At around 1:00 AM on December 22, 2013, the power in our house went out and did not return for a total of 5 nights and 4 days. Horrifying, since just looking outside our window reminded us the weather wasn’t going to go above freezing any time soon. This article explains how we dealt with the Toronto power outage, with no electricity and of course no working furnace in sub-zero degree temperatures, and how you can take what we learned to be more prepared if your grid happens to go down.
The Story
That first night, Thomas and I waited until 4 AM for the electricity to come back on, after which we hesitantly headed off to bed. We went to bed sure the power would return while we slept, but that obviously didn’t happen.
The very next day, my parents, grandparents, and the majority of my extended family, all who lived in different parts of the city, informed us that they had lost their power as well. At this point, we began to realize how much more serious the circumstance was than we had originally anticipated. My grandparents were quickly driven over to an uncle’s house, the only person in the family who still had electricity, and the rest of us stayed in our own houses.
If we owned a gas stove, at this point it would already have been on at full blast. We didn’t, so we made do by turning our bedroom into a cozy barricade. Surprisingly, the temperature in our house didn’t drop very quickly at all. By the end of the four days, though, the house had dropped from 27°C (81°F) to -4°C (25°F).
Our first priority was obviously staying warm, but we didn’t want to sweat, so instead of putting on all the clothing we could at the start, we added layers gradually as we became colder. By the end of the outage I was wearing two or three layers of socks, three sweaters, a fleece, three pairs of pants, and two scarves to bed. Thomas could deal with the cold a lot better than I could, but of course he still did have to bundle up, as much as he’d love to tell everyone he made it through the blackout in PJs and with a nice cold beer in hand.
Our basic setup was pretty simple. We took all the candles, flashlights, and breakfast bars we had in the house and stashed them in our bedroom. I also filled a pitcher of water and two glasses, in case we wanted anything later, but did not want to leave the warmth of the bedroom to get it.
I layered the bed with the extra blankets that we had in the house. When it began to get a bit too cold for us to power through on the second morning, Thomas pulled up the butane heater he had in the garage. We used the heater to increase the temperature of the bedroom while we were in it. We never left the butane heater unattended, as that would have been quite dangerous, and we always made sure to check that the heater was not leaking when we used it.
We also have a pet cat, Avery, who we kept in the room with us. We made him a little den of blankets by the door, placed some fresh water and his food bowl by his bed, stuck in a few cat toys, and of course, placed his litter nearby so that he could use it whenever he needed to. Avery had absolutely no problem with the cold. He likely would’ve been fine walking around the house all day, but we preferred to keep him in the bedroom where it was always at least a few degrees warmer, just in case. We also made sure to keep him well fed and gave him plenty of snacks throughout the day, to make sure he could keep his core body temperature up.
The worst part of the experience was waking up in the morning to a splintering headache from the cold. I definitely should’ve owned a warmer hat, and actually bothered to put it on while I slept. Thomas and I spent the afternoons with our favourite neighbours, who actually have a wood-burning stove installed in their garage. Afternoons were therefore quite toasty and fun, as they were spent in good company. Once the sun had set, we went back to our bedroom/bunker for the night, lit some candles, and turned on the heater if we needed to, then burned our time chatting until it was time for bed. Right before we slept, we always made sure to turn off the butane heater.
Winter Prep Stockpile List
Although we had quite a large stock of candles, flashlights, and food that is edible without needing to be cooked, and although we also had the butane heater, we still feel as though we should have prepared more for such an event. As a result, we’ve compiled a list of things we feel we should have purchased beforehand, and that we’ll work toward completing in case another outage like this occurs.
The list is certainly not exhaustive, you could definitely have more in your stockpile to make your life more comfortable during a power outage in a below-freezing winter, but if you’ve got the items on this list, you’re definitely at a huge advantage. Make note that the quantities we have approximated here are what we, a young couple with a single pet, would have gotten for ourselves. Adjust the quantities accordingly for your own family if you like the look of this winter prep list:
- 100+ hour candle (x5)
- Wind up or AA-battery radio
- Bottle of brandy
- Butane/propane camping stove
- Butane/propane portable stove
- Butane/propane heater
- Butane/propane backup (x2-3)
- Electricity power bank (x3-4)
- Car power charger
- Hot water bottle (x3-4)
- Sleeping bag (x2)
- Thermal blanket
- Tent (to sleep in in case we needed even more heat)
(Edit: One of our kind readers, Ed, recommended this heater as an excellent back-up heater, due to it being safer, more portable, and more versatile than the one we have. Thanks Ed!)
