Staying warm during a power outage in the winter « A Handful of Tranquility
(I had posted a link to this article on another topic, but thought it may be more useful as its own thread)
Happy Halloween! Trick or treating has been postponed here until tomorrow due to rain, so I’ll do a blog post instead. The plan is that this weekend I should be doing a video on preparing small engines for winter-time storage.
The last blog post was on general readiness for the lights going out, now lets take into account the need to stay warm. I will touch on a few options, though likely only go into depth with things I have a first hand account of.
First, a few truths about heat. There are three types: Convection, conduction, and radiation. I don’t mean the type that will make you look like the hulk. Convection is heating the air which will heat you, conduction is directly touching a hot object, and radiation is the heat that gets to you from a distance without heating the air; think laying in the sun on a fall day that is 70 degrees with no wind. While 70 isn’t terribly hot, it can get pretty warm in the sun if there is no wind. Or, think sitting in the window sill while the sun is shining directly at you. That is radiation. Radiation is the same thing you are experiencing when you put your hand NEAR an object to see if it is hot. It gets the heat to where it is most useful (keeping a PERSON warm) without wasting time heating up the air in the room, the walls, the ceiling, the insulation, and the attic.
Another truth: It is better to conserve heat with insulation. Sure, you could crank your furnace on full time, but it uses less energy to retain the heat you have put into a system by adding insulation. The same is true with people. If it is just moderately cold it is much more effective to just bundle up than it is to use heat. With a large pile of blankets and comforters it is easy to be comfortable down to 40 or so. The down side is that chances are you will NOT want to do anything other than stay under those blankets. You wont want to get up to cook, make sure your neighobrs are ok, or even get up to use the restroom. So, it would be nice to at least make it somewhat more comfortable, I’d say 50-55 is a good target. With longjohns, pants, a shirt, thick socks, and a sweatshirt (again… insulating the person), 50 isn’t too bad.
The first principle to remember is that it is much better to heat the PERSON than it is to heat the air and have the air heat the person. How much space in a room does the person take up? You have to heat up a LOT of air so that the air near the person is warm enough. That brings me to the second principle: Minimize the space you are heating. Sure, you could heat your great room with cathedral ceilings, but why? Move to a smaller room of the house and congregate there. There will be much less air to heat. I am NOT saying to bring a large kerosene heater into your broom closet. What I AM saying is that if you get several people in a pretty small room and that alone is enough to take the edge off. A person puts out 100W/350 BTU of heat, so 5 people would be like a space heater on the low setting. The third principal is closely related to the second, and is mentioned in the truths above: Save the heat and make the most of it; utilize insulation. I will be referring to these principals later.
Lets talk equipment. The first thing you need if you are going to use ANY combustion source of heat: A battery powered CO detector! Preferably a couple, at least one of which that has a digital readout. The way these things work is they do NOT go off the second they detect some CO. It has to be above a certain level and it has to be sustained. The higher the concentration the lower the amount of time, the lower the level the longer the time. At 400ppm even decent quality ones take 4-15 minutes to go off. I like to see the level stay at 0 or a very low number. When it reaches 100ppm and is rising I get very concerned and rectify the situation BEFORE it is a safety hazard. CO detectors have a finite life. They are good for about 10 years before needing replacement!
Now, the first thing that comes to my mind, due to growing up in the midwest, is your gas stove. I have used it in the mornings to take the edge off of the kitchen for the benefit of my wife. I obviously have also used it for canning which is a great way to use the heat for multiple functions. It is meant to be run indoors, and the gas system does not rely on power. However, it is NOT meant to be a primary heat source. It can also be dangerous from a fire aspect should anything be near enough to catch fire or to fall into/near the flames. Again, a CO detector is MANDATORY. But, the stove is a great thing that many of us already have. Propane too, I just have grown up with natural gas and prefer it since it is much cheaper and is (essentially, for the sake of what we are discussing here) infinite in supply. But, I know that in many areas of the country there are not a lot of natural gas lines or homes that use bulk propane for one reason or another.
