water that heats the radiators. Now we've learned to make a fire in the caldera and keep it going all day long. It is amazing the amount of wood required, but wood is plentiful and inexpensive, and temperatures have not yet fallen into the frigid range we expect this winter. Indeed, only the hours from medianoche through madrugada (midnight to 6am) are particularly chilly, and we have plenty of blankets, so we've been letting the fire burn down overnight. Come winter we will have to use the other boiler.
The only other concern is that there is no thermostat to shut down the flame when you use firewood and the whole system requires an electric pump to move the hot water around the house through the radiators. Should there be a power failure on a cold and stormy night when the wood is burning hot, por su seguros, for our safety, we've been warned to remove the burning logs from the caldera lest it overheat and explode!
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Yikes! Here in Trout Lake, when we have a big snow storm, we can lose power as well. In December we lost it for about 9 hours, and without power the pellet stove won't work. Kozen gets up early, thankfully, and he got up when the power went off at 2am, and started a small generator and ran an extension cord from it to the pellet stove, so the house didn't freeze. I got the wood stove at the other end of the house going as soon as I got up.
ReplyDeleteSo I understand what you're thinking! (grin)