Now that the big freeze is over. Is there anything you realized you needed while you were without power or water? We were without power for about 3 days and never lost water. Being in an all electric home it was definitely an inconvenience. We do have a fireplace that really didn't put out much heat but it was better than nothing. I had a generator running with electric heaters. I did realize we needed more lights that are not battery powered, propane camp stove, and some sort of power bank for charging cell phones.

- We used our old Coleman stove that hadn’t seen the light of day for 10 years. It worked great for cooking and reheating. Makes toast even, with a big skillet. Heats chili with beans (see what I did there?)
- I went to the deer blinds and got my Buddy Heater and the larger Mr Buddy heater. Hooked em up to 20# propane cans. They put out more radiant heat consistently than our fireplace did and will run over 100 hours on a 20” can.
- Milwaukee M12 handheld light. Great light. Get the big batteries.
- More than one generator.
- Mucho gasoline and propane.
- several long extension cords with triple plug heads.
- big supply of 1# propane cans and a Little Buddy heater or two. Just right for heating a bathroom and keeping the wife happy.

A hose to hookup a 20# bottle to my Mr Buddy heaters. I was replacing one pounders every four hours, day and night, for thirty six hours to keep heat on my pumps. I have an adapter to fill the one pounders... But I'm really gonna be PO'd if our elected officials put us thru this again.

Oh yea, and a coffee pot!

I realized that I need the generator that I sold a few years back. I plan to buy another one once things settle down.

Ventless 30k BTU NG heater for down stairs and a big buddy heater for up stairs.

For summer I'm getting a Honda 5-7k watt converted to Natural gas strictly for house, I'm sick of fighting ethanol

We have regular outages, so I have prepared for up to 24 hrs with out power. We once were without for 2 days in an ice storm.
Stepping up my game.
A camp stove to use in house. Cooking outside in 20 degree weather not a good option.
A Buddy heater with ample propane. Maybe 2.
A couple new propane bottles.
Convert my biggest genny to operate on Nat Gas. Its good for heat and lighting or room AC.
75 watt rough servce incandescent bulbs for drop lights, defrost or freeze prevention. Autozone sells them
Perhaps dehydrated food.
More fuel storage and better way to rotate to keep fresh fuel on hand. I keep 15 gallons now and dump into trucks about once a month. Need gas for inverter gen and small back up gen.

Candles, a couple more propane tanks, plenty of batteries and lots of wood. I almost ran out. I've got some trees that need to come down so I just need to get after it. Thinking about a generator/welder.

We have a wood burning stove for the house

It was worth every penny

But I think I will pick up a Mr Heater for the bedroom for the future

I was watching YouTube and saw a small breaker box, that’s connected to regulars breakerthat you could plug a generator into. I guess you just pick 3 of 4 breakers you want to power. Like fridge, ac, room, etc.

Generlink is one I am looking at.

No. I wouldn’t spend more time preparing for an event that probably won’t happen again in my lifetime.

I have a generator. The transfer switch is about 250 bucks plus whatever an electrician charges to install the transfer switch.
I guess a 500 dollar investment.

ALL of the above. I have a buddy heater and the dam thing ran out after an hour, I’d given my Coleman tanks away. I’ll stock up on those. LED lights, FIREWOOD(thanks again Bobo) and a generator for the 50 electric space heaters I have.

MOST importantly, I need to work on the ability to see the issues at hand and ask for help instead of foolishly trying to do it myself and slowly fail, while my family is miserable.

Overall I need enough stuff to be able to handle an ordeal like that without feeling like a complete failure of a man of the house and/or father to my children because I didn’t prepare on their behalf. There’s almost no worse feeling than being helpless to me and I should have been more prepared. Last week was really no joke. I hope it never happens again in my lifetime, or my kid’s but by gosh I’ll be more ready if it does.

Seriously considering a fireplace insert to capture more of the heat and efficiently burn wood.

Every THFer should always have at least this:

- One forty-five caliber automatic
- Two boxes of ammunition
- Four days' concentrated emergency rations
- One drug issue containing antibiotics, morphine,
vitamin pills, pep pills, sleeping pills, tranquilizer pills
- One miniature combination Russian phrase book and Bible
- One hundred dollars in rubles
- One hundred dollars in gold
- Nine packs of chewing gum
- One issue of prophylactics
- Three lipsticks
- Three pair of nylon stockings.

Add for bartering supplies
cartons of cigarettes preferably Marlboro
few boxes of cigars.
bottles of wine

If I build another house, it's getting a Vermont Defiant Wood Burning Stove.

I need to have a well put in for backup. 6 days without water because our community service lost power sucked!
Won’t happen again.

Is using propane heaters in the house safe?

We have propane heat for furnace and stove but only ran stove for an hour, I was afraid of assfixition. The darn circuit board on furnace went out after the second time electric came back on. Had generator for lights, refrigerator, freezer, and electric heater. Had 3 five gallon water jugs full for back up.
More candles, more firewood, more electric heaters.

Are the oil filled heaters better than the electri ones?

That’s freakin awesome right there

“Is using propane heaters in the house safe?”

We use them in the blind all the time!

This whole ordeal showed me exactly where 90% of the energy loss/transfer is at this house. I just bragged last week about how dang solid the house is structurally. It does lack in efficiency, something fierce. If I open just the shutters to look out the window, I can feel the cold temps move so fast, it’s like an air leak! But there aren’t any. They’re just crap windows with nice finishings.

I’ll be hitting up ol T-Rex soon.

Also, while not in use, this particular fireplace is one drafty SOB. If it’s windy, I can feel the air coming in. I’m with Ox190 on looking at a better set up. I know they have them. Just got to lay down the $ for it.

The gas inserts that use fans, those suckers put it out man! I wonder if there’s a wood burning option with the fans too.
Unless we get another apocalyptic storm in the next year, I’m good. But I got me some serious work to do.

Well hell. That’s freakin horrible. Hey, don’t listen to Bullfrog y’all.