#10 The Coldest Winter in 20 Years: How Did We Manage?
This winter in Finland was (still is at the time of writing this) the coldest in 20 years. Temperatures down to and below -40C (-40F, yeah they’re the same) in some places, and all the way to -33C (-27F) where I am. Even here in Finland, these cold temperatures can be challenging, especially when they are sustained for weeks at a time… How do we keep warm off-grid with this kind of weather? Early winter — we had no idea at this time how cold it would get… Obviously since we’re in the middle of winter, I can’t rely on solar power for heating. That means the heat-pump isn’t even in the picture this time of year. I run the generator once a week to charge the batteries, to augment what little I get from the sun, but for a heat-pump I would have to run it every day. The only viable energy source for heating off-grid in this climate is wood as I said before — and I’ve got plenty of that. So let’s look at how much wood I use on these coldest days. I’ll use a few consecutive days of around