Week 16: Staying Warm

This week's assignment:  Make a plan for staying warm when the heat is off.

The likelihood that you will be without heat for an extended period and the seriousness of being in that situation will depend on the type of heating system you have, the types of disasters you face in your area, the severity of your climate, and the health and ages of the people in your household.   Here are a few strategies to consider:

Tough it out: A household in a mild climate with only healthy adults older children may decide not to invest in emergency heating equipment.  Here are a few things that will help you stay a little warmer:

• Make sure everyone has warm clothes and blankets (especially warms hats, socks, and gloves).
• Consider getting a few emergency mylar blankets or bivies (sleeping bags).  If you want something a little more durable consider these blankets or bivies or these hooded blankets that can also be used as a tarp.
• Hand warmers or hot water bottles (if you have a way to boil water) can provide added comfort

Diversify: If you have natural gas heat, get an electric space heater.  If you have electric heat, get a propane heater (make sure you get one that is safe for indoor use, like the Mr. Heater Buddy, which is clean burning, has a low-oxygen sensor and is approved for indoor use).  If you have a wood-burning stove, keep firewood on hand (but be careful after an earthquake because your chimney will almost certainly be damaged).

Invest in a generator: I have no experience with these, so I will just point you to information here,  here, and here and let you and Google take it from there.

Factoid about utility restoration after the 1994 Northridge earthquake:  After the 1994 Northridge earthquake, 2.5 million people lost electricity, but over 90% of customers had power restored within 24 hours.  Over 150,000 people lost natural gas service.  Service was restored to 120,000 customers within 12 days and 9000 customers were still without service after a month.  (Note that 133,000 people turned their gas off as a precaution even though they didn't suspect a gas leak and this delayed service restoration significantly.  PG&E recommends that you only turn off your gas if you smell gas, hear a leak, or see a broken gas line.) 

Have other ideas?  Leave them in the comments.