**Preparing For Winter At My Alaska Wilderness Cabin — Transcript & Summary | SozAI**
Source: https://sozai.app/transcript/winter-prep-alaska-wilderness-cabin/

Alaska cabin owner sweeps his chimney, inspects the roof boot, troubleshoots a sandpoint well, and refreshes his hearth before winter arrives.

## Key Takeaways

- Regular chimney sweeping is essential to prevent creosote-driven chimney fires.
- Sandpoint wells need suction to prime and draw water reliably with electric pumps.
- Wells and plumbing must be protected from freezing by proper burial depth.
- Small, well-split firewood and birch bark make for efficient, quick fire starts.

## What the video covers

- Late-August prep for winter at an off-grid Alaska wilderness cabin, with a roof-based chimney sweep done with a friend's rope assistance.
- Explains the danger of creosote buildup and why regular chimney sweeping prevents chimney fires.
- Inspects and plans to reseal the silicone roof boot, which shows some drying and cracking after about 10 years.
- Troubleshoots a sandpoint well that fails to stay primed with an electric pump, concluding that suction is needed to draw water through the fine screen.
- Discusses freeze risk to well plumbing and the importance of burying the line below the frost line.
- Clears heavy snow from the roof in winter to reduce load on the cabin, a known weak spot.
- Refurbishes the slate hearth area, applying Danish oil and sealant after earlier water damage from rain.
- Describes the wood stove as a reburn design that produces cleaner exhaust.
- Covers firewood preparation: splitting logs into small pieces for quick heating, using birch bark and kindling, and comparing spruce and birch.
- Mentions off-grid power using EcoFlow batteries charged by a Yamaha generator.

## Chapters

1. 00:00 Intro: Preparing for Alaska Winter
2. 01:29 Roof Climb and Chimney Sweep
3. 05:26 Inspecting the Roof Boot and Chimney Cap
4. 08:41 Lighting the First Fire of the Season
5. 09:42 Sandpoint Well Troubleshooting
6. 16:43 Hearth Restoration and Sealing
7. 30:31 Firewood Splitting and Stacking
8. 38:38 Off-Grid Power and Wrap-Up

Answers

## Questions about this video

Why does the creator sweep the chimney even with an efficient wood stove?

He explains that even efficient stoves leave creosote buildup inside the pipe, and sweeping removes it to prevent a chimney fire. He notes he had not swept in two or three years.

What problem did the creator have with the sandpoint well?

The electric pump kept losing prime and running dry when drawing from the well. He realized the sandpoint well needs suction to pull water through its fine screen, rather than deeper driving being the solution.

How does the creator prepare firewood for his cabin stove?

He splits logs into small pieces because the cabin heats quickly, uses a kindling splitter with a hammer to make thin kindling, and starts fires with birch bark.

## Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown

00:02

Speaker A

[music] Welcome back to Alaska Cabin Adventures. It is late August and in Alaska that means that winter is right around the corner and I've got some projects that need to get taken care of before the snow flies. So, let's [music] get

00:13

Speaker A

started. Woohoo! Let's go. I have something really cool to show you guys. [music] It's been like two or three years since I've swept this chimney out. Even with an efficient wood stove, it's prudent to go ahead and get it swept to make sure

00:38

Speaker A

that all the creassote buildup on the inside of the pipe is gone. So that way I don't run the risk of getting a chimney fire. And that requires getting up on the roof. So luckily today I've got my buddy Steve from Home Sweet Home

00:47

Speaker A

Alaska. He's going to come out and help run the rope to make sure I don't fall off the roof. What's up, dude?

00:52

Speaker A

Howdy. Howdy. You going to make sure I don't fall off the roof? I'll try. Okay, [laughter] so the pitch on my roof is an 812 pitch, which is pretty dang steep, especially with a sheet metal top like I have. Um, in the

01:02

Speaker A

winter, you can kind of walk on it when there's snow, but in the summer, it's it's almost impossible to walk around without a rope. So, I'm not sure what other folks do, but for my setup, it's always been really easy for me to just

01:10

Speaker A

put a plastic bag underneath the chimney while I sweep it to catch all that creassote. That just slides right up.

