Some Buddy heater have oxygen sensor safeties and are rated for indoor use.

This was the explanation given to regarding open space heaters.

A by product of burning hydrocarbon fuel is water vapor. In most cases the stucture, tent, garage , etc, was loose enough to allow adequate ventalation. But, in freezing temps, the water vapor will become ice crystals, sealing any air leaks in or around windows and doors. Thus the flame would consume the usable oxygen in the space. This process usually requires some time.
How much time is relative to size of space, size of heater, occupancy and a host of unkowns.

We used the Buddy heaters in the house for a week or more. We did get a CO monitor, just in case.

We did alright though it.

-Things i will think of for future are plug in lights i can run off generator.
-remembering i have a Coleman propane stove in the utility room with propane bottles lol i forgot about that
-New house will have one of the breaker boxes where i can run select items off a generator through the house circuits

Shoot, a fella' could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff

I wonder if our younger folks recognize that quote.

MO

I'm stocking up in the fall. Better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it.

2 bottles bourbon
2 bottles tequila
2 bottles vodka

carry on

Did the CO alarms ever go off? Did they measure the peak level? I've got a Big Buddy heater I got for the shop and had it readied for the house but chose not to due to perceived risk.

If you are going to be burning something inside the home, get a couple of CO detectors.

Carbon Monoxide will kill you dead or really mess you up quickly.

We didn't have a space heater so there was no need to crank up the generator. Had plenty of firewood, bedroom got down to 55° but the living room was warm.

Would take 5 days below freezing without power over one day in August.

In college, a house full of cheap broke guys, we didnt run the heater till it got below mid 50's in the house in general.

Bigfitz, go to the Mr Buddy website. They’ll ease your fears on using one indoors. I was leery also, but when I looked up some info on that site, it explained everything I needed to understand. So I brought them in and fired em up. The CO monitor never spoke up, and I knew it was good because it had gone off the day before due to a generator exhaust getting into our little guest house. Run the heater off 20# cans, and it’ll run for over 100 hours on low.

I bought the heater for the screen porch, when we’d have guests and porch partying. The ladies like warmth, and the Big Buddy did the job. Otherwise I’d have not had one. So glad I did though.

Set on medium, with the battery powered fan on, it’ll put out some heat.

Being travel trailer people, we had a bunch of 20# propane cans. And I bought a few more.

With natural gas in the home and a Honda generators we had lights, microwaves, heat, etc. We were pretty comfortable.

1) Things to upgrade will be a alternative indoor cooking option because cooking on the gas grill outside was a little chili.
2) More situational awareness of temperatures that will cause diesel fuel gelling.

What makes this one $3k+ while others half the price or less?

we were fortunate, never lost power or water, our neighbors, at least 3-4 houses to our left all were without power for 4 days
we had a gas fireplace with plenty of wood...

I definitely want to be better prepared as we got lucky
I have heard of a few hypothermia deaths including an 11 year old..
how bad would you feel if your kid died?
how would you get over that?

I have a propane turkey fryer and 3 20lb propane tanks
That is a great way to boil water, generate some heat (with some ventilation and battery powered CD alarms) start fire, cook on, etc..

I am looking into water as well

being without AC in the summer would SUCK but you aren't going to die from it...

I think the bulk of my neighbors in Austin have zero clue how to survive ..
We had plenty of food, two freezers, etc.. in cold we could have gone 2 weeks
In the summer, the freezer would probably hold for a few days, maybe

We don't live in the desert and if I needed to get water I could go to Lake Travis and fill up coolers in the back of the truck and get them home to boil.

But, I will be setting up to have at least 100 gallons of water available and getting a generator and of course you need fuel for it.

I don't want to be paranoid about it all but I don't want to see my family suffer when a little more planning, effort and expense can mitigate the risk at least for some time. Parts of the Austin are still without water.. and the people are crying for the national guard to bring them boiled water.. ridiculous reliance

We did OK because we planned ahead. We lost power and water for almost 5 days, so it was clearly inconvenient but very tolerable.

What I learned:
I underestimated the impact of the low temperatures. More firewood!

electric hot plate / 2 burner
coleman propane stove on back porth

We used our two-burner propane stove in the kitchen under the bent hood. I see it as being the same as a gas stove.

Marc

I was mostly whistleing in the dark this year.

