Can You Heat Your House Even If The Electricity Is Not Working?

Yep, no problem,
Oh wait, we dont have heat

We have a good wood stove that heats the whole house and 2 kerosene heaters for backup heat sources . We use an Ecofan on the wood stove top to circulate the warm air. We also have some Kirkman kerosene lanterns . We bought the “champion” #2 model because it has a 27 hour burn time and puts out 1400 btu’s per hour. So we get light and some heat as well.
Life without electricity is not so much fun in the winter, be prepared

Tractor supply has a pellet stove that is non electric

Some people have taken to sleeping in a small tent in their living rooms in the wintertime as the area inside will be warmer than the rest of the house.

When we built our last home, I insisted on (against my wife’s desire) a wall mounted 5 burner catalytic/infra-red heater in addition to the central heat/air conditioning. It’s been a life saver. Since moving in, we’ve experienced nearly yearly adverse winter conditions where we lost grid for anywhere from 3 days to 2 weeks. It essentially heats the whole house.

In the “for what it’s worth” column, I have one of each Big Buddy and Little Buddy heaters. They work great, but are propane hogs (about 4-5 hours on a one pound canister). Even with the adapter hose for a 20lb bottle it’s only good for a couple of days. I’ve got two old free standing blue flame heaters that put out similar heat that eat less propane. One is an old Dearborn with three fire brick reflectors, the other is an open faced heater with 5 fire bricks I bought as a kid of 13 years in 1963 at a local hardware store that was going out of business. Both have adjustable gas orifices that allows you to convert from propane to natural gas by just screwing a screw in or out until you get the proper blue flame w/o any red/orange tint. Might check yard sales or estate sales. When I was a child, almost every home in the south was heated with this type heater. Might want a carbon monoxide monitor if using them cause homes are more airtight now. I believe the Big Buddy and Little Buddy have them built in and will shut down automatically if levels get too high.

Good article on reminding folks Winter is coming/here.
I do have a question, what’s a Snow Shovel?? HAHAHA

It does get cold here -10F is not uncommon, I have seen many of homes freeze and 10’s of thousands of $$$$ spent on repairing water damage when pipes freeze and burst.

Heat at the NPR home is NOT a problem, 2 wood stoves, two DX (combo) AC/Furnace’s, and in-floor circulating water heat, all on Propane (Got propane tank filled?). 5 cords of Firewood cut and stacked, a very small generator (less fuel) for the In-floor heat, and if absolutely needed an 8K Gen (propane) for the larger units.

I do use a small furnace for the separated garage and sheds (gata keep the work/tinkering place warm, right?), but not necessary. Been wanting to pick up a small wood stove for the Garage, but that one’s on the “to do list”.

One comment on Pellet Stoves, your still buying “Their” fuel for the stove, you run out of pellets your without heat on that little baby, and Pellets are running $260+ a ton here, not really cheap considering you can find “Free” wood most anywhere, even in the desert.

BTW, if the power goes out I the winter…. Why would anyone need to plug in the Refrigerator/Freezer to a Generator if the temps are freezing outside??????? Move that puppy outside onto the Porch and open the door to keep it cool/frozen. AND ya can always just freeze, aka put outside, a few gallon jugs of water than put them in the Refer to keep it cold….. Maybe?

Biggest and most important question, do you have your Ice Auger ready for the Ice Fishing?

We just buttoned up everything and we are burning wood sooner than I would have liked. I was hoping to hold off until November 1st. We still have a small pile of wood left to move. I should be able to move it over the next couple of days. There is nothing like wood heat.

I recently bought a Mr. Buddy, and can hook up either a green canister directly or a 20# tank with a hose. Apparently, the green canisters are considered “safe” for indoor use, but the tank has to remain outside. Does anybody know why? Are the tanks more prone to leaking than the canisters? If so, why has the design not been re-engineered? Tanks aren’t allowed in stores, but canisters are. Am I the only one who is puzzled by this?