My next favorite is an INDOOR rated portable propane heater. NOT the tank top type because they are explicitly outdoor use. There are a couple types, one is catalytic (coleman black-cat and the like), but they have a little bit of a smell to them. Another type has the little ceramic grid (Mr. Buddy) and is also indoor rated. These both have a lot of infrared to them, again, to heat the PERSON instead of just the space. I recommend them with an adapter hose to run off of a 20 pound BBQ grill type tank. Partly because it is much cheaper to operate (less than half the price), partly because you’ll get a longer run time, and partly because that last little mouse-fart of propane as the tank runs empty doesn’t quite burn so it stinks up the air with that smell. Not the end of the world, but happens much less frequently with 20 pounds of fuel than it does with 1 lb of fuel. I would not recommend taking one of these into a small bedroom; I am not sure if I would DO it either (big difference between doing and recommending). If I WERE going to do so, I would most definitely have a couple of CO alarms, I would leave the door cracked at the very least, and I would also have one person stay awake to keep an eye on the CO alarm that has the digital read-out. Also, remember that freezing to death, CO, and fire aren’t the ONLY ways to die in this situation, you could also burn out all the oxygen if you are in a tightly sealed place, again, crack the door/window. But, one of these, a few people, and one room and you should be able to maintain some heat. Most/all of these indoor rated propane heaters have a low oxygen sensor/cutoff.
Another way that is fairly common is kerosene heaters. These are generally sized large enough to keep a whole house warm. 22,000 BTU is a LOT (for reference, my furnace is 80,000 BTU and runs my whole house and DOESN’T run all the time). There are some smaller versions around 10,000 BTU. The most common in the smaller size is a radiant one, though I have seen a FEW convection heaters in that size. I do not like the radiant ones for household use because they tend to smoke and smell more and for longer. Typically they smoke and smell the most at startup and shutdown, the radiant type just take several minutes longer to warm up and burn more completely. But, they do warm the person, so that is an excellent benefit. 10,000 BTU means kerosene will last about 12-13 hours per gallon, so 3 5 gallon cans will last a full week with continuous use, that is a reasonable amount to keep stored. If you can afford to feed the larger units they will keep your house warm, no doubt there. Shut the bedroom doors and camp out in the living room/kitchen areas. Why that and not the room? You will: a) be uncomfortably hot, b) die from lack of oxygen, kerosene heaters do NOT have low oxygen sensors typically. The big units are also heavy/awkward to carry, particularly when lit. Why is that an issue? You generally want to light them and extinquish them outside if you can to keep the smell out there. You probably won’t be doing that with the radiant style, most of them have a tipover sensor that is tripped if you bump it or move it. Now you REALLY just stinked up the house (it’ll happen when you run out of fuel anyhow, but lets try to minimize that). I have a radiant style and the big unit, I am still trying to get my hands on one of the 10,000 btu convection units.
Lets talk one way that works, but is terrible: Running a gas generator, then running extension cords, then running space heaters. A gallon of gas isn’t much less than a gallon of kerosene or a quarter tank of propane. But, it will only last an hour or so in a moderate sized generator (4000W or so). Two space heaters at 1500W each equates to 10,000 BTU. So, you can use a gallon of gas for an hour, or a gallon of kerosene for 12-13 hours for close to the same price. That is because burning fuel to run a motor is 30 percentish efficient, then using that motor to run a generator at say 70 percent efficiency and you lose a lot of your energy to heat that is all outside. Much better to burn a fuel directly for heat (obviously not gasoline inside though). But, it WILL work, and if you have an ungodly amount of money to throw at it, then more power to you. You have to have a several hundred dollar generator, a LOT of gallons of gasoline (at a gallon an hour for the cheaper generators 48 gallons will obviously last you 48 hours), plus every day or so you need to change the oil on the generator, risk of theft since everybody in the world will know you have the generator since they are loud and it needs to be outside, plus most generators are only good for a certain number of hours before the brushes wear out (replaceable, but do you have spares?), before the generator unit itself dies, or before the engine dies. A few hundred hours is probably all that can be expected from most generators. But, use what you have, just have plenty of fuel on hand (and a safe way of storing that much fuel).
