The ice storm in late December really opened my eyes to the holes in my disaster preparedness plans. The family has lots of warm clothing (though only one low temperature sleeping bag…), water, non perishable foods & wood for my fire places but had I lost power there was no real way for me to cook anything! When Henry went to Lebaron, I asked him to pick me up a portable butane/propane burner and a few fuel tanks just in case and just over a week later I also picked up a JetBoil though the latter more for airsoft use.

Anyway both burners require fuel and while I have a decent supply of that, it got me wondering what would I do if even that ran out… Looking online I found the Solo Stove which is a small portable wood gasification burning stove that runs completely on bio fuel, pretty much anything I can scavenge from the environment. If I’m stuck at home and run out of fuel for the other stuff, I have at least a week’s supply of firewood so that could be used with the Solo Stove. Anyway I’m impulsive so I ordered one along with Solo Pot 900 and the Swedish FireSteel fire starter.

There was apparently an issue with the manufacturer’s ordering system and after two weeks with no word, I emailed them. It was quickly resolved and I received my order today. 😀

Everything is made of stainless steel, at least according to Solo Stove though I have absolutely no way to verify that claim.

The wood sits on a raised grate platform that allows ash to fall through and the holes allow the Solo Stove to draw in air into the burner. I don’t know how wood gasification works but yeah it does that too which is suppose to boost efficiency. On the side of the Solo 900 pot are measurement levels so you know how much fluid is in the container.

The Solo Stove burner fits perfectly into the Solo Pot 900 but then again they’re made for each other and as you can see I put the fire starter in the stove. From what I read and saw online, other people put kindling (dryer lint & cotton balls soaked in vaseline into seems to be popular) the storage area too. The pot then goes into a small pouch that allows it to be packed neatly away. Note the Solo Stove also comes with a storage pouch if you decide to just get the burner.

I think I paid ~$140 US for everything and lol for the record I’m not nuts. Haha I didn’t buy the Solo Stove because I’m worried about a disaster striking, rather Maggie and I have talked about going camping in 2014 and If we go out for an extended period of time I thought something like this could be more useful than hauling the JetBoil (need to write a review on that too) and many cans of fuel. 😉 I mean there is also the added benefit of being useful in times of need but I’m looking forward to using this thing when I’m relaxing instead. 🙂

That’s all I got for now, when I actually use the stove I’ll update or make a new post on its usability.