Posted on 02/17/2021 2:13:42 PM PST by amorphous
These are my tips for people in TX and other places where they don’t normally have power outages in extremely cold weather and no experience with that and may not know what to do.
These tips are based on my growing up in New England and also having lived in Maine and Utah, and having experienced multiple days of power outages in extreme cold. A number of houses I lived in either were poorly insulated and, in some cases, not all parts of the house had heat.
1. Check to see if any of your doors have a space at the bottom where cold air is coming in. If so, take a towel and roll it up lengthwise and put it on the floor pushing it against the door.
2. Check to see if you get drafts from any of your windows. If so, take some old papers (newspaper, junk mail, etc.) fold them up and stuff the cracks with paper. If you have no paper but have rags that will work also.
3. If you have a generator be sure to read and follow all requirements for ventilation – you can get killed otherwise. Do NOT use anything like a grill indoors. Go outside if you must and use it out there in a sheltered area for cooking.
4. Let all your faucets drip a bit to try to avoid having your pipes burst. If you have any hay bails you can also put these around the bottom of your house.
5. Consider closing up part of your house and only use a few rooms (preferably interior rooms or those with the fewest windows, since you lose a lot of heat from the windows).
6. Sometimes if you have natural gas you can still get hot water and your stove and oven may work even when the power is out. If that is the case do the following:
a. Take a hot bath daily, before bundling up for bed. This will keep your core warmer. (Notice that she says IF you have natural gas. I don’t.) b. Make hot meals like soup and drink hot drinks. (Hard to do without natural gas.) c. Avoid alcohol if at all possible as that may make you feel like you are warmer but actually makes your core colder. d. Washing your dishes by hand is good to warm up your hands. e. Consider making something like Boston baked beans from scratch at night. They need to cook in the oven at low heat (250-300 degrees) for 8 hours and not only taste good… they warm up the house a bit and smell heavenly! ((Again, hard to do without natural gas.)
7. Get out all your winter clothing items and layer up. Wear a hat and shoes or boots even if you normally go barefoot as you lose a lot of heat from your head and extremities. Wear multiple pairs of socks to bed and multiple pairs of sleepwear. You can wear a winter coat indoors during the day or spread it out on your bed for extra warmth at night.
8. If you have any sleeping bags crawl into one at night in your bed, covered by your other bedding.
9. Cover your head at night (best if you leave a bit of a breathing hole but you’ll still keep warmer than keeping your whole head out).
10. If anyone in your household sews, check their fabric stash for large pieces of polartec/fleece (the absolute best at keeping your warm), wool, or unused quilt inserts to use as extra blankets.
11. If you have multiple people in your family…. skip the social distance idea (unless someone actually is sick), and consider bundling up together at night. Warning: don’t do that with a baby though as some people have accidentally rolled over on their baby and suffocated them. Babies do well however in a sleeping bag by themselves or something similar (I had my son sleeping in an old fur coat I got at a thrift store when we were living in a tent.)
12. Got a dog? Let him/her come sleep with you in your bed… even if you don’t normally.
13. If you have young kids, try to make a game out of it… pretend you are camping indoors, or are pioneers, cowboys, or Indians. If you know your local history it may give you other ideas how to keep warm. Remember people lived without central heat for generations and most did not freeze to death in their house. For example, I once visited Plymouth Plantations (in MA) on a very cold raw day – noticed that the Pilgrims houses were all cold and uncomfortable despite having large fireplaces. Outside the walled town there was a reproduction Massasoit Indian village complete with long house… and they were having story telling there. It was toasty, comfortable and warm. They only had a small hole in the roof for opening for smoke from the fire and one door with a deerskin flap they closed. Multiple families lived together that way and slept on wood platforms with furs, so they were off the floor. It was a LOT more comfortable that the housing the Pilgrims lived in!
My favorite way too. I have one that has a trigger igniter. Love it!
