Another reason heating is so pressing is to boil water
There is an old hunting condo halfway up the mountains, about thirty miles away from the city. When I was a kid our dad used to take me there. She said her dad had built it, even though I absolutely don’t think the legal status of the arena. As far as I think it is undoubtedly off the grid. After I got evicted, and had a lot of bill collectors breathing down our neck, I decided that going off the grid was a superb idea. I smashed our cell iPhone, collected what cash I could, and went to live in that hunting condo for a while. That ended up being 8 months, and in that time I l earned a lot about heating, hunting, and survival. The more than 2 main elements of survival are shelter, heating, water, and food, in that order! Since I had shelter all taken care of I could focus on the next step, which is not just building a fire, however making sure I had a consistent source of heating for the months to come! Building a fire is straight-forward, however heating a condo for days, or even weeks, on end requires a lot of manual labor. I had to cut and stack wood, plus dissemble the gas furnace for a thorough cleaning before I used it, then once I had a reliable heating source I could find a ready source of wash water. Another reason heating is so pressing is to boil water. Because drinking stagnant water without warm it can make you actually sick. Heating also lets me cook our food.