In this informal vlog, Victor Justin Rhodes and his partner Rebecca Rhodes begin the day with a cold plunge in a creek, then shift focus to firing up their outdoor wood‑fired boiler that supplies heat and hot water to their 1,600‑1,800 sq ft home. They walk through the start‑up process: adding kindling, clearing ash, lighting the fire, and monitoring temperatures on the furnace’s gauges. As the furnace runs, they encounter typical issues – a smoke alarm that sounds, a cold‑air draft from the vents, and uncertainty about water‑line temperature and pump operation. Victor checks temperature readings (38 °C rising to 42 °C, later 193 °F on the boiler), toggles the fan and pump, and discusses how the system circulates heated water through a coil to warm the house and two hot‑water tanks, effectively replacing oil/electric heating. They call on their friend Shane for troubleshooting advice, note that this is their first solo start‑up without his help, and end with mixed confidence: the furnace appears to be heating water (reaching 120 °F) but they are unsure if the house temperature will reach the set point of 72 °F. The vlog blends personal banter, practical DIY troubleshooting, and a glimpse into their off‑grid heating strategy ahead of incoming winter storms.
Chapters
What's the verdict, babe?
It feels like 19, but it's 29.
19 out, the end of November, that can only mean two things. That's scary because he could be all up in that. There's leaves. I'm gonna go right there. It's deep and rocky. You got me a stick? Yeah, I got you a stick. One, it's cold enough now. It's a cold plunge in the creek. I should have brought a thermometer. Breathe. I've gotten rusty.
Is it terrible, Justin?
It's terrible. It's awful. You never get used to this.
How was it?
3 minutes to break myself back in. It was good. I didn't have to collect any ice for the trough. Just go right in the creek. I like it. I think the second activity is going to be a lot more comfortable or lead to a lot more comfort, which is we're going to start the wood furnace. We heat our entire 1,600-1,800 square foot home 100% with wood plus 2 hot water heaters. And it's now consistently cold enough. Winter storms are coming. It's time to crank that thing up. But first, let's get warm, do some chores. I tried to skip taking a shower and just to get dressed, but I'm gonna have to— I'm gonna have to take a hot shower. I'm cold from the core. Nothing cools you off or heats you up like cold or hot water. You know what's weird? I feel warmer, but my legs are itching like crazy. Hey, Shane, how you doing? This is Justin Rhodes. Good, how are you? Hey, you got a minute? Maybe refresh me on how to start your wood boiler. Mark picks our critters. Hey, that's enough. Let's put some logs on there now, okay? How is it? Is it pretty full of ashes or good? We want some ashes. And we got some nice ashes. That can be good for our pastures. Help me put the kindling in. Can you put it straight in? The boys say there's a lid on the top of this thing? Who, who put the lid on?
We did. You did?
And why is it so short?
Because the pipes got blown off.
The smoke alarm's going off. Sometimes does that when we start this. There, it already went off. Smoke alarm's right inside, right there. Bring it over here, Josiah. Thank you. I don't know how that happened. You taking it off? Yeah. Can you? You got gloves? Oh, that was easy. Okay, let's see how this is doing. That's doing great. It was at 38. Oh, it's already at 41, my man. Cool. 42. Yeah, but how much percentage are we burning? How efficient are we? Yeah, just straight in there. Okay. Fingers out to the side, watch out to the side.
5, 6.
Breakfast for lunch on Monday. I mean lunch and supper. I need to go check out this wood stove. Okay, 142. Ah, look, we're doing great. I think I can turn the fan off. I guess that automatically turned off, which means we can get our water line going, and we can turn our pump on, get the water going through the line, which is the trick. I'm pretty sure it just heats up the water in this water line. That goes back through the— under the house, comes underneath us to the basement, down and across, down back in, and into here. Huh, look, our sheep pelts are doing great. They're dried up, ready to be shipped off to be turned into rugs. And then this is— this was cool. Comes down through here and then it goes through this coil and the fan pushes the heat through, and that's how it heats our house. But we also get to— so I'm excited about— we get to turn our hot water heaters off wherever they are. Boom! Maybe that's both of them. Anyway, we got two hot water heaters that he— heated by wood instead of oil or electricity. It's amazing. Turn the old one down 10 degrees. Turn— he said the fan goes on. Fan on. Turn the old one up to heat, and we are officially on firewood. Yay! Yay! Big hearty. It's almost like a commercial kitchen. I actually just got off a podcast. Rebecca's making friends with the host now. I'll let you guys know when that will come out. It was a really good podcast. I think he said December 9th. The wood boiler is not working. Set it to 72, but it's 67 in here. You say it's working?
There's tons of flames.
Let's go see what's going on. Yeah, no, we've got a fire. I don't feel Anything. There's nothing. It's just cold air coming out. Thinking there might not be a communication going on. Look at you cleaning buckets, good job. Okay, 193. Temp's plenty hot enough. Cold water inlet, yeah, I open that. Hot water outlet, yeah, yeah. Okay, I feel the pump, I feel the pump vibrating. This is on. I wonder if one of these I wasn't supposed to turn on. Makes sense to turn them all on. This is warm, so warm water is in the line. This is warm, it's not hot. I don't remember if it ever is hot. The brass isn't hot. Fan's working, but that's obvious because we've got the, the air's blowing out the vents, but it's not warm. I'm calling Shane now. Reality training for climate leaders. Becca's still on the line, the host. His mailbox is full. I'll have to text him. I've set it to 72, it's at 67. I know it was 72 and we started. I had to sweat, I just put a sweater on. I know, because I was cold. I mean, the good news is the furnace still works, uh, so we're not going to freeze. I've put in a message to Shane. His phone is full. Okay, it might take a while. It might take a while to build up. It's still— the water was really hot, terribly hot at the furnace location, even though the heater is up to 195. I don't know if that means the water— I guess that does mean the water's up to 195. It should be. It's pretty hot. Oh well, that would be a test. Oh yeah, oh yeah, it's working. Okay, yeah, that's unbearably hot. It's cray cray hot. Well, is it? It's 120.
It normally gets up—
it's not normally this hot. No, yeah, the boiler, but no, the water gets up to 150 coming out of it without the firewood though. It doesn't get that hot off of our furnace, does it? That's what I'm saying. That's hotter than our normal—
correct—
furnace hot water. I believe so. Yeah, so it's heating our hot waters. Maybe it does that first and then it starts concentrating into the vent, and maybe it just takes a minute. We'll see. We're not gonna freeze. We'll turn on our— our— you know, this is real life.
You know, as tempted as I am to say, this is only our first time without Shane because Shane came last year.
Yeah, I know.
So we've never started alone.
So Uh, did everything he said. So this is real life. If you want a textbook video, go somewhere else because we're gonna have to end this with, I don't know. I don't know if it's working. I think it's working. You'll have to find out tomorrow. Tomorrow's show.