01:16

Speaker A

Just wrap it around the bottom, tape it on. There we go. Now we've basically just got a big ash diaper. So I'm going to pull this down.

01:29

Speaker A

Now I'm going to get up on the roof and start scrubbing. All right, ready to rock. [music] I'll come hold the ladder for you just to make sure. Sounds good.

01:52

Speaker A

That's good. [music] All right. Well, I got my climbing harness on, so I'm going to tie into the rope using a figure eight knot. So, there we go. All right. So, then on the Steve side of the rope, we're going to

02:13

Speaker A

hook it through the blade device, through the carabiner. Tension up there. I can stop him by pulling down. And that cinches down on your carabiner.

02:20

Speaker A

And then the rope is just running up over the roof. Norman's making sure everything is going according to plan.

02:28

Speaker A

All right, I'm heading up. Okay, I'm stepping up. All right, I'm up. Heading left. Yep. Go ahead [music] and take.

02:47

Speaker A

Okay, that's good right there. Uh, another maybe foot or two. Whoa. All right. Howdy.

02:58

Speaker A

Okay. So, here's our chimney. So, what we got to do is take our chimney cap off, obviously. And luckily, I was smart enough to remember to bring my tools for that this time.

03:08

Speaker A

Very simple. Pop right off. Okay. Oh, yeah. Boy, look at all that creassote. Put that so it doesn't fall. As you guys can see, this is all creasso, which is exactly the kind of stuff that will catch fire if your chimney gets too

03:26

Speaker A

clogged up and hot and it'll just burst into flames, causing a chimney fire and a catastrophic failure of your cabin.

03:35

Speaker A

Thread this guy in. Okay, put that down. Okay. Well, not much to it really. Get my chimney cap put back on.

04:19

Speaker A

Okay, so while I'm up here, I figured I'd kind of inspect my boot, my roof boot, which is just a silicone boot.

04:24

Speaker A

These are actually very good at holding water out. And this I installed 10 years ago. Never had a leaking problem, but I'm looking at some of the seals. And you can see it's starting to dry rod a little bit.

04:39

Speaker A

So, just sealed up around here real good. And I've never had a leak, but I think it's about time to come up here with some new sealant and just kind of go over all this stuff and make sure it

04:51

Speaker A

stays waterproof for another 10 or 20 years. Okay. All right. I'm coming down. Lower me down, sir.

05:03

Speaker A

And lower down. All right. I'm on the ladder. All right, [gasps] the scary part's done. [snorts] Lift this up.

05:19

Speaker A

Oh YEAH. OKAY. Squeaky clean. Now, I do put a couple of screws at this connecting point as well. Later on in this video, I'll tell you guys more about this wood stove. We'll talk a little bit about how it's able to be so

05:41

Speaker A

close to this wall without a heat shield. That's a pretty good haul, actually. If you think about just lining the entire chimney pipe, I mean, that's definitely enough to start a chimney fire. So, I'm glad I did that. I am

05:52

Speaker A

going to dump all this creassote down the outhouse hole. It's basically just carbon, and it's a good place to put ash and sawdust and stuff like that. So, that's where this is going to go.

06:01

Speaker A

[snorts] It's always good practice to try to coil up your rope real good when you put it back in the bag.

06:12

Speaker A

Well, big thanks again to Steve for coming out and helping me get that chimney sweeped. Me and him took off and did some fishing and had some dinner and just spent some time hanging out cuz like I said, probably the last time

06:19

Speaker A

we'll see each other for a while. Um, but tonight is a special night. It is August 27th and this is the current temperature and it has not gotten this cold in the evening in a long time here in Alaska. In fact, I haven't used the

06:31

Speaker A

wood stove all summer. And tonight is the first night that it definitely feels chilly enough to warrant a good fire in the wood stove, which is exactly why I wanted to get it swept out. So, anyway, I'm going to get a fire started and get

06:40

Speaker A

this place cozy. So, if you guys are new to the channel, I'll show you my little kindling splitter that I have over here on the porch, put the wood on the on the blade, and hit it with a hammer.

06:51

Speaker A

And I make it into these thinner pieces like this. And then just like that, I've got a big bundle of kindling. That'll be more than enough for tonight.

