We have a very small house with a half basement, and a very big wood stove, which was free heat for us for many years. There is wood everywhere, and anyone is usually happy if you come cut up some downed trees and haul them away for them. But my husband is in his mid-70s now, and his back is a train wreck from previous abuse, so we can no longer get wood. We have a backup propane "woodstove" (one of those fake woodstoves with the ceramic "logs" in it), which we now use as our primary heat. To heat the bedroom/bathroom and the basement, we have electric heaters.
This past week, we didn't even have our propane heat because of a perfect storm of wind, snow, and cold. We have all three of these things, all the time, but usually two at a time, and not usually AS cold as it was last week. The vent on the propane heater got clogged with snow and ice and choked itself off, so it wouldn't stay lit. As hot as that vent is, the wind and snow, combined with the (actual) -22 temperature was enough to overcome it. I had no idea what was wrong and spent the whole night re-lighting the pilot light and praying it would stay on. It's a scary thing to be in a little house a hundred miles from anywhere, in a blizzard with -60 wind chills, and nothing to keep you warm but an itty-bitty space heater. Thank God we had electricity. But as luck, or providence, would have it, I talked to our neighbor the following day and found out they were having the same problem, so she told me what the fix was - put a cover over the vent (open top and bottom, of course) to keep the snow and wind from entering the vent directly. So we grabbed a piece of roofing tin and screwed it to the siding, so it bows over the vent, and the ice melted and the heater started working again. Whew!
But yeah, propane "woodstove" is our heat, and now hopefully we won't lose it again in another bad storm. It breaks my heart to look at that behemoth wood burning stove sitting in the living room, but we just can't collect the fuel for it anymore. I hate getting old.