In terms of clothing we certainly should have had at least a few more on this list:
- Wool socks (different sizes for layering) (x6-8)
- Wool hat (x2), gloves (x2), scarf (x4)
- Leggings/long johns (x2)
- Down jacket (x2)
- Lined hunting pants (x2)
- Warm pants + shirts/sweaters (different sized thickness and tightness for layering purposes)
In terms of food, amongst our stockpile, we’d have made sure we had plenty of these:
- Box of breakfast bars (x10)
- Flashlight (x3-4)
- Soup can (x10-20)
- Canned fish/meat (x10-20)
- Spreads (peanut butter/jam/nutella) + refrigerated bread
And in terms of our pet cat, we made sure we had these in advance:
- Extra bag of dry pet food (x2)
- Extra bag of litter
- Carrying case (in case we needed to transfer to a warmer location)
Other Things We Learned
Okay, so I’ll admit it. I grew up in a little bit of a bubble when I was a kid. My parents dreaded camping, hiking, hunting, and pretty much anything outdoorsy. Furthermore, the information my father did know about cars and maintaining them was just not passed down so well to me. I’m definitely not a car person, so my ability to retain information about car maintenance is pretty near zero. Thomas’ scope of expertise is much greater than mine, but is severely limited in the particular field of sub-freezing winter preparation. He’s only been in Canada for a few years, and was in Europe and Asia prior to that, in countries that don’t get nearly so cold as Canada. As a result there were things he’d never thought to research or even consider in advance, things that I should’ve known being a Canadian all my life but that I simply had no idea with regards to as I’d never been taught myself or had to go through anything of this nature before.
Luckily, as I said earlier, we had some extremely nice neighbours who were really good at all this type of stuff. They taught us how to get our car out of a layer of inch thick ice. They gave our car battery a boost when we needed it. They explained that if we kept the hot and cold water running in our home for a few minutes every 3 hours, we could keep our pipes from freezing, even if the indoor temperature got below zero. They reminded us that the warm water in the house would likely not run out, considering the water heater was likely running on gas instead of electricity. Essentially, they were just really great neighbours to have in a crisis.
All in all, it was actually a very valuable experience to have gone through, though of course I’m glad that the outage didn’t last longer than it did. There are definitely a lot of things we would have done to better prepare, but circumstances being what they were, we were quite lucky with what we had on hand and the help we had from our neighbours. The power outage came just in time for the new year, and so we made some prepper resolutions to remind us of what we needed to work on throughout 2014. I can’t say that at this very moment we’d be better prepared if another power outage was to occur, but prepping is a process, and we’re hoping that by next year, if there does happen to be another outage, we’ll be in a much better place than we were this time.
I remember that storm!! I had lived in Florida 20 yrs and married a Canadian Feb 2013. I saw a man on CBC with a carry around generator 1000 watt…we got one after the storm…enough to run furnace..and some other things.
We had a sealed combustion non electric direct hot water heater(gas operated) installed
Two fireplaces gas that do not need electric to work. (Works on same idea of hot water tank)
Now I need to work on all the items on the list you provided that we do not have! Thank you for this list!
You are welcome Gail, sounds like you have made some serious headway into your preps already- much better than 99% of people in the GTA.
Hi guys
I’ve been following several prepper and survival sites for almost a decade. I’m an enthusiast at best, not really a prepper. I spend a significant amount of time in the outdoors, so my gear purchases are really focused on back country caming and survival. So I’m not an expert on the subject of prepping, by any means.
However, one of the most frustrating things for me is the complete lack of any hands-on epxerience stories…anywhere! We’ve had earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, mud slides,wildfires (I’m in Alberta so they’ve been close to home) and, of course, ice storms! I’ve actually asked a couple of the sites I subscribe to why there are no stories….and I got ignored.
I was looking for some reference (any reference!!!) of someone using their prepping skils & supplies during Irma, and there you were! After reading this article, I’m even more impressed. I have family in the GTA who were also hunkered down, but fortunate enough to hve a wood burning fireplace.
So, thanks very much for sharing your story. I know it’s a few years old now, but it’s still great to hear the good and the bad of the experience. Hopefully we’ll see more people come forward and share how their prepper/survival plans have been put to the test in the real world. It’s not all about the zombie apocolypse, after all!