Thanks for the reminder Ken.

I bought a snow shovel as a gag gift for a coworker who is getting a Newfoundland puppy along with a pack of garbage bags. On a serious note, she is also getting my wife studded tires for her new SUV as my wife bought herself a smaller car ( different tire size.).

November 1st is the date we can put on studded tires our vehicles here and we are lining up the dates and times to get them on BEFORE the storm front arrives. Odds are, I will be at work when the snow arrives and the problem is getting home from work. With that in mind, I have bug out bags and gear at work and in my truck. My wife and I have many furry children at home that need care and feeding.

My climate is not as cold as where you folks are in New Hampshire so our solution has been a tight house with lots of blankets, towels and fleece throws in the winter and when the power is interrupted. We also drink more tea to warm up after being out and about. Our area is windy so most of the loss of heat is through convection.

To NRP: My garage is not heated and there are several sources of heat to include the freezer that vents off warm air from the heat exchanging unit and my lead melting pot for casting bullets The fumes of melting lead is minimized by using only pure ingots inside the garage. ( The doors are open and there is good cross ventilation when “running ball”.). Lead is extracted and smelted outside in a separate pot to make clean ingots on a day when it is not raining.

Winter is also the time I do a lot of my sewing projects to include denim catnip pouches for the many cats we spin on our wood floors. Remember: If you do not talk to your cat about catnip, who will?

It’s not the cold, it’s the humidity. Winter is relatively mild here with few bitterly cold days and not much snow. But the cold mist makes everything feel colder and keeps the house feeling damp. Wood stove in the house and barn, dual fuel (propane and wood) iron cook stove in the outdoor kitchen, dual fuel generator and portable oil filled radiators, plenty of wood; need to top off propane. Damp Rid from Home Depot works well in the house and storage areas to keep air dry.

Neighbor and NRP,

I agree with NRP, it’s a combination of the human factor and possible failure of connectors to properly seal (especially on the bottle end. There have been times, I confess, that I’ve brought a bottle inside to run a heater, paying close attention to the connections to insure no leakage. Mix up some soapy water in a spray bottle and spray the connections to check for leaks. If you detect a leak, sometimes just further tightening will eliminate it. If not, you probably need to replace the rubber seals in the connector. Sometimes dirt and grit will cause a leak. Like I said, I’ve done it before without any ill effects, but I don’t recommend it for anyone else, because, well, the human factor.

As for indoor storage of one pound cannisters but not 20lb bottles? Well, the small cannisters don’t have knobs that humans can fiddle with. Lowest common denominator don’t you know.

Yes, I have my propane heater in my living room and a 500 gallon tank outside. It uses no electricity and heats the whole house. As back up, I have a Little Buddy heater, a one-burner propane stove, and some folding stoves with sterno and some other fuels and I have a Kelly Kettle. I also have two Kandle Heeters. For outside, I have a charcoal grill and about 5 small bags of charcoal. Lots of matches and candles too.

Unfortunately, the house I live in now has an electric furnace, and we haven’t gotten around to putting in a wood stove. Been looking at them but been putting it off. However, the house is very well insulated and the furnace keeps us cozy as a bug in a rug. We did lose the blower fan one winter, and found out it took about 4 0r 5 hours before it started cooling down. Good thing to know. it gave us time to set up alternate heaters before it got to cold. If we lose electric, I have both the Big and small Buddy heaters, 5 cases of green bottles, and three 5 gal. bottles. Probably need more though, especially in an extended outage. In a SHTF situation, it would hopefully buy me enough time to get in a small wood stove. I have a small wood parlor stove I bought at an antique mall for decoration, but it still is in serviceable condition. I also have a good generator that will run a portable tower heater, at least till I run out of fuel. When all else fails, I guess I’ll just freeze to death. There are worse ways to go, you know.

