Hermit Hut Survives Deep Snow with Deep Freeze Before Dawn: 45 degrees F. below freezing!

Upon arrival to the Hermit Hut - I had to use snow shoes to get to it since the snow was over 3 feet deep - more like 3 1/2 feet. Luckily the easement road on my land was plowed - by the person who uses the easement! Otherwise I doubt I could have shoveled out my access road - way too much snow - 2 feet since last time I was there.

Chimney survived - although after I got the fire going I heard a lot pop! At first I thought a clamp came off the interior roof. I looked around - nothing. I shrugged it off. Only later did I realize that the duct flue chimney pipe going off the stove had POPPED from all the heat pressure of the stove!! (more on that later).

Hermit Hut? What Hermit Hut?!

The door was not that buried. So the roof must have protected the door a bit. There's a slight eave over the door.

So that tells how much snow - two feet more or less.

OK... so first I checked out the rest of the land - using snow shoes of course. After I looked inside the Hermit Hut first:

So you can see the support post I put in. Last time I left without putting that post in - so I had to turn around to fix it. In fact I turned around a few times - since I had forgotten things. This time I got lucky - didn't have to turn around!!

Time to start clearing off that snow on the roof - before it collapses the roof! I can't take out the support post before I clear off that snow! Without taking out the support post then I don't have any room to move around inside!

That's how I "blazed trail" at first - with the snow shoes. Then I just used boots - it got packed down after a few times using the trail. While checking out the rest of the land then I grabbed some twigs off the Tamarck trees along the trails.

Now you can see some roof after I start clearing off all the snow!!

I use a big sweep broom and the roof had crusted on snow on the lower layer - so I just break it up with the end of the broom.

 what's this?

Here's the LAST pile of snow to be removed!!

Finally time to heat up the Hermit Hut! All that 6 to 8 inches of clay slip hay insulation then helped to hold and radiate back the heat - along with the bricks and the 4 gallon pot of water. I had it about 2/3rds full of water.

Here's the Baffle in action - this is the Two Dog stove from fourdog stoves in Minnesota. So you can see how the flame first had to collide into the baffle before just exiting the chimney flue. That forces the flame to get a "secondary burn" to clean and reburn the gas fumes. So you get a cleaner exhaust out the chimney plus you get more heat from the stove!

So you can see the door has a gasket - that cord rope that is fire-proof. That seals the door so that smoke does not leak out.

This baffle shot shows the opening in the back of the baffle - so the flames are getting sucked up. So then the duct pipe got over 450 degrees Fahrenheit - because the galvanized zinc got oxidized in the chimney duct pipe going out towards the wall. That was the cause of the loud POP sound - and it BROKE the "weld" I had smeared into the duct pipe! Luckily the pipe held. When I had put the chimney pipe in - it did not "want" to stay all the way pushed in. That's why I got the weld but the pressure forced it back to where it "wanted" to go. I could have drilled it shut all the way but not sure I should be "forcing" the pipe against the "will" of the pressure! It seems to be holding fine now that it adjusted back to where it had wanted to be originally (not pushed in all the way).

I'll post those "popped" images on "part 2" - focused on making the Popcorn Bucket Tent backpacking wood stove!

So we had a deep freeze of minus 17 degrees or over 45 degrees Fahrenheit - BELOW FREEZING!! and so I had driven the car at 9:30 pm for a half hour battery charge up for the night. Then I restarted the car at 5:15 am when it was 13 below zero - and then it kept getting colder until about 7:15 am - Deep Freeze Before Dawn. Luckily the battery started at 5:15 and I did not wait for it to get colder!

I need to check what that "Cold Crank" rating is on the battery - and I brought my generator that has a battery "jump cable" option. I'm not sure quite how to use that battery jump cable - they discontinued that option. You have to be 80% charged up and then it drains all the power of the generator in a couple minutes - while you try starting the car. haha.