Cheers
Hi Gord,
Unfortunately a lot of the prepper sites out there aren’t run by real preppers. They’re run under aliases by people who just want to profit off running a website, and as a result, most don’t have personal stories (or opinions!) to point to on their sites at all, just whatever user submissions they have or any commissioned pieces they hired a random writer off the net to put together. We’re pretty different here at MTJS, and there are a few other prepper/survival blogs run by real people besides (Offgrid Survival, The Survival Mom, Organic Prepper, & Survival Sherpa to name a few).
I love reading first-hand experience stories, and though I knew this one would be difficult to write (it really was!) I knew it’d be something I’d regret not having penned, and something I’d read back over myself years and years later.
But what I’ve learned since I posted this: you seem to forget specifics of the things that happened to you in the past. Even for something so big while you’re going through it. I don’t think I could re-write this post again with much accuracy or detail had I not recounted it and re-read it so many times in this post back then. Thus, I was lucky that we’d opened this blog before we’d gone through that experience, or it may not have been recounted at all!
All to say, I’m not surprised there aren’t more articles like this on the net because if you don’t write it all down once it happens to you (and without a prepper blog, let’s be honest, are you really going to do that right after an emergency?) you’ll probably forget half the things you went through within a few years.
Hoping there will be more of them over time, or vlogs even filming firsthand experience going through survival of natural disasters or emergencies like power outages, it would be so interesting to see or read about more firsthand, but I think that’ll be a while to come. Here’s to hoping though!
Great post, Elise, and glad the thread is still alive. We were without power for 46 hours during that same ice storm here in Maine — power off 5 pm 12/23, back on around 3 pm on Christmas Day. Thankfully, we had a generator, so we had heat, some lights, and TV to keep my husband from going crazy. We also fired up the wood stove in the cellar to keep the pipes warm. And thankfully the Chinese restaurant in the next town over had power, so we had Chinese Christmas dinner. :) Lessons learned from the REALLY big ice storm of 1998, when we were without power for 8 days — again, had a generator, albeit small, and needed to be refueled every 2 hours, but it was enough to power our kerosene heater (Monitor), one lamp, the TV set and the satellite TV box, again to keep hubby from going nuts. I had to disconnect everything to run my electric coffeemaker – another lesson learned, have a way to heat water and keep a Melitta filter or a French press on hand. Just can’t face a crisis without my morning java! We just bought a dual-fuel generator a few weeks ago, one that runs off gas + propane, so as long as the gas station up the street that sells the BBQ bottles of propane is still functioning, we’ll be okay. I’d never want to be without a generator, though I suppose we could get by with the wood stove, solar lights, and our other preps. I’ve actually run through the mental exercise of rearranging our lives to be downstairs by the wood stove, what areas we could block off to concentrate the heat, where to store supplies, etc. Anyway, great blog!
Thanks so much for this comment! Really interesting experiences!
I think I’d be the sort to fail at maintaining a generator, and who might even forget to restock fuel after using it, so I’d probably be safer going the wood stove route you’re talking about. That being said, I’ve moved to the UK, and let’s be honest, compared to Maine & Ontario, our winters here are nothing, like the autumn there, so it’s much easier to “get away” with not having a generator here. Sure sounds like you know how to make the most of your generator, though!
Coffee, heat, some light and a TV – sounds like a perfectly cozy way to ride out an emergency to me! Love your system, sounds like your house is a great place to be during an emergency :)
We lived the same storm a week earlier in Kansas! We were out of power for a full week. The town was out of power as well, so the importance of having small bill cash on hand became apparent (when we finally made it out of our house).
I now have a full back up of solar lights. Even on a cloudy day, they can be recharged and they are less dangerous then candles. We keep our kindles and head lamps charged, with a back up battery USB port. I learned to wear an inner layer of silk and then the wool- much less sweaty. We also took off many layers at night when we got under the covers–and the clothes went under us to keep them warm (nothing like putting on cold clothes –burrr). French Press, crank radio (no tv- the stations did not have power), canned peaches and soups were our friends for those long nights. The days were spent outside using energy and creating our own heat (mostly clearing trees and cracking ice). Oh—we learned how to do basin baths as well. We had hot water, but our tolerance of taking off all our clothes at one time—burrrrr.
