I reside with my wife and my parents in an old big Fachwerkhaus (i think the english translation would be "half timbered house") which brings its own challenges, especially if it got never really renovated or modernized. On this page i would like to write down some of the "life hacks" i have learned...

After a longer blackout in our region a couple of years ago we decided that it would be great to get our old stoves back to work, especially the thought that such an blackout could happen in winter with only electrical heating was... not nice.

We went to the barn and recovered first the stove for the kitchen, it must be over 70 years old, but it is (ignoring some minor rust and scratches) still in perfect working order. After we moved the big and heavy thing into the kitchen we installed it and tried to fire it up... and turned the whole house into smoker! The chimney was too cold to proper ventilate the stove! At this moment i remembered what my grandfather once told me and i quickly went down into the basement and opened the small maintenance hatch of the chimney, put in a few very small bits of wood and lighted them up. This is a so called "Lockfeuer" (perhaps "baiting fire" would be a possible translation) to start getting the chminey up to temperature and get the airflow going.

Now with the airflow going the smoke cleared and the stove began to work as expected. Since then we are at least a bit more prepared for any longer blackout.

When cold, start a baiting fire in the chimney

Cheap barbecue pans are great for using wood-pellets in a stove

You don't need to feed the stove constantly, heat it REALLY GOOD up, the excess heat will be stored in the heavy walls of the house.