07:16

Speaker A

[snorts] Still got a half burned log in here from back in the spring. Still got some birch bark. Always use birch bark to start my fires.

07:44

Speaker A

[music] [music] I love the smell of the wood smoke. Well, it's definitely good to have a fire going in the wood stove again, but it definitely gets me thinking that there's a lot more to do. So, tomorrow's going to be a big day. I got a lot of

08:16

Speaker A

projects I want to tackle, and I think just getting a good night's sleep, hitting it first thing in the morning is going to be the way to go. So, catch you guys then.

08:40

Speaker A

[snorts] Good morning everyone. I woke up this morning to the sound of rain on the roof and it has been pouring all night long and it's still still raining hard and I looked at the weather and it's supposed to just rain all day. So

08:52

Speaker A

anyway, luckily I've got a couple of projects planned for today that I can actually be sheltered.

09:03

Speaker A

Well, I'm glad we got the chimney done yesterday. [laughter] Definitely would not want to be going up on the roof in this kind of rain. All right, I've got something really cool to show you guys. As you know, earlier in

09:21

Speaker A

the summer, I drove a Sandpoint well out here at my cabin. It was working with the pitcher pump, just like the the hand pump to pull water, but it was taking so much pumping to get it um to run clear

09:31

Speaker A

that I kind of just gave up on it and decided I'd use an electric pump. Um, and so I've tried a bunch of different things since then. I just didn't put them in any of my videos cuz they've

09:38

Speaker A

been total failures. Basically, I tried to use an electric pump with just like a hose or like a PVC down spout um going all the way down into the tube and then just trying to pull water out of like

09:49

Speaker A

the reservoir sitting at the bottom of the pipe. And what was happening was is that it would start pulling and then it would just immediately run dry and then lose prime. And it just it wasn't working and I could not figure out why

10:00

Speaker A

because the pitcher pump you would run it and it kept pulling water. So my original thought was that I needed to drive the well even deeper into the ground like another three or four feet.

10:07

Speaker A

But it turns out that wasn't my problem. And I'll show you guys what the solution was. What I realized is that the sandpoint well actually needs suction in order to function. So the screening on the the sandpoint down at the bottom

10:18

Speaker A

there is pretty fine and it doesn't really replenish the water into it very quickly on its own. But if you're putting negative pressure on the inside of the pipe, it'll actually pull the water in from the aquafer down there,

10:29

Speaker A

which is why this was working. It's creating a vacuum and actually pulling through it. So I finally found this little adapter right here. Actually took me a long time to find this, but Home Depot had this adapter, which is a 3/4

10:41

Speaker A

inch on top for like receiving a garden hose, which threads onto an inch and a quarter pipe. And then I got this handy dandy transfer pump that just takes a garden hose in and then a garden hose out. And I got this from Jeff. He's the

10:53

Speaker A

Alaska Dwalt rep and he's been helping me out with some tools lately. So, big thanks to Jeff. This thing is awesome, by the way. It's just really compact and portable. And you just put a battery in there and then we're going to fire it up

11:03

Speaker A

and I'll show you what happens. Now check this out. Woohoo. Look at that. So, as you guys can see, it's actually very clear. It's a little cloudy right now cuz it has a whole bunch of um air bubbles in it, but we'll let it sit for

11:30

Speaker A

a minute. I see virtually no sediment at the bottom. Like literally none already. Um, so that's a really good sign. I mean, this is already perfectly good water for doing dishes or showering.

11:40

Speaker A

Anyway, just for the sake of it, I'm going to run it for a while, flush everything out of there, and then we're going to start filling up some water and doing dishes.

11:48

Speaker A

Anyway, really big success. I'm so glad I didn't have to rent the machinery to drive this well any deeper.

11:57

Speaker A

[music] Stormy today. Real stormy. Fall is definitely here. [music] And there we have it. Free water.