Have had three major power outages in N.C. in 30yrs. Hurricane Fran 1-2weeks and two ice storms each 5-7 days. As we live on a farm we have always had some sort of generator to power our well pump. It also lights the kitchen through a transfer switch. We cook on a propane campstove run off an L from a 20lb propane tank. We have a woodstove in basement for extra heat. A Buddy 9,000 BTU heater also run off a propane tank will heat three rooms to 65deg F for 2 1/2 days. Put heater in bathroom no sx of carbon monoxide. Believe ceramic plate is key also large rooms. Would not use in closed bedroom. Generator runs well, some lights and keeps fridge, freezers cold. During Fran we slept on screened porch with ceiling fan from generator. Took cold showers to conserve hot water. After hurricane fairly warm. Now have larger generator can power hot water heater. Having reliable water is huge. Can run water prevent freezing, toilets, cooking, washing etc. Recently had one day outage and the frozen milk jugs in fridge helped a neighbor keep fridge cold till power came back on. Can store all sorts of food in freezer, stays cold with little electricity if cold at start. Like idea of cooking on outside grill as oven-Dutch Oven- then bring cooked food inside keep warm with camp stove. Have not tried that yet but makes sense. Gas grills very dangerous in house. Recently rigged up a 12v AGM battery with multiple outlets, run CPAP cell phones, charge laptops, LED lights. Use this at night charge in daytime when running generator. Can cut way back on hours of generator use to save fuel. Like LED lanterns. Candles make me nervous unless always in our presence, would be good in winter during dinner hours.
May have replied before but in North Carolina we have had three major power outages in 30yrs-(more than 3 days), Hurricane Fran and two ice storms. The things we found most helpful, Buddy Heaters in winter- 20lb propane tanks. Propane cookstove also from 20lb tank. Put on kitchen stove and can cook using all usual utensils. Generator- have well water and large animals so need reliable source of water. Also use generator to keep fridge and freezers cold. Wood stove in winter.
Don’t need hot water in summer, cool shower great in summer. Soap and running water is great though. Don’t have to run generator all the time, just enough to keep things cold and have water pressure. Frozen milk jugs help to keep things cold if done ahead. If you can cook ahead-chili
lasagna-chicken casserole- freeze- thaw eat during outage. Store canned kidney beans, frozen green pepper, can freeze onion but usually some around. Make chili- fantastic cold weather. If you know its coming freeze hamburger. Great starter for lots of things. Even low KW generator-3000 or so will do a great deal to keep freezers cold etc. 220 if well pump. Manual transfer switch is not terribly expensive, and very reliable. Currently have 12volt power center for CPAP and great for charging cell phones or lap tops. Charge 12volt when generator running. Could run LED lights from 12volt as well. In winter propane lanterns give heat and light. Most camping LED lanterns have optional 12volt charging systems now. Many people in N.C. now have gas logs in fireplace with either propane or natural gas. Friend of mine has gas logs and one wall propane heater, keeps small house liveable when total electrical outage. Also has gas stove. We use propane camp stove in long outages. Could also use outside gas grill a oven as others have suggested. Not done that as yet.
I hope I’m not being mean, but this post made me laugh so hard. I can just picture you guys freezing your butts off while Avery is just like “another blanket? Nah, I’m good”. God, I love cats.
Not mean at all! :) Hahaha that’s pretty much how it went down.
With the big el nino coming this winter good to know! I have bought several older kero heaters, as well as 1 small indoor propane (with ventilation). I think we ‘d ok with a propane camping stove, etc. I worry more about long term outages, 2 weeks or more…
Great article, I just wanted to mention a couple things. When you get cold, your feet and hands get colder first. With blood vessels so close to the surface of the skin, you lose heat more quickly in your extremities. Your blood vessels respond by restricting blood flow to these areas in order to keep your core warm.While you will feel warmer initially after drinking alcohol, it thins your blood and allows the heat from your core to travel to your hands and feet, where it is more quickly lost, lowering your overall body temperature and making you colder. Also, loose clothing will keep you warmer than tight fitting ones because it traps more air, which is a pretty good insulator. Very informative article, please keep them coming.
Didn’t know that about alcohol! I thought it did actually help, but in the sense that I thought the “warmth” was psychological. Never would’ve guessed that’s how it worked and that it in the end makes things worse for you.
And I wonder if it’s better to wear lots of loose fitting clothing or some tighter clothing plus some looser. I feel like at that point it’s probably a war of which fabrics would hold in the heat better (obviously wool beats cotton and such). Need to look into this but you certainly gave me an idea for another winter weather article!
