![]() ![]() The next time I had to do work on something in the dark I thought I had invented fire!īoth hands free and light exactly where you want it, how can you beat that! I had never used headlamps until a few years ago when Harbor Freight gave them away as free gifts. If I was moving to a remote location for long would be these.įor real long term would be the 12 or 24vdc lights and appliances.with the solar charger and high end batteries and inverter. I really could use a few battery lanterns and lamps.and the rechargeable batteries.ĭo have a small solar charger.and a cheapo solar array that is still in the box.Īll these are short term and portable.įor long term and portable, would really like several Muli-fuel Britelyt lanterns. They are the camping trailer staple and house back up.Need spare mantles.Īlso use candle lanterns one for each room.and a lot of spares candle.quick easy to light, no messing with wicks or cleaning glass.īut that said.If starting from nothing. Propane is very useful as well.a do use them a lot as well as the stove and Mr. That would run our 2 lamps at the city house for a while.Īt "The Place" the cabin.maybe the same amount. We keep several "bottles" of lamp oil (gal-1/2).no, not the fancy smelling stuff just plain lamp oil. ![]() I could not keep them running and I do not have the lantern skills like Rick does! So propane was the best option for me.īut I am not doing away with my electric lanterns and lights, or the oil lamps. ![]() What I used before converting to propane was the Coleman duel fuel lanterns burning regular unleaded gasoline and that was back when gas was $1 a gallon. ![]() Not so good in the 100 degree temps of TN in summer. It also puts out a huge amount of heat which was handy in cold weather. That was what I used part of the time when I was living off grid. I have a distribution tree somewhere around here that fits a 20# tank and a double mantle lantern that puts out 100W of light. I am talking 100+ hours of battery life, which is a full week of nighttime lighting, more if you are only lighting 5-6 hours a night. One thing about modern LED technology is that many of the lanterns have two settings, and the low setting will give enough light to get around without eating up your batteries. One of the Wallmart lanterns will burn all night on a few ounces of whatever fuel you pour in. I used to hang a lantern on the door of the outhouse at certain campsites and left it burning all night to guide folks down the little path with less stumbling and cursing. If you are out of power for several days the solar backup might not keep up with your battery recharge demands, especially on sunless days like the one I am having today, and there are places where an oil lamp is convenient for constant lighting. You are also leaving out the third and probably best option, which is propane and a Coleman type lantern. I have both oil and electric options and they are just that, options. I do not even notice the smell others complain about but you might. If you are using Alladin pressure lamps you might need the filtered fuel but if you are using regular wick type lanterns they will burn anything down to #2 diesel at $2.50 a gallon and work fine. So why bother with kerosene? How about propane lanterns? Streamlight and Princeton Tec have some good looking options as well. I also have a couple cheaper Coleman battery lamps that are nice but nowhere near the quality of the GoalZero. An example I own is the GoalZero lighthouse 250, it can be plugged into a USB port to recharge, has a hand crank (that actually works) and can be set to use only half the LED bulbs if the lantern is set against a wall. So my question is this, excluding a TEOTWAWKI scenario, what major advantages do oil lamps have over battery lamps? Many of the battery options now are rechargeable. I can buy 100 AA batteries on Amazon for about $25. I recently bought 5 gallons of lamp grade kerosene, but ouch! almost $90 for 5 gallons. I really like the battery lights, they are easy enough for the kids to use, don't smell, safer, and cheap to run. We used these daily and I do not remember a single battery powered option.īattery technology (and LED technology) has come a long way since then and I own several battery lanterns along with 5 or 6 kerosene options. Several of these were Aladdin Lamps, a couple old lanterns, and some cheap oil lamps. When I was a little guy, my parents lived off-grid in Eastern Washington, we had a large collection of Kerosene/oil lamps and lanterns. I did a search for a thread on this but didn't find anything recent, so here goes. ![]()
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