We have propane forced air furnace,the blower is a separate circuit that is plugged in a receptacle.In the fall we heat primarily with woodstove in basement.Later we switch to the wood boiler outside that we share with our son whose house is 500 feet away.we heat about 7000 square feet more his than ours boiler is a wood eater .at least 30 Ricks a winter. I would rather son had indoor woodstove also. But Boilers put good heat through our gas furnace and mess is all outside.The other negative of course is the pumps on boiler require electricity .Luckily we’ve never had power outage while boiler was in operation or we would have to pull one of our generators out to power the pumps.

Wood stove back up heat, not enough wood cut yet. Propane cook stove with dedicated tank. My fear is a power outage in summer when mothers nature won’t keep my freezer frozen. We do have a generator.

We have a natural gas furnace but it has an electric fan and thermostat. We also have a vent less gas space heater. We have 3 kerosene heaters. I am going to set up a 55 gal. barrel for K1 and another for gasoline. We can cook on 2 of the kerosene heaters. We can also cook outside on a camp stove and charcoal grill. We also have a generator that will run the furnace and fridge and freezers. If it is cold enough we will put jugs of water outside to freeze then put them in the fridge to keep it cold.

Years ago my parents set up one of the basement rooms as a hot box. It has ventilation through the furnace room, and a wood burning stove. Turn on the furnace fan and it draws hot air out of that room and into the rest of the house without using gas. If the furnace isn’t working, the heat in the room still heats the floor upstairs and keeps the basement from freezing.

Ok, this is humorus as all get out, got home tonight to no Grid Power 😁
OMG what am I gping to do ??????
As I sit here sipping on a Martini 🍸, watchong tbe sunset……tossing the ball for Blue 😎

Winter came early here, around the 15th with 3″ of snow. We usually don’t get snow until Thanksgiving. Surprise. It is warming a bit just in time for Old Man to get his 2nd knee replacement. Thank goodness as I have to drive the 32o mile round trip to the hospital.
We have a fireplace and propane heaters that work at our altitude. The Mr. Buddies don’t like it this high up. Even fooling with the O2 sensor` it won’t stay lit. We didn’t get our trees cut to boost our wood supply and are trying to get a church group together to help. Neighbors around us are as old as we are and don’t want to cut either. So we will just keep an Indian Fire going if our power goes out and it will keep us warm and toasty as long as we are next to the fireplace.

From experience
4 large dogs in a small room raise the temperature 10 to 12 degrees.

16 candles burning in a large room with the 4 large dogs will keep the heat on 60 degrees when it is 20 degrees outside. This happened when power went out for 4 hours in winter.

I used a snowmobile suit for Arctic expeditions with snowmobile boots, layered head and hand coverage as a test to 40 below zero and I was very toasty.

I use a wood stove which is 82% efficient that heats the whole house being centrally located. I used one after the power went out one winter and used the 16 candles back in 2009,

I use a Witney horse Rug 100% wool blanket on my bed in winter. In a minute under the covers, your own heat will radiate back like an electric blanket would. It helps to have a bed buddy….no man here but a 120 lb dog will do at your back.

You can take a regular patio brick, paver or regular brick. Place it on a camp stove etc. It will catch, retain and radiate heat. Makes better use of the btu’s from the fuel your burning. Think of it like this. Hot air is hot air only when something is heating it up. Have you ever went outside when its 98 degrees. You think, wow its hot out here. Then you step on your patio brick, concrete or even rocks bare footed, and it burns your feet. How long after dark does the brick stay warm? ….
As a side note. You can put a 12 or 16 inch patio paver in your regular BBQ grill. Charcoal or propane. And turn it into a killer pizza oven. Smokey flavor, bubbly cheese.👄🍕

We have a wood cook stove in the basement with an eco fan and 6 cords of wood put up. Since this is the first winter in Montana I have no idea how often the power goes out or how much we’ll need that cook stove but I am looking forward to learning to cook on it. I’m more worried about the wood stove being too warm. We have 2 big buddies and a couple of kerosene lanterns. We also have a full house propane generator that we can flip over to for shorter outages. I think we’re set but this first winter will be telling

MontanaHome,
Make sure you have smoke and carbon monoxide detectors in your new place, and if you are on propane for your main heat and cooking, install a combustible gas monitor too. We don’t want to loose you now that you found MSB. To find out how to cook on that wood stove my advice would be to make friends with your neighbors, some of these farm wives can cook up a feast on a wood stove and would probably be happy to give you advice if you ask. Be safe, stay warm.

