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!
Get sleeping bags that are designed for extreme winter temperatures.
Lol, if you were a really great guy, your wife would do the massaging herself! Busted! ;)
If you have a power outage that is projected to last more than a day, your freezer contents will start to go bad. So if there is a lot of snow on the ground and freezing temps outside, bury your most expensive or hard-to-replace freezer contents in sealed containers in a snow bank, and set up some kind of barriers around the pile to keep critters off (we have deer, bird and fox marauders). I saved half a dozen crab cakes and some steaks that way last time.
No one has a Mr heater and a propane tank. How about Coleman stove that runs on propane. No one?
How about fireplace with gas logs? Really. I got it most Texans don’t have a wood stove for those 20 days per decade they might need it.
Seriously. No backups to anything. No generator, propane, fireplace, .... you could put charcoal in a fireplace (small quantities) if needed.
Whatever city folk with absolutely nor preps.
We do too. Wood stoves are great for heat and cooking. We have a small generator so we can have water and run the fridge.
I had to heat with a wood stove in a rare three day power outage/ hard freeze. A stockpot on top, filled with water, and rotating plastic jugs allowed me to heat my aquariums.
Well, we figured THAT out later, LOL!
Great article with common-sense proven ideas.
I recommend a small, 9k btu/hr indoor/outdoor propane heater.
heats two rooms+.
Get the hose to connect it to a 20 pound tank and a CO detector.
It’s also great for outdoor activities!
I have been worrying over freezing pipes for several days now.
I have a house in Marion IL. 184mi from where I am in MO..it was my late sister’s house and I had my plumber/handyman over there go and put heat-tape on the copper line where it enters the house and up to the main shutoff in the house.
He set the central heat to 50F, opened the faucets, opened under sink cabinet doors, put the heat tape on and shut the main valve off that is next to the electric water heater.
If a pipe were to burst it would fill the house and cause massive damage... I have good insurance but it’s the hassle that is dread-worthy.
I went out on my back patio yesterday to get something out of a freezer that is there...it was 1F inside the freezer according to the digital readout on the side..and it was -2F
on the patio...it occurred to me just how odd it was that at that moment placing something from the patio inside the freezer would cause it to warm up a bit...lol
Here is a tidbit most don’t know...soda machines have a heater in them. It is for times like these so it can switch on and keep the cans above 32F to keep them from busting.. really old soda machines sometimes had incandescent light bulbs that served as heaters.
The alcohol dilates your peripheral vessels, so you get flushed and feel warm, but lose core heat out the skin as the vessels are at increased flow.
If you know in advance there is a chance of a winter power outage, get the makings for a big pot of stew or homemade soup. It will warm the house and smell heavenly. And you can add a little more water if you need to feed some hungry strays.
When I built our previous home, I raised the hearth 2' off the floor, and used a Heatilator type heat exchanger firebox form, with small blowers to circulate the room air trhough it, and back into the room.
We could open an adjustable air duct in the bottom of the hearth, and close off the front, allowing it to burn entirely on outside air, while the inside air circulated though the firebox ducting; and the radiant heat came though the glass doors.
The raised hearth, with 10' walls was no problem; provided comfortable seating space; and eliminated any annoying floor level drafts if the doors were open for casual 'mood' burns.
I’m quite sure that I will be amazed by some of what I learn here- Thanks for posting.
A “Three Dog Night”!?
Lol!
Our bedroom is about 16' x 18', and a 1500 watt quartz tube electric heater has it at 71 deg F. now, with below freezing conditions outside. We have carpet in the bedroom and the blinds and doors closed, so that helps with heat loss.
There is about another hour of fuel left in the generator before I need to fill it back up. 5-6 gallons gives us 8-10 hours of power. The generator is rated at 6.5 KW.
Generac. (mine is fueled by propane from my GIANT tank.) Whole house. Gas heat, stove, gas WH, want for nothing when power goes out. Automatic switching.
Best money I ever spent. Installed it myself.
How about an old-school Coleman stove that runs on white gas? I have one of those, the two burner version. I also have a single burner propane stove that uses the small disposable camp bottles, and I have a turkey fryer burner, which of course can be used with my Lodge cast iron skillets and Dutch ovens. I also have a Weber Genesis gas grill outside on the deck, with extra 25# propane bottles.
Fireplace can burn wood, but I don’t really have any. Have a nice gas log there. Don’t use it much.
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