If you have a way to heat water (say you have gas hot water), or remember, the water already in the tank will be pretty hot for a while, you can fill up 2 liter bottles with hot water and cuddle that. It takes the edge off a cold bed, is a great way to warm hands or feet too. I’ll do this for the wife during good times just so the bed is more comfortable to climb in to or so she can warm her hands on the couch. Even if all you had was a turkey fryer for outside you could heat a large pot of water very hot and bring that inside. If you happen to have an extremely large stock pot (such as the type you’ll probably have if you have a turkey fryer…), 10 gallons of boiling water will have around 10,000 BTU of usable heat. It will also put a lot of moisture in the air, often a good thing in winter time, but not always. But that is one way you could bring heat inside if you didn’t have any other safe way to do it. Not that carrying 85 pounds of boiling water that you could trip and spill and scald yoursef/kids/dog is terribly safe. But, the best use here is probably to put it in soda bottles and cuddle up with it under blankets. Dont boil it for that purpose though, above 180 or so and it crumples the soda bottle. Still, 180 with a few of those in your bed and blankets piled high will warm you pretty well.
There are other options, but I have covered what I think are some of the most common and best. Dont think you have to stick it out though, most places have official warming stations at fire departments and the like to keep people from dying in the cold, they are there to use them, do not put your life at risk if it stays cold for a long time and you don’t have a heat source. Turn your water off (you do know where the shutoff is right?) and drain the pipes if you cant keep your house above freezing, then go somewhere warm if you can. I hope I have given you some ideas and things to think about. Get a backup heat source before it is too late. I have a gas stove, but I also have two kerosene heaters, 20 gallons of kerosene, two indoor rated propane heaters and 3 BBQ tanks (I don’t even have a grill that uses propane). I may not be the only one needing to stay warm, maybe I need to help out my less prepared neighbors? If you are snowed in and CAN’T get to a warm place, would you really let somebody freeze because they didn’t prepare? I doubt it, maybe you invite them into your place to keep warm, maybe you take them some extra blankets/sleeping bags/heaters to use, it is your call.
Full disclosure: Many forums/sites prohibit posting full articles due to copyright issues. This is my article, the links are to the article on my site. The link contains exactly what was here (and obviously a way to get to my other blog posts if interested)
Staying warm during a power outage in the winter « A Handful of Tranquility
(I had posted a link to this article on another topic, but thought it may be more useful as its own thread)
Happy Halloween! Trick or treating has been postponed here until tomorrow due to rain, so I’ll do a blog post instead. The plan is that this weekend I should be doing a video on preparing small engines for winter-time storage.
The last blog post was on general readiness for the lights going out, now lets take into account the need to stay warm. I will touch on a few options, though likely only go into depth with things I have a first hand account of.
First, a few truths about heat. There are three types: Convection, conduction, and radiation. I don’t mean the type that will make you look like the hulk. Convection is heating the air which will heat you, conduction is directly touching a hot object, and radiation is the heat that gets to you from a distance without heating the air; think laying in the sun on a fall day that is 70 degrees with no wind. While 70 isn’t terribly hot, it can get pretty warm in the sun if there is no wind. Or, think sitting in the window sill while the sun is shining directly at you. That is radiation. Radiation is the same thing you are experiencing when you put your hand NEAR an object to see if it is hot. It gets the heat to where it is most useful (keeping a PERSON warm) without wasting time heating up the air in the room, the walls, the ceiling, the insulation, and the attic.
Another truth: It is better to conserve heat with insulation. Sure, you could crank your furnace on full time, but it uses less energy to retain the heat you have put into a system by adding insulation. The same is true with people. If it is just moderately cold it is much more effective to just bundle up than it is to use heat. With a large pile of blankets and comforters it is easy to be comfortable down to 40 or so. The down side is that chances are you will NOT want to do anything other than stay under those blankets. You wont want to get up to cook, make sure your neighobrs are ok, or even get up to use the restroom. So, it would be nice to at least make it somewhat more comfortable, I’d say 50-55 is a good target. With longjohns, pants, a shirt, thick socks, and a sweatshirt (again… insulating the person), 50 isn’t too bad.
