How do you keep warm in winter while experiencing a power blackout?

[raymond]

Assuming there isn't a fireplace in your house and you live in a temperate climate up in the mountains..

[Unified Serenity]

Dig down 10 feet and shut yourself in for the night. There are designs of how to do this. If you are just needing to survive, then build a fire outside, put up some crude shelter to block the wind and hunker down in a very good sleeping bag. Or get a survival tent, some heat source and a really good sleeping bag. If you are with another person the combined body heat should help. Also layers of clothes help better than one or two layers. There's lots of survival sites online, just go have a look. Lots of explorers in the coldest regions have used tents and warm weather gear to sustain themselves.

Good luck!

[phillipbbg]

Layer upon layer upon layer..... paper is a great insulator. We managed without electricity for a while in the past, the memories are there just get prepared. And if you must have your laptop and phone buy a small solar panel 12W so you can charge them up during daylight hours and the rest you can work out...:)

[raymond]

My point is.. I am gonna rent a house for the next few years in a rather remote small town up in the mountains.. Your advice sounds good but i was kind of wondering if there is any way to heat up a room without electricity and without a fireplace in the room at the same time..

[phillipbbg]

My point is.. I am gonna rent a house for the next few years in a rather remote small town up in the mountains.. Your advice sounds good but i was kind of wondering if there is any way to heat up a room without electricity and without a fireplace in the room at the same time..

Ok if the room is well insulated and that includes the floor, your own body heat will have an effect on the ambient temp in the room. If you do any form of exercise ...same effect. But to prevent you cooling down layers are the key to keeping your own body heat. Next thing to think about is heat exchange technology, you can either use geo-thermal heat as suggested before or laying a pipework underground and drawing the warmer air from the pipework etc.

You could also use orgone energy to change the temp by using different layers of organic and metallic http://www.orgone.org/articles/ax9kelley1a.htm

Also you will need to cook at some point so do it in your "warm room"
Have fun, good luck

PS, two bodies are better than one :)

[phillipbbg]

Take a look at these pics on google they will give you some ideas.....

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=ground+source+heat+exchanger&hl=en&biw=1366&bih=643&prmd=ivns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=Wj_-TbrZCIWj8QPA9tmqCQ&sqi=2&ved=0CGMQsA

http://www.andrew-eng.co.uk/gfx/photographs/ground_source_heat_pump.jpg

[Lazlo]

My point is.. I am gonna rent a house for the next few years in a rather remote small town up in the mountains.. Your advice sounds good but i was kind of wondering if there is any way to heat up a room without electricity and without a fireplace in the room at the same time..

Invest in a good kerosene heater that doesn't produce carbon monoxide, and spend the 15 bucks on a carbon monoxide detector anyway, and keep track of the batteries in it.

[Dick]

Make a fire outside, and put some large stones in it, when they are warm, take them inside, they give a lot of heat, during a longer period.
But a petrol heater is better, as said before.
Dick.

[Tony]

Get a woodburning stove. Fit a wooden panel at an open window, cut a hole for the chimney.
Just like the wild west! Don't forget the coffee pot!!!


Tony

[blufire]

I second pie'neal. Go to most farm store and you'll find an good selection toward this fall. Don't go for the cute potbelly kind . . . . buy one that you can put 4 or 5 logs in length wise. They cost around $300. Don't forget a couple good axes, maul, wedges (iron not plastic) and bow saw. Oh and bandaids and linament

[Carmen]

A Biolite stove or campstove is what you need. There is a thread on it on the forum.

