Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TxGl7IO2Ds
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!
I found my propane generator a bit balky in starting if it was less than 5 degrees. I found if I put a propane camp type heater pointed at the regulator and carb area that it would start consistantly after it warmed it up after just a few minutes.
That’s what we need. Sucks having to fill up ours every 8 hours. Plus tweaking the freq setting on the governor when it’s off. What size tank do you have?
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.
Good tip!
Sitting here laid out by the woodstove on with one of the calicos.
In the teens with over a foot of snow outside.
Natural The Lord given heat.
Thank you Lord. Praises.
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TxGl7IO2Ds
They really do!
The generator has been a god-send. My husband has a list of things to stock up on when the supplies become more available. (really heavy duty electrical cords, more gas cans etc.)
My list...small propane bottles (lots!) for the camp grill we’ve been running. Insane supplies of batteries....etc.
I live in the NE. I have a propane stove and dryer and a huge tank in the backyard for that and oil heat and a 275 gallon tank for that. Electricity runs those things so all I need i gasoline. My boys wired a box outside to take the 220 volt outlet from the generator so I just have one fat wire feeding directly into the house (once I shut off the mains to the untility). Gasoline......I keep enough for days and hope the power isn’t out for more than 2 or three days. Last major hurricane we had we were out for 10 days and there were lines at the gas stations. So
There is that.
Good luck.
We used our camping Coleman grill. Our camp stove is at another location, but the little grill worked for heating stuff. We also had the outdoor grill. And our generator.
I never throw out a cooler.
When it is broken, like the lid came off one, I still saved it and use it for utility stuff like that.
Primarily I use it for defrosting my freezer. When we get temperatures forecast to be in the single digits, I get out all my coolers, fill them with the contents of the freezer, and park them outside somewhere safe. I actually put some in my car and locked it up for the critter factor.
Then I can take my time to defrost and clean the freezer well.
Nice thing is, I can organize it when I load it back up.
Sam’s and likely BJs tend to have the little propane bottles pretty cheap.
Cedar shavings/sawdust are a more pleasant way to keep a bucket dump.
Texas Warming Centers:
https://tdem.texas.gov/warm/?fbclid=IwAR0uiElGPji7mhDoePv8HNwN3uO-L0N-bBb15EmkdJSsytbqSYlfciW6KT8
No candles around pets.
Most homes in Texas have either NO fireplace or a decorative one. Even if it works, it isn’t very effective because our homes are designed to keep cool in long summers, not keep warm in rare freezing weather.
Yes, I think we bought a case at Sam’s several years ago. Over the years we used them here and there and had about 5 left. But it’s time to replenish.
While the generator was on, I actually plugged my crockpot into it and we didn’t feel that it dragged the power down too much. So it conserved the little bottles of propane and cooked with the generator.
Our power is back on, PTL.
I’m glad you made out so well.
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