2 weeks below 0 degrees C

Post Reply New Topic

Stay warm, Jakki! If you have a sleeping bag, it may be worth using now.

Sleeping bags are great. You can even use two or three at once. Oddly, keeping the outside one zipped is important, even if you think it will lay closed. Also, don't neglect your head and neck. They won't feel cold as much as your toes, because they get priority on the blood supply, but they will lose all that heat. Wear all your warmest stuff on top.

We are used to buying fuel, but there are houses that stay warm without any even with six months of winter. See "net-zero."

When short on power, such as when everyone is using ovens and extra electric heaters, utilities use "Rolling Blackouts." - you get power in different areas by turns. When it is on, you run the furnace and charge your batteries.

Thank you Guys a million times ,, went through most of every suggestion that was made in this thread.
Yes the gas is controlled by the electricity here ... was very frightened by the stoppage of the electricity in this low of a outside temperatures . Power has returned approx 1.5 hours ago . Had layered clothing and drug my blankets all onto the couch . Could not move about very easily in the clothing , while inside the house , was afraid to open doors so as to not let heat escape . Was in the process of finding the camp stove , when the power came back on .

My internet was working well could not upload messages back to WP. Or any other commercial or even private spaces
Until now , my server was behaving incredibly weird , like they were losing power too.Since my wife is connected by
A wireless modem and so is my hade wired telephone to the same modem , could not call anyone for help .
Except my wireless connection via Apple messaging was working and my two friends there were calling the power Y for me , they are over 200 miles away by car . Power company hung up on them once they said. They never said they got through to them , by the time power returned .

Many Thanks to all of you whom offered help and did help with 8ntelligent ideas and suggestions Am now thawed out .! .............. ..........

Check the power company website or the news. You may be scheduled for another temporary cut.

Will do thank you , good insight ,,,,,, their info they are showing is very limited , only shows number of people affected in the thousands , and locations of current outages . Thank you ,

One more thing that came to my mind:
Small spaces can get reasonably heated with your body alone. In a small room (bathroom, hall, whatever) with doors shut, the temperature can significantly raise just because you stay there.
I also remember this from some survival handbook: In a small igloo, a candle raises the temperature by about 5C.

Be careful when using camping stove indoors. I read about CO poisonings in Texas, it's a serious risk. Make sure the room where you use it has decent ventilation.

Yes. If you have a camping tent put it up and put all you blankets, pillows etc inside, and make sure you zip the door closed. That has saved people's lives when power went out. Even though they are thin camping tents are meant to keep out the elements and are surprisingly warm inside.

Don't light anything inside though, just saying we had some idiots here in our state. As magz said. Some people tried to heat their house with the car running in the garage and I think it's safer to cook in your fireplace inside. If you have anything cast iron it's safe for an open flame. If you have to use the camping stove definitely crack a window. Knowing how to camp has saved us the last few days with no power in this power snafu.

And thanks for all the suggestions others posted it helped. Some things I hadn't thought of.

Oh an my bro told me. If you have a cinderblock. Put 2 tea lights in the open space then set an empty terracotta pot on top. It will apparently heat a small room.

Thank you magz any and information is very much appreciated , that is a good idea . Was trying to figure out ventilation , with the temperatures so low , (the areas I let air in were sooo cold) . It was later that afternoon that the power came back on . Help of all sorts here came in from here . Thoughts prayers and ideas to help out . Ty .

When I heard this, it was one tea light under an inverted flower pot with pennies under the edge to make a gap. These rigs are extremely feeble, and only improve on a bare candle by keeping more of the heat from rising in a narrow column. If I'd found one in a tent with a corpse, I'd nominate it for a Darwin Award. Use tea lights to heat water, and drink it.

Yeah. I didn't mean to do inside the tent. Lol. I'm sure you got that. But we had 100s of people here with carbon monoxide poisoning so who knows, maybe it needs to be added. you can create a make shift rocket stove with cinder blocks. But I'd do that outside just to cook your food. You use what you got when you can't get out. Luckily we have power again. But it might not last after the last statement sent out. We were told they would dump anyone's power throughout the night tonight to maintain the integrity of the grid. yay

Running an ordinary gas stove adds carbon dioxide to your indoor air, but the relative volumes are safe enough. A propane camping stove is no different, except for no supply pipe. The troubles come when a flame isn't getting enough oxygen for some reason, and makes carbon monoxide instead of dioxide. There are battery- powered CO detectors available.
Butane stoves have to be warmer than ice to work, but you can use body heat to warm the fuel can.
In Japan, they put a charcoal burner under a table and sit around it, but they are VERY careful to follow the rules.

Do you live in Texas?

I do. Ercot totally dropped the ball on this one. Anyway, we're getting through it together. The people in my community have really helped each other out, people have stepped up. So it has been nice to see people putting all the hate aside and just lending a hand to those in need. We should be alright by Friday. Hopefully. But the 2 nights without power were unpleasant. I hope everyone stays warm and follows proper procedures when trying to get warm.

Ouch, I hope you stay warm. I don't think you have snow pants or gloves and hats and scarves or any wood to burn. You can wear a bunch of layers of socks and wear multiples of shirts and pants and bundle under a bunch of blankets.

BTW how are you using the internet? Are you using your phone or something and charging it in your car? Make sure there is no ice in the tail pipe so you won't get carbon dioxide poisoning when you are in it trying to stay warm.

Have any of your pipes burst yet? I hope you shut off your water supply.



I have been in 5 degree weather and in the negatives. I can't imagine how much pain you hands and feet must be in and your ears. But the difference is we had heat and electricity and I stayed indoors and go inside if I got cold. This was Montana. When Portland area got hit with 5 degree weather in 1996, we all stayed indoors and wore coats in the gym for PE and lunch. We also did recess inside too.

I am someone who likes platonic hugs, so I am always dismayed when I hear of a group of people who froze to death sitting separately, when they could have combined their heat and insulation. In this way, we are not as smart as most animals.