Thanks, jbe; I'll check out your link. The Sterno I'm familiar with is a gel, so I'll have to see what's different. Maybe Sterno makes both.
Regarding woodstoves, I think you can find a fireplace/woodstove dealer who will come to your home for free, take a look, and tell you what they think you need to do to safely use your fireplace. Since they obviously have an interest in doing the work, you should get a second opinion, IMO. Moving on, fireplaces are very inefficient (conversion of fuel to heat, other than what goes up the chimney); almost to the point of net heat loss. If I were you, I would look into having a soapstone (or other material) firebox set right in front of your fireplace opening. See:
hearth.com
for just one example. This would have the chimney routed up your fireplace chimney. They can look very classy, too. One thing about a fireplace INSERT is that it probably has to have an electric blower to circulate the heat out into the room. With the freestanding woodstove, this is not the case. Same with pellet stoves and "outside the house" wood furnaces; most require electric power (which could be from a generator).
We are talking about preparing for Y2K but I have started to see that it's probably pretty good planning to have an auxilliary heat source during any winter, where I live. You can cook on top of the woodstove, too. Downside is you need to have a good wood supply and the woodstove will cost you $1500 - $2500 unless you can find a good used one.
My experience with people who have woodstove businesses is that they are friendly and helpful, for the most part. they'll give you lots of good information, discuss options with you, look at a used stove you might be interested in, maybe even have a good used woodstove to sell you. Most obvious danger of woodstove/fireplace is a chimney fire from not having the chimney cleaned on a regular basis (annually for me; depends on how much and what type of wood you burn).
Re: freeze-dried food, my experience is there are two kinds; pretty bad tasting and real bad tasting <ggg>. I'm laying in the types of foods I usually eat; lots of canned goods.
Regards. ...Tim
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