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Power outage in the winter?

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NutmegCT

NutmegCT

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How do you prepare your house for a day or two without electricity, in cold (below freezing) winter weather?

Woodstove and wood supply, house generator, fill bathtub with water, keep cellphones charged, etc.

Most important: how do you keep your house's water pipes from freezing when you don't have power?

Let the ideas begin!
 
JPSmit

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We live 10 minutes from the airport - have a credit card and aren't afraid to use it. :grin:
 
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DavidApp

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Starter/kindling for wood stove, gas for generator. Open cabinet doors under sinks to help keep pipes warm.
Power pack to charge cell phone?

David
 
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NutmegCT

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Thanks David. Never even thought about alternatives for cell charging, but just remembered my B&D battery box has a built in USB port for charging.

8a714a86-e92f-46f3-bd91-d31c8f0bba4c_1.aa02b6d9bde12b91a2ad50b8ec3c048d.jpeg
 
waltesefalcon

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Up until a year or two ago we would lose power for a week or so every year during the winter. My house is old and still has gas wall furnaces, my oven is also gas so heat and food aren't issues. We only ever ran our of water once and that was back in 09 when we were without power for six weeks and the water tower ran out of water. I keep several oil lamps in the hallway and have a closet stocked full of board games, I also have my old table top Victrola and a decent collection of 78s. I don't care about my phone too much so I will turn it off and just check it once a day or so to see if I have missed an important call. I feel that I have pretty much all the amenities without electricity.
 
waltesefalcon

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My pipes are all under the house and since I never lose heat, I just do what I always do, at night I open the cabinets and let the kitchen sink drip (it's the furthest faucet from the meter).
 
TR3driver

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NutmegCT said:
Thanks Walt. How do you deal with freezing pipes inside the walls?
Click to expand...
Same way as with power, just turn up the heat. Point being, those old wall furnaces don't require an outside source of electricity to operate.

Another approach is to have some sort of backup heat available, that doesn't require electricity. Preferably vented; but with some care and attention, you could get by with unvented (portable) for a few days. Preferably LPG (burns cleaner), but I've even used kerosene.

Yet another option is a backup generator.

A friend of mine used to just leave all the faucets trickling a little bit. The constant water movement would prevent freezing. Wastes water obviously, and only works if you don't use a pump, but cheap and always available.
 
Popeye

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We have hot water heat, run by electric pumps. Although it has not happened (yet), if we lost power long enough for the house to get dangerously cold, I would drain the radiators and water pipes from the basement. (Low point drains - fortunately the previous owner of our house ran a plumbing supply company - we have pipes and valves and doo-hickeys galore!)

We have a fireplace, so one room would be warm enough to live in - plus roast some hot dogs and make popcorn.
 
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NutmegCT

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Thanks gents. I've got a generator to keep the furnace running (oil heat). And a woodstove to keep things toasty if the generator conks out.

Woodstove.jpg

Main concern was the hydronic (hot water heating system (convectors along the bottom of the walls). If the generator were to fail, the furnace wouldn't run. Furnace not running, the pipes get cold. Woodstove keeps the pipes in that room fine, but all the rest of the house would need draining. argh

Local electric (Eversource) is good about getting power restored, but can't use the cherry picker trucks if the winds are above 40 mph, which they'll be doing tonight and tomorrow.

The fun never ends!
 
TR3driver

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NutmegCT said:
Main concern was the hydronic (hot water heating system (convectors along the bottom of the walls). If the generator were to fail, the furnace wouldn't run. Furnace not running, the pipes get cold. Woodstove keeps the pipes in that room fine, but all the rest of the house would need draining. argh
Click to expand...
You might give it a try before going too overboard. Heat will circulate amazingly well if you have enough differential; so odds are good that if you can keep one room at 70F with all the doors open, the others will stay above freezing.
 
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NutmegCT

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That is a *great* idea. When the woodstove is going, that room get to 75-80F. I usually have to open the doors to the rest of the house to "share the heat". That's definitely my plan of attack now, if the power goes out and the generator fails. Never even thought about the air circulation and temp differential factor.

Thanks!
Tom M.
 
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RestoreThemAll

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I'm not sure how granddad handled cold winters without a backup generator but they did have 11 children. Is that over the line? sorry.
 
judow

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NutmegCT said:
Thanks Walt. How do you deal with freezing pipes inside the walls?

Tom M.
Click to expand...

I always kept the faucets at a trickle so pipes didn’t freeze. Also a dirth of batteries never hurts. Sounds to me that you are prepared.
 
PAUL161

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I grew up in a house that had one large heater grate between the living room and kitchen, it was a one story house so the doors were left open during the day, at night we had a ton of quilts to sleep under. We had hot water only in the winter as a manifold from the water heater was inside the furnace. Water was heated in the summer for a bath, on top of the kitchen stove. For air conditioning, all the windows and doors were open during the day. I surly don't complain about the luxuries we have today. Wouldn't it be nice if some of the kids today had to live like we did years ago, just for a short time mind you. And in 1948 we got a 6 inch TV in a 4 foot wide cabinet! We were stepping in high cotton then, moving in with the rich folks! :highly_amused:
 
TR3driver

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RestoreThemAll said:
I'm not sure how granddad handled cold winters without a backup generator but they did have 11 children. Is that over the line? sorry.
Click to expand...
Pay attention next time you are in an older house. Unless they've been remodeled out of existence, you'll probably see a flue cover on the wall in almost every room on the ground floor. That's because they used wood stoves for heat, without fans or power burners, etc. A 2 story house will then have vents through the ceiling, to let the heat rise upstairs.

Dad's house originally had 6 or 7 different chimneys, some of them with 2 or 3 flues. But none of them are still in use, and they haven't been replacing them after accidents, etc. so I think there are only 2 left above the roof.

My great aunt's house had a somewhat more interesting (to me anyway) arrangement : "gravity air". It's like forced air, with a big furnace in the basement, but no electric blowers. The heat circulates only by convection. The present owner had it replaced with forced air, though.
 
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NutmegCT

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Uh-oh - looks like it's time for a remodel. Here's one of the ceiling vents in my 1826 house, above the wood stove.

vent.jpg

Gol dern it - next thing you know they'll be putting dials on telephones so you don't need to call Operator.

Randall, does this "gravity air" octopus look familiar?

gravfurn2.jpg
 
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DavidApp

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There was a TV series in the UK that had families living like they did in 1940. Interesting.
David
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_1940s_House

PAUL161 said:
I grew up in a house that had one large heater grate between the living room and kitchen, it was a one story house so the doors were left open during the day, at night we had a ton of quilts to sleep under. We had hot water only in the winter as a manifold from the water heater was inside the furnace. Water was heated in the summer for a bath, on top of the kitchen stove. For air conditioning, all the windows and doors were open during the day. I surly don't complain about the luxuries we have today. Wouldn't it be nice if some of the kids today had to live like we did years ago, just for a short time mind you. And in 1948 we got a 6 inch TV in a 4 foot wide cabinet! We were stepping in high cotton then, moving in with the rich folks! :highly_amused:
Click to expand...
 
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