12:24

Speaker A

[music] So, in the winter time, obviously, I just put this on the wood stove, and it works really well to get it hot. Um, but in the summer when the wood stove is not running all the time, just put it on the

12:37

Speaker A

uh the propane cooktop. I'm sure a lot of people are running to the comment section right now to tell me you need to get a check valve. But, um, don't worry, I did get one. And I was just about to

12:46

Speaker A

install it, but I'm kind of thinking I'm not going to bother with it right at this minute because the pump primes so quickly as it is. The other reason I don't want to put this check valve on right now is that winter's right around

12:56

Speaker A

the corner and if it freezes with the line primed, it's going to explode the whole well. Um, ideally, you have this um way down in the ground below the frost line. Um, so anyway, I'm just going to leave it as it is. I could come

13:07

Speaker A

out here when it's -20° and hook up this pump and start pulling water in the middle of the winter with this with this setup with just simply attaching the hose. To me, that's a pretty good system. It's a lot better than having to

13:16

Speaker A

shovel snow into my hot pot and set it on the wood stove and make water that way. So, this is going to be a game changer out here. I really wish I had done this like 10 years ago.

13:29

Speaker A

[music] Today I'm finally going to fix something that is structurally unsafe about my cabin. [music] [music] All right. So, as you guys know, I've got a 812 pitch on the cabin roof, but then it comes out to like I think I did

13:59

Speaker A

a two or maybe a three pitch roof that comes off of the truss tails. So, basically the trusses that are the main supports for the roof, I just put a ledger board on and then built rafters off of that. Now, that's not necessarily

14:12

Speaker A

how you're supposed to do that, especially in a high snow load area like this. Um, but what's really concerning is the way that I attach that ledger board to the rafter tails. As you guys can see, there is a couple of little

14:25

Speaker A

right angle metal brackets in the corners there that have like maybe two screws [music] but not on all of them. And I only put them on this side. And like I said, there's only like one or two screws in

14:36

Speaker A

each one. And then the other thing connecting that board is the nails that go into it. But those have good shear strength, but not good holding strength.

14:44

Speaker A

So, I've always known that this is a potential weak spot for my cabin, which is why I always try to get the snow off the roof in the winter when it really piles up deep. So, I'll get up there and

14:51

Speaker A

shovel it or use a rope and take it off and do all sorts of different things to try to get that weight off of the roof.

14:56

Speaker A

But again, it's that connection point that I'm worried about. And I've always been worried about it just like crashing down.

15:07

Speaker A

These are held in with proper joist hangers. Um, and then they're held into the beam properly with hurricane ties.

15:13

Speaker A

And that's all good, but again, the failing point would just be this whole ledger board ripping off of the trust tails. Really stupid, but anyway, like I said, it's held up so far, but today we're going to fix it. So, what I'm

15:24

Speaker A

going to use to strengthen this connection is these right angle Simpson strong tie brackets. And then the screws that you use for connection are structural screws. These have shear strength. They're designed to do this kind of thing. I know nails typically

15:36

Speaker A

are stronger with shear strength, but this is exactly what these are made for. [music] Heat. Heat. [music] There we go.

16:26

Speaker A

[music] All right, it's all done. So now everyone is double reinforced with 12 more structural screws.

16:43

Speaker A

And I'm feeling a whole lot better about that. All right, so today we're going to be giving the fireplace area a major facelift. My wife and I built this hearth about 3 years ago. It's made out of slate from a local area and then we

16:59

Speaker A

just framed the um box out and then filled it with grout or mortar or something like that. Anyway, some kind of concrete filler essentially. And I never got around to really finishing it.

17:08

Speaker A

Um I want to stain the outside perimeter and I also need to put some kind of clear coat over the slate because all the ash that comes down just kind of works its way in there. It's very hard

17:16

Speaker A

to clean out and so it needs kind of a sealant on it if you will. And I think I found the right product for the job. By the way, this wood stove is a Drole brand. I believe that's how you

17:25

Speaker A

pronounce it. D R O L E T. And it's the El Dorado, which is out of production, but it's one of the EPA efficient stoves. It's not just a steel box. It's lined with fire brick all the way

17:35

Speaker A

throughout. And it has a built-in heat shield and kind of like buffers like that. So, it's able to get very close to combustibles without um having a heat shield installed on the wall. So, there's a built-on heat shield, very

17:46

Speaker A

highly insulated, very highly efficient. And then I use double wall stove pipe going up. Otherwise, it would also need a heat shield because that has clearances as well. But there's actually more to this stove than people might realize. Um, it's not just a hole going