The first principle to remember is that it is much better to heat the PERSON than it is to heat the air and have the air heat the person. How much space in a room does the person take up? You have to heat up a LOT of air so that the air near the person is warm enough. That brings me to the second principle: Minimize the space you are heating. Sure, you could heat your great room with cathedral ceilings, but why? Move to a smaller room of the house and congregate there. There will be much less air to heat. I am NOT saying to bring a large kerosene heater into your broom closet. What I AM saying is that if you get several people in a pretty small room and that alone is enough to take the edge off. A person puts out 100W/350 BTU of heat, so 5 people would be like a space heater on the low setting. The third principal is closely related to the second, and is mentioned in the truths above: Save the heat and make the most of it; utilize insulation. I will be referring to these principals later.
Lets talk equipment. The first thing you need if you are going to use ANY combustion source of heat: A battery powered CO detector! Preferably a couple, at least one of which that has a digital readout. The way these things work is they do NOT go off the second they detect some CO. It has to be above a certain level and it has to be sustained. The higher the concentration the lower the amount of time, the lower the level the longer the time. At 400ppm even decent quality ones take 4-15 minutes to go off. I like to see the level stay at 0 or a very low number. When it reaches 100ppm and is rising I get very concerned and rectify the situation BEFORE it is a safety hazard. CO detectors have a finite life. They are good for about 10 years before needing replacement!
Now, the first thing that comes to my mind, due to growing up in the midwest, is your gas stove. I have used it in the mornings to take the edge off of the kitchen for the benefit of my wife. I obviously have also used it for canning which is a great way to use the heat for multiple functions. It is meant to be run indoors, and the gas system does not rely on power. However, it is NOT meant to be a primary heat source. It can also be dangerous from a fire aspect should anything be near enough to catch fire or to fall into/near the flames. Again, a CO detector is MANDATORY. But, the stove is a great thing that many of us already have. Propane too, I just have grown up with natural gas and prefer it since it is much cheaper and is (essentially, for the sake of what we are discussing here) infinite in supply. But, I know that in many areas of the country there are not a lot of natural gas lines or homes that use bulk propane for one reason or another.
My next favorite is an INDOOR rated portable propane heater. NOT the tank top type because they are explicitly outdoor use. There are a couple types, one is catalytic (coleman black-cat and the like), but they have a little bit of a smell to them. Another type has the little ceramic grid (Mr. Buddy) and is also indoor rated. These both have a lot of infrared to them, again, to heat the PERSON instead of just the space. I recommend them with an adapter hose to run off of a 20 pound BBQ grill type tank. Partly because it is much cheaper to operate (less than half the price), partly because you’ll get a longer run time, and partly because that last little mouse-fart of propane as the tank runs empty doesn’t quite burn so it stinks up the air with that smell. Not the end of the world, but happens much less frequently with 20 pounds of fuel than it does with 1 lb of fuel. I would not recommend taking one of these into a small bedroom; I am not sure if I would DO it either (big difference between doing and recommending). If I WERE going to do so, I would most definitely have a couple of CO alarms, I would leave the door cracked at the very least, and I would also have one person stay awake to keep an eye on the CO alarm that has the digital read-out. Also, remember that freezing to death, CO, and fire aren’t the ONLY ways to die in this situation, you could also burn out all the oxygen if you are in a tightly sealed place, again, crack the door/window. But, one of these, a few people, and one room and you should be able to maintain some heat. Most/all of these indoor rated propane heaters have a low oxygen sensor/cutoff.
Another way that is fairly common is kerosene heaters. These are generally sized large enough to keep a whole house warm. 22,000 BTU is a LOT (for reference, my furnace is 80,000 BTU and runs my whole house and DOESN’T run all the time). There are some smaller versions around 10,000 BTU. The most common in the smaller size is a radiant one, though I have seen a FEW convection heaters in that size. I do not like the radiant ones for household use because they tend to smoke and smell more and for longer. Typically they smoke and smell the most at startup and shutdown, the radiant type just take several minutes longer to warm up and burn more completely. But, they do warm the person, so that is an excellent benefit. 10,000 BTU means kerosene will last about 12-13 hours per gallon, so 3 5 gallon cans will last a full week with continuous use, that is a reasonable amount to keep stored. If you can afford to feed the larger units they will keep your house warm, no doubt there. Shut the bedroom doors and camp out in the living room/kitchen areas. Why that and not the room? You will: a) be uncomfortably hot, b) die from lack of oxygen, kerosene heaters do NOT have low oxygen sensors typically. The big units are also heavy/awkward to carry, particularly when lit. Why is that an issue? You generally want to light them and extinquish them outside if you can to keep the smell out there. You probably won’t be doing that with the radiant style, most of them have a tipover sensor that is tripped if you bump it or move it. Now you REALLY just stinked up the house (it’ll happen when you run out of fuel anyhow, but lets try to minimize that). I have a radiant style and the big unit, I am still trying to get my hands on one of the 10,000 btu convection units.