PREPARE PREPARE PREPARE
20lb Propane tanks are CHEAP!!! Get a bunch of extras and keep them filled. Don’t forget the hoses and connectors. Get a catalytic heater that requires no electricity and you have heat. Get a portable propane cook stove for camping. If you are really in trouble and you know it’s going to get cold store water in open top containers or 5 gallon buckets. Not bottles or the usual jugs. Even better if they are metal so you can throw them on the flame directly. If plastic? You can bang the ice block out of the tub and chip ice in to a pot for thawing over your propane stove. Keep a stash of freeze dried foods. Even without water you can still eat them as snacks. Don’t forget our furry friends. Dry kibble is easy to store and, in a pinch, you can eat it too.
Get a blow torch attachment for the green 1 lb propane bottles and keep those bottles in storage. They are super handy for thawing heating and cooking. Shovel snow when it’s cold.
(I live in the very high dessert off grid and it gets VERY cold in winter. I’d love a wood stove but there’s no wood to be had where I’m at.)
even better then bubble wrap is the closed cell packing foam. It still allows the light to come in and, if applied correctly, it won’t let moisture through to build on the window. Just spray a little bit of water on the window and rub it on. You don’t have the view but it save a huge amount of heat loss.
> Get a portable toilet seat with a refuse bucket and refuse bags.
You can also just use a refuse bag in the now empty toilet.
These n allums prear to be city slickers, does n know nuthin n weuns gets pow er out, just move into the barn with the horses n cows.n chickens .. Din chever seen a Nativity scene? Them city slickers never been in a barn afore. Yupyupyup
> Dad grilled (charcoal) any meat that would go bad with the freezer off...
Your Dad just wanted to BBQ. lol
In below freezing weather there’s a simple way to keep stuff frozen.
One winter, years ago, my hubby & I moved into an apartment building but the electricity was off in our unit. It was a Friday, we had to wait until Monday for the power company to turn on the power & heat. To stay warm, we ran the hot water in the shower - steam from the bathroom heated the rest of the small apartment quite well... :)
Maybe underground home/rooms make sense?
If you have boots and room in the boots a layer of two of newspaper, a layer of aluminum foil another of newspaper and if you can rap the paper around your foot before you put it in the boot. Thats if its really cold. (Below maybe -15 or so.)
Have enough flashlights for everybody in the house. Even if you have a supply of extra batteries thy to conserve energy. Use LEDs if possible. Use your flashlight to move around the premises and turn them off once you get to where you want to go. For ambient light that lights the whole room, shine the beam on the ceiling.
Kerosene heaters. Reasonably priced K-1 kerosene can be found at some gas stations, which stations can be found by using search engines at some of the company websites. The kerosene in one-gallon jugs at hardware stores is priced way too high. If your place is nearly air tight, provide a little ventilation with a slightly open window or something. Be sure to get a carbon monoxide alarm, and mount it in your house, just in case. Haven’t heard of any detectors going off, yet, though.
Good times.
My golden jumped into my bed last night and fell asleep next to me. Best sleep I had in 15 years.
Fill hot water bottles up and wrap them in towels and sleep with them.
Propane is cheap now.
That might not always be the case.
Nevertheless, it keeps and is easy to store.
Just be careful as it is heavier than air and if you have a leak, you don’t want it pooling in your basement.
Did your feet sweat and get wet with the plastic wrapped around your foot?
Shine the flashlight through a plastic gallon water bottle.
You’d be surprised how effectively that lights up an entire area.
That’s what we do with our stove when the power goes out. Thank God for gas stoves!
What do you do for exhaust or Carbon monoxide concerns?
I dont know anything about using a propane heater indoors.
Your story and the others are reminding me of tent camping trips with my family back in the 60s. Cross country via station wagon in a canvas tent. We learned quickly to heed Dad’s words about not touching the sides of the tent!!
To this day, I have learned that when power outages happen, my home is one big and glorious well-made “tent”. Gotta look at the bright side!
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