18:00

Speaker A

up into here. In fact, if you look up in there, there's no hole at all. There's a series of bars that have tiny little holes in them that as um the flu gets going, it'll suck up the smoke and then

18:11

Speaker A

actually send those gases and smoke back down into the chamber in front of the glass to be burned again. And that's called a reburn stove. And the result is that what actually makes it out of the chimney is like a very very clean um gas

18:27

Speaker A

almost rather than a smoke. So, we're going to be using Danish oil, which is one of my favorite oils to work with. Um, it gives a little bit of a gloss coat as well as a little bit of

18:54

Speaker A

darkening with this medium walnut. So, hopefully it looks good. One thing that I really like about Danish oil is that it goes on quite easy. You don't have to worry about streaks or anything like that cuz it's an oil.

19:27

Speaker A

[music] Yeah, I think that's a really good start. I really like that stain color.

19:40

Speaker A

Actually kind of matches the floor, but not too much. All right. Well, here's where the real magic is going to happen.

19:46

Speaker A

Got this uh 511 porous plus sealer. And it says it's good for slate, and I think it'll put a nice top coat and a nice shine on it. Well, I'm pretty surprised.

19:56

Speaker A

This stuff is like a liquid, just like water. I thought the consistency would be a little thicker. See what it looks like.

20:04

Speaker A

Yeah, I mean, should be easy to apply. [music] I almost think I could just pour this stuff on. Really?

20:18

Speaker A

Yeah. There we go. All right. Well, I ended up doing three coats of Danish oil on the wood and then two coats of sealant. I had to wait an hour till I did the second coat, but um it's already starting to dry up from

20:40

Speaker A

that. I think it looks great. I I really like the stain. Looks kind of rustic.

20:44

Speaker A

Hopefully, it'll help keep all the ash and grit out of there, so next time I go to sweep it, it should come right out.

20:48

Speaker A

Um so, I got to go get my propane out. My my propane heater is actually ran out of juice just recently. So, I've got a spare bottle, so I'm going to go grab that and hook it up and just run the

20:57

Speaker A

propane heater for tonight. Now, the heater should work again. [snorts] All right. So, this is a non vented heater, which means that it will put off a little bit of moisture into the room, but it's not a big deal.

21:35

Speaker A

All the rain we got this summer really put a wrench in our plans for developing our new property up north. We had every intention of having a driveway put in and the area for our new cabin to be all

21:44

Speaker A

cleared out and ready for a foundation. But that doesn't mean that I don't intend to keep working out there through the winter. So, I figured I needed to go ahead and start filling up that woodshed that I built last month. Well, as you

21:52

Speaker A

guys can see, the four corner posts of my new woodshed have molded catastrophically. I mean, they are just coated in green mold. That is disgusting and just a real bummer cuz I was really proud of this piece of work. And the

22:06

Speaker A

problem was is that uh we got a lot of hot sun on them right after I built it and we just got pounded with really heavy misty rain that just soaked everything. So I just arrived at the property with plans to just start

22:16

Speaker A

filling this thing up with firewood. But I guess my first task is going to be getting all this mold off. So there's a few ways to deal with mold that I know of. And I've heard vinegar is a really

22:24

Speaker A

popular way to kill the mold. Um I've always used bleach. And I know some people don't think that bleach kills mold, but I've had good experiences with it. Uh the other thing about bleach is that it gets rid of the discoloration.

22:38

Speaker A

So mold is still pretty wet, but I can see some spores coming off it. So I'm going to get a mask. [snorts] Let's go.

23:04

Speaker A

[music] Ah. [music] [sighs] [laughter] Well, it ain't perfect, but I'd say I got 90% of it. And I'm going to go back over it with the bleach spray now that most of the actual mold is removed and actually just douse the wood with it and

23:53

Speaker A

try to keep any new mold from growing. We've just had perfect conditions for mold. Just really wet, super high humidity and also really warm temperatures. It's just been a a rare July up here.