Lets talk one way that works, but is terrible: Running a gas generator, then running extension cords, then running space heaters. A gallon of gas isn’t much less than a gallon of kerosene or a quarter tank of propane. But, it will only last an hour or so in a moderate sized generator (4000W or so). Two space heaters at 1500W each equates to 10,000 BTU. So, you can use a gallon of gas for an hour, or a gallon of kerosene for 12-13 hours for close to the same price. That is because burning fuel to run a motor is 30 percentish efficient, then using that motor to run a generator at say 70 percent efficiency and you lose a lot of your energy to heat that is all outside. Much better to burn a fuel directly for heat (obviously not gasoline inside though). But, it WILL work, and if you have an ungodly amount of money to throw at it, then more power to you. You have to have a several hundred dollar generator, a LOT of gallons of gasoline (at a gallon an hour for the cheaper generators 48 gallons will obviously last you 48 hours), plus every day or so you need to change the oil on the generator, risk of theft since everybody in the world will know you have the generator since they are loud and it needs to be outside, plus most generators are only good for a certain number of hours before the brushes wear out (replaceable, but do you have spares?), before the generator unit itself dies, or before the engine dies. A few hundred hours is probably all that can be expected from most generators. But, use what you have, just have plenty of fuel on hand (and a safe way of storing that much fuel).
If you have a way to heat water (say you have gas hot water), or remember, the water already in the tank will be pretty hot for a while, you can fill up 2 liter bottles with hot water and cuddle that. It takes the edge off a cold bed, is a great way to warm hands or feet too. I’ll do this for the wife during good times just so the bed is more comfortable to climb in to or so she can warm her hands on the couch. Even if all you had was a turkey fryer for outside you could heat a large pot of water very hot and bring that inside. If you happen to have an extremely large stock pot (such as the type you’ll probably have if you have a turkey fryer…), 10 gallons of boiling water will have around 10,000 BTU of usable heat. It will also put a lot of moisture in the air, often a good thing in winter time, but not always. But that is one way you could bring heat inside if you didn’t have any other safe way to do it. Not that carrying 85 pounds of boiling water that you could trip and spill and scald yoursef/kids/dog is terribly safe. But, the best use here is probably to put it in soda bottles and cuddle up with it under blankets. Dont boil it for that purpose though, above 180 or so and it crumples the soda bottle. Still, 180 with a few of those in your bed and blankets piled high will warm you pretty well.
There are other options, but I have covered what I think are some of the most common and best. Dont think you have to stick it out though, most places have official warming stations at fire departments and the like to keep people from dying in the cold, they are there to use them, do not put your life at risk if it stays cold for a long time and you don’t have a heat source. Turn your water off (you do know where the shutoff is right?) and drain the pipes if you cant keep your house above freezing, then go somewhere warm if you can. I hope I have given you some ideas and things to think about. Get a backup heat source before it is too late. I have a gas stove, but I also have two kerosene heaters, 20 gallons of kerosene, two indoor rated propane heaters and 3 BBQ tanks (I don’t even have a grill that uses propane). I may not be the only one needing to stay warm, maybe I need to help out my less prepared neighbors? If you are snowed in and CAN’T get to a warm place, would you really let somebody freeze because they didn’t prepare? I doubt it, maybe you invite them into your place to keep warm, maybe you take them some extra blankets/sleeping bags/heaters to use, it is your call.
Full disclosure: Many forums/sites prohibit posting full articles due to copyright issues. This is my article, the links are to the article on my site. The link contains exactly what was here (and obviously a way to get to my other blog posts if interested)
Staying warm during a power outage in the winter « A Handful of Tranquility
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