It's happened twice this week.

We had a snowstorm Saturday with blizzard like conditions, and the power was off from 4 pm to the next morning.

We had ANOTHER snowstorm yesterday, and the power went off during the night while we slept, and came back on in the afternoon.

We took it in stride, although yesterday I started a fire in the fireplace in case the house cooled off too much.

We have kerosene lamps, and a gas stove to cook on.....the automatic piolts don't work in an outtage, but you can light with a match. If we had an electric stove we couldn't do that.

In the worse case, we have a generator panel that we plug the generator into to get power to run the water pump....or in the case of a 3 day outtage in the summer, we plugged in the freezer and refrigerator for a few hours to keep things cool.

I blogged on it last week, not realizing we'd have 2 events of being w/o power...   http://community.stretcher.com/blogs/frugal_country_living/archive/2008/12/03/winter-storm-survival-at-home.aspx

What are your ideas for dealing w/o power in the winter?

 

I must admit that for cooking I have no earthly clue.  I've never had a gas range, so I'm scared of them, and its not an option anyway since we're renters and all the units have electric appliances.  We don't really have anywere to put a generator.  I know that Coleman makes an emergency stove that's meant for indoor use, and Sterno does also, so I think we're going to look into buying one of those and some fuel for it, just incase.

We have hurricane lamps, extra oil and extra wicks, plenty of candles, lots of blankets (for wrapping up in and tacking over doors & windows), water, shelf-stable food that doesn't need to be cooked.  We also have a few drinkable soups and hot chocolate that come with their own heater (push a button on the bottom).  They had a sale on them at our grocery for $2 each when summer started, so picked up a few for the pantry incase the power goes out.

 Where I am right now, I'd be in trouble if we had an extended power outage. I have nothing but a forced air furnace and some electric heaters and an electric kitchen range. I do have a good stock of candles and kerosene lamps (which I need to get new wicks and fuel for). 

Where I used to live, I had wood stoves in both living room and kitchen, lots of kerosene lamps. We hardly knew when the electricity went off - only that we couldn't watch TV.  

I don't think we've ever been without power for more than a few hours, but we're in reasonably good shape for it. We've got plenty of matches, some candles, and an oil lamp (though I'd have to go down into the basement to dig out the oil for it). We also have emergency flashlights and extra batteries. We have gas heat and a gas stove that can be lit with a match if necessary. We also have a corded phone, as well as a cell phone in case the phone lines get taken out too. And we have a good supply of books and board games so that we can keep ourselves entertained without the TV or computers while we're snowed in.

The thing I'd worry about most would be keeping our food from spoiling. I might have to pull everything out of the freezer and put it outside in the snow to keep it frozen. We always have a big box of powdered milk on hand, so we wouldn't run out of that, and we have plenty of rice and dry beans that we could cook up into a variety of meals. If we ran out of bread, we could always bake some the old-fashioned way, in the oven. (Hmm, come to think of it, I'm not sure how to light the oven with a match. Maybe I should check.)

A blizzard 14 or 15 years ago taught us a lesson we had water and heat but lost alot .. we had two generators for about 5 years then my DH decided we need a whole house generator as soon as possible .,, hurricane Ivan came and left us with out a pole barn and power for 6 days in 2004 we put in a whole house generator it so nice ... when the power when out recently we had a snow storm we got 4 inches we lost our power because someone hit a pole we were on the generator for about 6 hours

 Ariana, dont you have an outdoor gas grill? Keep it shoveled around the grll. You can always cook on that outside. I make sure that ours has gas and it is close enough to use if we need it. Babs

 We have wood stove and wood for heat, flashlights, one kerosene lamp, candles. we also have a gas grill for cooking outside on porch. We have a generator that we would use if the freezer was thawing. Also in the winter, we could put frozen food outside in coolers or boxes in the cars. That would keep animals out of the food. Babs

I guess I didn't reply very well or think through my options although I know they are there. I have a charcoal grill outside that can be used with wood and I have quite a bit of scrap wood in the garage left from various projects. I also have a solar oven and have learned to make a candle stove. I could put food in boxes in the garage to stay cold during winter. I would have to stay in one room if it was really cold because I would have no heat. I could burn candles but I'd have to be careful about carbon monoxide. I have wind up flashlights, too, and that type of radio.  

Pat, I'd love more info about your solar oven.  I heard a radio show with Ed Begley Jr. talking about solar ovens.  I googled the one he recommended and it was rather pricey.  I've got a porch that really soaks in the sun and I think a solar oven could really be useful.  But if it costs some money but really works I think it's something that would be worth it. 

We have a wood burner and a Big Green Egg smoker/grill that works real good in cold weather so I don't worry about cooking when the power goes out.  We also have a propane cook top that works without electricity, just need a match to light it.  We're on Rural Electric and we do have a problem with power outages.  We've never been out more than 12 hours and got along fine with what we had.  But the solar oven just sounds like a good idea.  I'm thinking I could also use it to heat water for doing dishes, etc.

I really like Ed Begley Jr.  I can't say I'm a huge environmentalist fan because so many of them have lots of ideas for things that other people should do but they go on living a Hollywood lifestyle.  From what I've read and heard about Ed Begley is he really does what he promotes.

Any info would be appreciated.

Nancy

nancybeth:

Pat, I'd love more info about your solar oven. 

 

I bought the SOS Sport Solar Oven 

but I paid a little less for it than is listed because I got it on a group deal. I didn't get the reflectors because I can make them myself from cardboard and foil (haven't yet, though). I'm pleased with it. It does a good job and comes with a thermometer and a couple of booklets that help.