24:58

Speaker A

Well, the woodshed's all ready to go. I have um probably two or three large piles of dead spruce brush, but I'm going to go through it and salvage anything big enough that can be made into firewood. Now, the catch is I've

25:09

Speaker A

got to cut it down to about 12 in lengths, which is pretty short. But my wood stove in the little cabin doesn't really hold much bigger than that.

25:18

Speaker A

[music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [snorts] [snorts] I'm chopping the pieces up pretty dang small because that cabin heats up really quickly. And having big logs, you only really want for overnight smolder. Uh if you have smaller logs, you've got a lot

26:34

Speaker A

more control over how much heat it puts off. So I find that having them pretty small is the way to go.

26:43

Speaker A

All right. Okay, got a lot of work to do. [music] [music] [music] [music] Heat. Heat.

28:22

Speaker A

[music] [music] some leftover asparagus from when I had steak the other night. Let's heat this up.

29:35

Speaker A

Voila. Well, today is going to be a firewood day. We got to get firewood loaded in to the porch, and I might even cut another couple trees just to make sure I've got enough for the winter. But we'll see

29:46

Speaker A

what I've got. I need to do something that I should have done a long time ago.

29:54

Speaker A

[music] [music] So, the reason that I use this uh hand sled instead of my like freight hauling sled with my four-wheeler to move wood is that I can't bring that one up on the porch. And this one I can. I can just

30:46

Speaker A

drag it right up. And I used to use my snow machine and sleds and machines to move wood. It just seemed like it'd be more economical, but in reality, getting the wood as close to where you're going to unload it makes it way easier. That

30:56

Speaker A

way, you don't have to um unload it and reload it twice. So, I can slide this right up to the porch stash and I can slide it right right up to the front door to load it into the wood stash in

31:06

Speaker A

there. So, that's why I do it. I put my big logs in this section. I put the medium logs in this section. And then I put the little oddball logs down there. And then I just use a bucket for

31:33

Speaker A

kindling. So that way I can use my uh wood rack for nothing but actual sticks.

31:49

Speaker A

I know a lot of people wonder why my firewood stash is so far from the cabin.

31:53

Speaker A

And I did it for a couple of reasons. And the big one is that this is where the sun just comes in and like bakes the front of these all day long. So that way they don't get mild, dewy, and um it

32:02

Speaker A

just dries them out quicker. Um, also if I put it connected to the cabin, uh, there's a lot more chance that rodents and bugs will be attracted to it. In fact, the only time I've ever had mice get into my cabin was from bringing in

32:14

Speaker A

wood piles that one of them was like living in. The other thing is that it just economically doesn't really make sense to put it anywhere else. If I put it over there, it'd be right in the middle of my driveway having it out of

32:23

Speaker A

the way because it makes a big mess. There's all this bark and wood chips and especially when I do all my splitting here at the stump, um, it just makes a big mess. So, it's nice to have it kind

32:31

Speaker A

of tucked away and I think it looks nice. So, anyway, hopefully that answers the question for you guys.

32:40

Speaker A

[music] There we go. [music] You guys notice there's been a whole lot of airplane traffic overhead. It's just about moose season and there's a little bush plane landing strip near me that people use a lot for accessing remote

33:56

Speaker A

hunting camps and things like that. So, it's just constantly noisy this time of year, which is one of the main reasons I'm excited to get out to our new property. It's a lot quieter out there.

34:11

Speaker A

So, I burned a mixture of three different woods. I'd say the dominant wood I burn is spruce just because there's been so much beetle kill. Uh, so all the spruce trees are dead in the area. Well, not all the spruce trees,

34:22

Speaker A

but a lot of the spruce trees are dead in the area. So much of this stuff is just things that I've cleaned up from around the property. And spruce burns great and it's uh it burns really fast and pretty hot. But the birch is the

34:33

Speaker A

other wood that I use, which is a denser wood. It burns longer, it burns hotter.

34:38

Speaker A

Uh, so you get more BTUs per stick with that for sure. And then the other one that I have is this aspen tree, which I normally would never cut aspen trees intentionally for firewood. There was a couple of them that needed to be cleared

34:49

Speaker A

out of the way when I built my little bunk house over here a couple years ago.