So winter is a thing where is live. The heater and stove are both electric and I love on the second floor of an apartment building.

Im thinking that my best bet is layers of clothes and warm blankets. The good news is I have tons of both and the building is newer with newer windows. I have a roll of plastic the big sheet kind so I’ll be stapling that over the windows.

Fire indoors is sketchy at best and ventilation becomes an issue. I suppose I could crack a window but then I’m letting cold air in so. I’m thinking that’s a last resort for heat.

Thoughts?

One thing I notice when I am in China is that there are many places that have water lines that run along the walls outside the building. This is in the central southern portion of the country where they do not see freezing temps very often. But when it does freeze a lot of people lose water. A few years ago, the building I was staying in lost water to the upper floors. So those people got water from lower level apartments and carried the water up the stairs up to 30 stories. Can you see people doing that here in the US?

I have a blue flame wall heater that runs on propane and is vent free. I know it will heat the house even when it’s 10 degrees outside (last year).

I was looking up homemade wood stoves and was amazed at the number of ideas out there.

In a economic crash a lot of folks are going to need one. Someone with the skills to build a GOOD one and the solar panels to power his/her tools will have a very tradable skill. I’ve even welded with 3 batteries in a row using an extra jumper but be careful not to overheat the batteries. Was proven true in the economic crash of the fall of the USSR.

Skills learned now for the prosperity of your family group when the US Dollar is in hyperinflation.

To NMH regarding the safety and use of candles:

I am not a huge fan of candles myself butt my wife is… I must say that candles are more romantic source of light than the hissing of a white gas lantern. My wife buys the candles that are in glass jars with metal caps on them to help smother the flame and they are nowhere near curtains. For reading, I still use an LED headlamp.

I am so cheap that I salvage old candle wax and remelt the wax to make either new candles or water proof fire starters by dipping cotton string into melted wax or dipping cardboard into melted wax. Much easier to start a fire with cold hands in the morning. The only thing I found to be faster than wax coated kindling is a highway flare for starting a fire with damp wood. ( as mentioned previously by an Alaskan Poster here on this site.).

I live in Florida….. If it get cold, I put on a light sweater.

Here’s a thought for a stop-gap, light-duty solution. Fire up a few of your Aladdin Lamps, they provide heat and everyone needs adequate light during a power outage.

To old homesteader:

Thank you for the kind offer. I bought some beef from a fellow at work who grows his own this year.

To NHM: I agree about the safety of candles so I think hard about their placement within a home and my wife and myself do not have BIG HAIR as I have seen cases where the hair itself has caught on fire.

The wax coated kindling is a seasonal thing with me as I do not light a lot of fires during the summer. It is a craft sort of thing that is good to do in the winter to make things that will be used all year round. When ever I start a fire in a deer camp with damp wood, its efficiency always gets lots of “good idea” comments.

When we moved out here 30+years ago, power outages were a regular thing. Had a propane floor furnace installed. No electricity required. With a 500 gallon tank out back we are good for the winter. Did splurge on a setback thermostat, though. Runs on 2 AA batteries.
Recently added a small backup genset, 8KW. Runs the well pump, kitchen circuits, and wall plugs in our bedroom. (medical equipment) Longest it has had to run so far was just under 40 hours.

I am lucky…
I have and old generator that I can back feed power to my furnace. When that fails, I have extra propane tanks and a Mr. Buddy gas line that I can use with my Mr. Buddy heater. When that fails, I made a wood stove from an old propane tank.
When that fails….

Jabba, that is not luck. planning.