[Alien Ramone]

Gas Generator: Possibly not practical for outages of more than a few days because of the cost of gas to run it. I have a 3500 Watt generator (around $350). It worked well to run all the electric I needed (refrig., computer, TV, lights, etc.) when the power was out for a few days. The generator I have is listed to run for 12 hours on a 4 gallon tank at 50% load (around $30 in gas for a 24 hour day). To heat a room, an extension cord could be hooked up from the generator to an 1150 Watt electric heater (around $40).
http://lh4.googleusercontent.com/public/eOo0UaTbBec8fFrt2jP6VmX-wcnN-FjVS1GsGlcfl0zzzHZ-6CJmN0vv2FfBxMOiyjuPXXeawZJQ_44tX04mFjoYjBT0qSvKinRth9i5QRGFQlu25Mc7J6xPz5_5QTmte5pHZ-GsRTHyTdaya7yVoH_hek5o34uiG82SaofmuK6HmrXxsg_NnrabhZNhShhihVZlwtX-NxZO4njeKCebN_87H3snMWQ-eecp

Catalytic Heater (around $70): I have one of these but haven't used it yet. I made sure that I got an instastart so I wouldn't have to light a match every time to start it. It's 3000 BTU and will run 7 hours on a 16.4 ounce propane tank (about $3 each) (around $10.30 in propane for a 24 hour day):
http://images.trailsedge.com/images/photos/57278/57278_18454-blackcat-catalytic-heater-with-instastart-technology_list.jpg?1297787972

If you have a south facing double hung window in the room you could make a solar air heater, which would help some during sunny days:
http://greenterrafirma.com/images/solar-air/solar-air.jpg
http://www.knowledgepublications.com/heat/images/Solar_Air_Window_Box_Collectors.gif


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Something to consider if you are just heating a room is whether there will be enough heat near any water pipes and waste traps to keep them from freezing.

[grannyfranny100]

Wood pellet stoves (European designs for cold Scandinavian countries) work well, are extremely efficient and require venting. Friends in the city have one to heat their old townhouse and find it much better than a wood stove. Does require some electricity for the fan.

In Korea I visited an old village restoration. Kitchens were lower than main rooms. The cooking fireplace flue went under main rooms and then vented out the other end of house. People survived in their paper wall houses even in the snow. If you have a crawl space you could adapt this idea.

[Carmody]

Get a woodburning stove. Fit a wooden panel at an open window, cut a hole for the chimney.
Just like the wild west! Don't forget the coffee pot!!!


Tony

Yes, Tony. Buy one of those cheap and light stoves that can stay in the box...after you figure out how to use it. First assemble it. Then do a 'mock' set up. Meaning the thin floor tiles for fire prevention (16"x16" tiles--6 of them, or 24"x24"--four of them) for the stove to sit on.

Then figure out the exact and real piping for the window you chose. The wood frame, the seals for that window. A light thin metal sheet for protecting the wall (closest to the stove) and reflecting heat back into the room off the back wall, etc.

Think carefully about the wind patterns and the heat flow in the house, when the stove is running and cold wind/rain/snow is blowing. Be sure to pick a point where the wind will not interfere with the flow of the stove or any ember issues. (lighting the roof on fire when you are sleeping, for example-or blowing the smoke back down the pipe with a wind burst or wind direction change)

Buy or get/obtain at least a half cord (short cord) of hardwood and keep it dry.

Then you are ready to go. Put it all away again...and for a total of a few days of fiddling and about $350-400(US) of financial effort, you are ready for about 2-3 weeks of heat in your house, for any potential winter problem that may erupt.

After that, your biggest problem will be..if you end up using it..to learn how to NOT overstuff a stove as you become tired of filling it all the time. Or how to avoid wet and or green wood and the associated issues of that kind of wood.

Maybe one of these as well:

http://s10.thisnext.com/media/largest_dimension/41A1A0EB.jpg

The fan is self powered by a piezoelectric element. The heat of the stove vs the differential temperature of the aluminum frame, this causes the piezoelectric element to produce a few watts of electricity and turn the fan motor.

DO NOT BURN ANY PREPARED WOOD MATERIALS.

The chemicals and resins will kill you.

I saw a frugal man kill his entire family and himself this exact way. I'm not kidding. Within two years, they were all dead of cancer.