More flashlights

We ended up having everything we needed and managed to prevent frozen pipes/damage, but definitely had to juggle thru different stages of my 'OCD backup plans'!
Had to skip over (B - small generator) , (C - inverter), and (D - vent-less wall heater) and go straight to (F- stove burners) because I didn't have B & C ready to go and D still hasn't been purchased.
I did finally get B - generator setup & running after 10 hours of relying on only F.

I did have some major pieces already working as planned in my primary (non-emergency-backup stages) plans:
- 250g propane tank was mostly full because I run a dual-fuel (heat-pump/propane furnace) setup for central heat -
- keeps a large reserve of propane available for when heat-pump is ineffective ;
- didn't need a large generator because no heat-strips needed in this setup;
- furnace blower power-cable already setup as cord with plug, easily ready to plug into small generator or inverter cord.
- multiple new/recent CO detectors throughout house - just in case.

The generators' old fuel-line cracked in 0 deg temps as I dragged it from storage and prepped it once daylight hit - that was fun to replace outside.
Finally getting it running, furnace quickly brought house temp up from 48 degrees (stove burners) to a very comfortable 62 degrees we conservatively set it at.
Mad at myself cause I still cannot find the 750 watt inverter that I have packed away somewhere, which I could have quickly setup to run furnace fan while I jacked with generator.

Two honorable mentions go to:
1) Neoprene Fishing Gloves - these things were a miracle for my fingers, while I had to be outside jacking with the generator, and most notably watering livestock outside-warm even wet!
2) 80-Gal Heat-pump Water-Heater - this thing really surprised me; despite being mostly without power for 3 days - this thing kept enough water hot for several quick family showers; I never had it connected to generator, but it's quite a comfort to know that I could get hot water long-term on generator for about 400 watts (in heat-pump only mode) - and if things really bad, at least I have 80 gallons of drinkable water always ready at the go, so I only bothered to fill two 5-gal camp totes with drinkable water this time in preparation.

I'd rate myself a B+ for having everything on hand to get thru this cold storm, but only a D on having things set ready to go, as I had to work pretty hard, & lost some sleep, thru the crisis.

This event has me now thinking thru some additional scenarios & plans - I'm good for maybe a week of no-power crisis (hot or cold)- maybe two, but what about a month? 2 months?
We don't have nat-gas here so don't have that as an option.
For long-term, prolly going to at least get another (250g +) propane tank (we own), conversion kit for generator, vent-less Propane Wall Heater (plan D), eventually a 2nd very-small generator (inverter type).

Having propane saved our butts in this crisis, and I think having a way to efficiently convert it to heat (furnace, vent-less heater) could stretch it in case of a longer crisis/infrastructure damage.

I need more canned food on hand, and frozen vegetables have plenty of frozen protein.

I will be looking into generators in the coming months.

They get really good reviews. It's probably overpriced, but I like it.

I escaped to Florida a day before the winter storm hit and stayed gone the whole week. My dad stayed at my place taking care of the animals and everything. His house only had electric heat.

I have had a spare 350 gallon propane tank full and sitting behind my shed for 9 years. My tank for the house was filled two months ago and thought it would be fine, but the fire really sucked that gas down trying to keep the house warm. Ended up draining it. The gas companies here were out of propane. No problem, thats why Id prepped a back up tank. WELL, none of the tractors would start as the diesel fuel gelled so couldnt move the spare tank to hook it up. SO, I need to position the spare tank beside the main tank and keep some of the diesel lifeline anti-gel stuff on hand as well.

Also, when the piped froze and burst, he had to search all over for my copper pipe tools and pvc stuff. If I know that cold is coming, I need to get that stuff out while its warm and put it in a place to easily find.

Some good stuff in this thread. I live in in DFW metromess but by no means did I grow up in the city. My neighbors say they are just amazed at all the stuff I have. To me its just common knowledge and how I was raised. Now to restock and retool. Also I will Prepare now for summer with generator and fuel plans as I'm afraid the electric outages and rolling black-outs will be regularly scheduled and more prominent this summer. As I age, I really despise July to early Sept. and wife likes it cool but I'm concerned about $$$$$ more so now.

For next winter, I've made my list for upgrades but a few restocking are really easy to accomplish this spring: restock firewood 1-2 cords, add additional water storage/tote options (I had 50 gal on hand), make sure generator is running and add a quick connect to breaker box to run essentials, add additional fuel storage and rotation plan, stage 20# propane tanks for use so as not to freeze up (I have a dozen and 4 30# tanks to run Mr Buddy's heaters and propane cook stove), replenish kerosene for lamps.