Hi I feel all the comments by the readers are all right on the mark! Also thanks for sharing your No power/no heat scenario. Right now parts of New England states are without power on this Thanksgiving holiday. There was some scattered power outages earlier in the month due the cold front from Alaska. Here are some of my experiences which agrees with everyone’s comments.
Here in warm Southern California we do have occasional power outages. Lately it’s rotating blackouts due to lack of power. Once our small community house tract lost power. We heard the large ‘bang’ and seconds later the power died. Minutes later we noticed black smoke down the block. The fire department showed up and doused our local step down transformer. 3-4 hours later the power company showed up and told the people massed around that they will have to call in a truck and a crane to replace the dead one. The kids howled as they learned we had no idea how days we would not have power and they immediately kept texting their friends. The kids did not have a 12v car adaptor for their phones. (In Japanese subculture-your friends show up at your house, and the first thing they ask now is where they can charge their phone- they call them denkidorobo’s-electric thieves) well it took 3 ½ days and the poor technicians had to work in the rain. Since it was an extremely local power outage, we could eat out, see the movie ‘The Expendables’ and enjoy life. Lesson learned for the kids was 12v car chargers.
Heat-yes it can get to the unlivable low of 32F/0C degrees here. (a SHTF event for us in Los Angeles) my friend grew up in San Bernardino and at that time they would be lighting the smudge pots in the fruit fields to keep the fruit from freezing. (smudge pots are 55 gallon drum with a few gallons of kerosene in them-sorry Al Gore) (32F/0C degrees to us is like -25C to the Xaviers.- even their cat did think much of the cold) So I have small butane cassette heater (same type of cassette mentioned here for the small Asian stoves) and a camping lantern also which uses the same cassette(double as light and heat-one can last’s approx 4 hours if turned down). I used to have the propane heater version that Elise had in the bedroom. The only thing I didn’t like was noise and I had to have ventilation as it puts out some serious BTU’s. I found a used kerosene convection heater at a swapmeet for $40.00US. 9100 BTU’s one gallon tank/3.7L tank which burns for 14 hours. We used better ones with more BTU’s in Japan(2300BTU) in the kitchen of our old house. Kerosene is a good back up, good way past 32F/0C you can get a cheap backpack stove, and a kerosene lamp(if rub the lamp it’s possible a genie could come out). Excellent storage life in a sealed container. States laws differ but the basic rule is use a blue container, red for gasoline and yellow for diesel fuel. Glass bottles marked with the MSDS label of ‘whisky’ is okay for alcohol. Also they are NOT noisy. Basic rules apply I WOULD NOT FALL ASLEEP in front of one even though the convection ones are advertised as indoor units. In my case I would put it in the fireplace of my house. In California we are now required to have carbon monoxide detector along with the age old smoke detectors. This may be a good idea if you’re running emergency heat in the winter. I am also lucky to have natural gas heater and stove. I don’t count on this in emergencies because they shut the line down in earthquakes. (earthquake gas shutoff valve) If it was a really bad winter in Los Angeles we would be forced to BBQ on the patio outside.
Not mentioned: The age old Jon-E hand warmer. Runs on lighter fuel. Smells a bit but hey if I had to go out and chop some wood in the snow…. or substitute them for hot water bags……
Alternate fuel which has excellent shelf life-fondue/sterno fuel or denatured alcohol – youtube is full of mini alcohol stoves.
Communication – I finally got off the old analog telephone line and moved on to the cheaper IP phone. No good when the power goes out.
TV – I am big fan of now getting news in a blackouts/major disasters on TV. The kids are glued to the TV and are distracted. They stream on the bottom FEMA telephone numbers, FEMA field office locations, and severe weather updates. If you live in Tornado alley you get the EAS. I love watching the announcers say over and over “we had an earthquake”.
Generators- very handy things. Cheap ones are noisy. Nice ones like Honda/Yamaha are expensive. See youtube comparisons. Large ones are very noisy. Some people try and run air conditioners on generators in hot summer emergencies all night long. Very irritating.
Gasoline is dangerous to store. Need fuel additive to keep gasoline from going bad. Rotation of gasoline cans is difficult and a pain. There is one generator made by Honda which uses the stove butane cassettes. Haven’t seen it here in North America for sale yet and probably can’t afford it either.
Mentioned – an insulated hat/gloves in cold weather is important.