34:51

Speaker A

But yeah, in this part of Alaska, the main firewood is spruce and birch. The other big difference with spruce and birch is that the spruce does the snap, crackle, pop, you know, it has that iconic sort of crackling fire sound, and

35:03

Speaker A

birch doesn't. It doesn't shoot off little things either. So, for campfires, I like um birch quite a bit because it uh it doesn't shoot little sparks off in the in the grass.

35:14

Speaker A

So, one of the great things about my cabin is that it's pretty small and efficient. Um, it's only a 16x20 and it's very heavily insulated and it doesn't take a whole lot of firewood to keep it warm. It can take quite a bit to

35:26

Speaker A

get it warm when it's -30 or even -40 out here. But once it's up to temperature, that wood stove just keeps it warm with only a couple of logs every, you know, 4 to 5 hours maybe. And to be honest, I love doing wood chores.

35:37

Speaker A

I just I get so much exercise from towing wood around and moving wood and chopping wood. And I know there's a lot of tools and ways to make things easier for me, like a hydraulic log splitter.

35:47

Speaker A

For me, it seems like my body is sort of like a use it or lose it [laughter] kind of thing where the more work I do, the better I feel. And I feel like I'm going to have more longevity. Anyway, just my

35:55

Speaker A

two cents. Okay, so now comes the fun part. It's time to make some kindling.

36:00

Speaker A

And for this, I'm actually going to take some of the bigger rounds um because they tend to have less branches, which means less knots, which means they'll split into kindling significantly easier. So, I'll grab some of the big

36:10

Speaker A

ones. The kindling splitter works great once it's in smaller pieces. So, I start off with using the axe.

36:21

Speaker A

There we go. So, I'm making these little thin boards. Need to get a tire around this thing or like a bungee. Keep the wood from flying away. [snorts] I like to keep a lot of kindling on hand because the cabin, like I was saying, is

36:59

Speaker A

so well insulated that the wood stove is often too hot for it, even when it's choked all the way down. So, uh, I'll let it die out quite a bit, which means that I've got to get it restarted. And

37:08

Speaker A

having readily available dried kindling is just makes life night and day easier for trying to get your fire started.

37:16

Speaker A

By the way guys, every time that you hear a tasty lick like this one. [music] [singing] Just want to let you know that that's my buddy Forest Wilson. He plays all the slide parts in our music. Uh all the

37:29

Speaker A

music on the channel is original music. Me and Forest make all of it. All the current soundtrack music and a Christmas album is available on my website at alaskakinadventures.com.

37:37

Speaker A

And go check out Forest Music, too. He has solo original music, I think, on streaming platforms like Spotify. It's under just Forest Wilson.

38:04

Speaker A

There we have it, friends. Look at all that. Okay. All right. Well, since we're going to be gone for a while, I want to make sure that the batteries are all charged up on the power station. This cabin is totally

38:27

Speaker A

off the utilities grid, and I use those uh EcoFlow power stations for electricity. And I charge them up with this Yamaha generator.

38:39

Speaker A

All right. Well, the finish and the sealer should be all cured. So, I'm going to start a little fire in here and um make sure that's all good to go.

38:49

Speaker A

Threw a bunch of lumber scraps in here. So, start off by just burning these [music] out.

39:00

Speaker A

[music] [music] Well, I think it's safe to say that this is probably going to be my last video for a little while. If you guys have been following along, you know that my wife and I are expecting a baby uh

39:21

Speaker A

really any day now. Um, so we'll be taking some time off uh embracing that next chapter of our lives. But don't worry, I'll be back soon and I'm looking forward to the winter season and making some snowstorm videos for you guys. But

39:32

Speaker A

I just want to say thanks to everyone who's been following along this summer and the folks who've been following for years. Uh I wouldn't keep doing these videos if you guys didn't keep watching them. So, thank you so much. And don't

39:40

Speaker A

forget to check out the website at alaskakabinadventures.com. You guys can get the original music. You can also support the channel uh by donating to the virtual tip jar on there if you're feeling generous and want to do something like that. Anyway, I will

39:51

Speaker A

see youall on down the line on the next episode of Alaska Cabin Adventures. [music] [music] [music]

Topics: Alaska cabin off-grid living chimney sweep wood stove winter prep sandpoint well firewood wilderness cabin roof maintenance DIY

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