Your December Homestead Checklist For An Off-Grid Home

On a cold winter night, it's tempting to turn the stove right down, so a few logs smoulder until morning. That's the worst way to burn wood.

The EPA says to build hot fires, because a smouldering fire is neither safe nor efficient. HETAS, the UK group that trains stove fitters, warns that slumbering a stove overnight builds up creosote, the sticky black coating that can catch fire in a chimney. It can also let carbon monoxide into the room.

Dry wood is half the trick. Wood burns best when less than 20% of it is water. Our guide to how wood stoves work explains why a hot, bright fire burns cleaner.

Most people build a fire with paper at the bottom and big logs on top. HETAS suggests turning it upside down.

Lay two logs side by side, put a criss-cross layer of kindling on top, and tuck firelighters into the gaps. Light it from the top. The fire burns down slowly, like a candle, with less smoke while the stove warms up.

At this time of year, some days the panels hardly charge the battery at all. Keep lead-acid batteries topped up with the generator instead of leaving them half full. A battery that sits low freezes more easily, and Trojan, a battery maker, says freezing usually ruins it for good.

Keep the generator outside, more than 6 metres from windows, doors and vents, every single time. Its exhaust is full of carbon monoxide. Our generator runtime calculator shows how long a tank of fuel will last.

Somewhere in the cellar, one apple or potato is starting to rot. Left alone, it spoils the ones around it.

Wisconsin Extension puts it plainly: one bad apple will spoil the whole group. So sort through your stored fruit and vegetables every week and take out anything soft, mouldy or sprouting. Eat the slightly bruised ones first.

The garden is a winter store cupboard too. The RHS says parsnips are hardy enough to stay in the ground and be harvested as you need them, and a heavy frost makes them sweeter. Ground locked by frost is hard to dig, though, so it suggests a straw mulch over the row to protect the soil, or keeping a few lifted roots in the cellar.

Home-canned food keeps best when it's eaten within about a year, so reach for the oldest jars on the shelf.

Before opening any jar, look at it. Don't open or taste a jar that leaks, bulges or spurts.

If the jar is still sealed, wear gloves, put it in a heavy plastic bag, close it and throw it out where children and animals can't reach it. A jar that leaks or is already open has to be boiled for 30 minutes before it goes in the bin, so follow the NCHFP steps for spoiled jars. Wipe any spill with a bleach solution and wash your hands.

Our guide to food preservation explains why.

Carbon monoxide is a gas you can't see or smell, and every stove and lamp that burns fuel can make it. Stoves run longest now.

In England, building rules say any new or replacement wood stove must have a carbon monoxide alarm in the same room. The CDC adds one near every sleeping area.

Test them now, and check the date on the back. Our guide to off-grid heating covers the other fire safety basics.

The last of this month's three jobs is writing, and the rest that comes with it is a real job too. The garden is dormant until spring, the wood is stacked and the cellar is full.

Grab a notebook between Christmas and New Year and write down the year while you remember it. Which plants did well, what ran out, which week the battery struggled. In January, that notebook becomes next year's garden plan.

The outdoor taps were drained in November. Indoors, the first hard frosts call for January's routine early: on the coldest nights, let a little hot and cold water trickle and keep the house at 13 °C or warmer. Never thaw a frozen pipe with an open flame.

If the pump freezes in a winter storm or the power runs short, the taps go dry. Ready.gov says to keep at least about 4 litres per person per day, for several days.

A few full jugs in a cupboard are enough. Some off-grid homes also keep a hand pump on the well, which needs no power at all, and our guide to off-grid water pumps explains how they work.

Ash from the stove can look cold and still hide glowing coals. Tipped into a plastic bin or a cardboard box, it can start a fire hours later.

The US Fire Administration says to put ashes in a metal container with a lid and keep it at least 3 metres from the house. That's about four big grown-up steps.

Wood ash is a mild garden helper. Like garden lime, it makes acidic soil less sour, and it does it faster. It also brings potassium, a mineral plants feed on.

The University of New Hampshire suggests no more than about 1 kg per 10 square metres a year, because soil pushed too far the other way can damage plants. Spread it only where a soil test says the soil needs it, and keep it away from blueberries and hollies, which love sour soil.

A small scattering can go in the compost too, says Oregon State University. Our guide to home composting shows what else belongs in the heap.