Very nice write up, thanks for this! It’s always very interesting to see how other people have dealt with similar problems.
We don’t mind the noisiness of the generators because, as you said, we wouldn’t dare sleep while they’re on, even if they’re marked indoors, and even though we do have a battery carbon monoxide detector indoors (they’re required here in Toronto, too). You never know what could happen, and hell, even the cat is able to knock it over if he runs into it by accident.
While 0C would certainly have felt like a blessing to us that winter, it’s still damn cold. If I had it my way, I’m pretty sure I’d choose somewhere with the equivalent of SoCal weather – I’m not a fan of the cold and I can’t understand people who are.
The worst part about being in warmer states/cities with a power outage in the winter is that most are not even prepared for that. Here in Toronto, though the power went out for days, it felt like everyone was at least somewhat prepared whether or not they considered themselves preppers (though it also helped that the malls were for the most part open – so people could go there for warmth and entertainment even if they were completely unprepared). The cold weather is just a fact of life here, and so we all have crazy coats, hats, boots, gloves, blankets, etc. just to try dealing with going outside on a regular basis in the winter.
I don’t know if it’s applicable to a different climate, but there is also a natural solution to cold weather: run. When using up energy, the body produces its own heat.
January and February are the coldest months in the Philippines and my family once had the misfortune of being trapped outdoors during those months. We had no electricity, no supplies and little warm clothes. I often woke up freezing very badly and running was the easiest way to get warm.
Thanks for posting this and maintaining the blog. It’s nice to meet a community of fellow survivors! Also, your neighbors are awesome!
Running, or even doing jumping jacks, is a great short term solution, but 1. You have to stop sometime, and 2. You’re going to use up a lot of calories doing so. Once you stop, your body temp will definitely begin to lower drastically, so you’ll want to find shelter as soon as possible, at least in places like Canada where in the winter it gets unbearably cold (if you’re not dressed properly or don’t have the right shelter).
Thanks for the compliment about the blog! Hope to see you around often! And yes, our neighbours are the best ;)
We went through the same event. We heated our house with 2 kerosene convection heaters (both from CT). They produce no carbon monoxide. Kerosene, if stored properly can last for decades, much cheaper then propane. We used an Alpaca kerosene stove to cook. We also have Coleman stoves, but they use only Coleman fuel which is more expensive and more flammable then kerosene.
Kerosene is the ultimate emergency fuel. It powers lights, heaters, stoves. For lighting, we used Aladdin mantle lamps which produce 60 watts of white light.
Sounds like you had us beat!
Careful about Carbon Monoxide Poisoning. I am not sure that type of propane heater is meant indoors without adequate ventilation.
Of course that’s true. We were really careful not to overuse our butane heater for that reason, and to 100% make sure it was always off when we sleeping/not around to monitor it. Our bedroom isn’t very small, we did open the door to go out quite a few times, and our heater is rated safe for use in enclosed spaces, so I wouldn’t be super concerned about using it under the right supervision. I was more worried about potential leaks than anything, but again, if you’re careful enough, it’s an excellent asset to have in these kinds of conditions.
We bought 0° sleeping bags for this very reason.
I also have a a/c adaptor for my car so I can go to the garage and charge a portable DVD player–kill boredom.
I do check it often to be sure it is already charged and it has power for about 4 hours. Petty? Yes, but you need a break from books which I have about 150 of.
Also, we have a bathroom in the center of the house and it stays warm even when below 32 –because it has no outside walls, no windows..it stays warm.
I have enough food for 6 years, so that is not a problem. I have the Coleman cooker and 12 gallon containers of fuel, so that isn’t a problem. I have a propane heater, like the author’s, but larger and two tanks filled.
We also had an unexpected casualty. At 30% fill on our propane that we heat with, the company stopped answering the phone.
I already had all doors closed not used, blankets covering the open doorways to rooms not used, so I then brought out electric heaters because our heat pump uses $12 of energy in 6 hours when it is below 32 (I tested it, I know). Both heaters use about .30¢ an hour.
Our propane meter went from 30% to 29% in 6 days while only using sparingly, and that is good..I don’t want to pay $4 per gallon even IF their supply is restocked.
I tried the clay pot–IT DID NOT DO A THING FOR HEAT.
If without electricity, we bought little LED flashlights from Tractor Supply and those are awesome. The AAA batteries last for days. Get a battery charger and a solar battery charger for days like you had—IF you have any sun. LOL. We also have lanterns.
For the carpet, this is ordered… http://www.overstock.com/Home-Garden/Bissell-2402Z-Sturdy-Sweep-Carpet-Sweeper/3907105/product.html
We also have 600 gallons of water in drums in the garage. Berkey filter is a must.
I have been working on these issues for 4 years and feel pretty much prepared, but am still learning things every day.
Nice, very nice setup. Sounds like you essentially have backups for your backups, which you can never go wrong with doing ;).
We’re the same with the LED flashlights, they’re so bright and can run for days, so efficient and so good, and yeah we have rechargeable batteries, so with the car charger and the power banks we were all set for light. You’re definitely way more prepared than we were, and we did okay, so I’m guessing you’d definitely be fine in pretty much any emergency ;).
It sure sounds like your heat pump needs replaced with a newer one. Since you do have propane a duel fuel set up would be best. Which is a heat pump combined with a new condensing furnace.
Although we live in CA., my wife has very poor circulation in her hands and turn white in 50 degree weather, so I keep cases of the hand warmers. I would think the dual clay pot heater with candles would work well for added heat. I use it one in my office and it works very well. I admire you on the east coast of what you all have been going through. We will be having drought issues in the critical stages.
A dual clay pot heater with candles would definitely help add heat. Even the random candles we lit in our bedroom helped us bring the temperature up a little bit.
Toronto’s pretty far south, and has a much warmer climate than the rest of Canada. I feel bad for those in other cities, like Ottawa and Montreal, who had to deal with power outages. Now that I’d really hate to be in :(.
Nice article. I live in Oregon, a few acres in the country, and 3 years ago we had a power outage that lasted 7 days – it’s amazing how dirty your carpet gets in 7 days..lol. One thing I would add to your list is some solar and/or battery powered lanterns, safer and more efficient than candles although candles do give off some heat. The major thing I found lacking was fresh water as I had no power to my well pump. Thanks for sharing your experience with us.
We don’t even have carpet and our floors got dirty! Most of it was from trekking in the salt that we used to melt the snow, though ;). Definitely about the solar/battery powered lanterns, but we had so many flashlights ourselves we practically forgot lighting was ever an issue.
I can’t imagine not having fresh water! That would’ve scared me a bit. Glad you made it through okay, and thanks for sharing your experience (in your comment) as well.
great article – especially about community.
If you are anywhere near an area with an Asian or Hispanic supermarket, 1-burner butane stoves and fuel are frequently cheaper than you can get online. Go online and look if you are not. You still need some ventilation, but a lot safer indoors than propane. A worthwhile prep for house and vehicle.
20 bucks (US) can usually pick you up a stove and a 4-pack of fuel canisters. Hot food helps you stay warm.
After the electricity came back up and everyone was back online, my best friend actually told me that that’s all her and her family did: crashed an Asian grocery store for a butane stove, then used it to make hot pot over and over again. Smart! Keeps you warm, happy, is incredibly cheap, and honestly it’s not as dangerous indoors as people seem to think. You just have to keep an eye on things and use responsibly.
That looks like a propane heater to me. Propane and butane are different animals. I suggest kerosene for heat and propane for cooking. Watch for a liquid fuel camp stove at yard sales. You can get a propane adapter (Amazon is one source) so you can use these on propane, which is safer to handle than liquid fuel. You can also often find kerosene heaters at yard sales. Kerosene and propane both store well.
Ours in particular is a butane heater, though the one we linked to on Amazon is a propane heater (for indoor use). Toronto’s not good for finding camping and heating equipment at yard/garage sales, unfortunately. It’s a bit upsetting, but you’re more likely to find good items being thrown away in the trash than being sold at a garage sale. However, that’s pretty sound advice for those who live in places where yard sales are more commonplace.
I am a semi-professional prepper/survivalist and find much information on the internet to be of little value.
However, I liked your article, especially the part where your neighbors helped you thru a difficult time. I saw on your list a bottle of brandy, good idea to share with the neighbors.
I have everything on your list except for the hot water bottles, good idea.
Thank you.
Thanks for your kind words.
The bottle of brandy’s also great for a nice little surge of warmth if you ever need it, and yes, to share with good neighbours :).
I agree that it’s hard to find valuable information about prepping/survival on the internet, especially since there are a lot of sites that simply repeat what’s already been said on the topic. Glad you could find some value (or at least entertainment) in this article.