Getting a little more prepared...

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.

https://texashuntingforum.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/8053261/1

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

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.

https://www.lopistoves.com/product/medium-flush-wood-nexgen-fyre-rect/

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.

Your user name tell it like it is.

We kept water the whole time but had to boil. I'll have more of that stored up for next time incase it goes out all together.

We had periods of 3-4 hours w/o electricity. All the pool equipment froze because of that but I don't care. None of that is urgent to get fixed or critical to life (although some time in the hot tub would have been nice.) Had a small 2000W generator that ran a couple of space heaters and lamps and kept us comfortable. Even when we had power, it would flicker every 8 minutes on the dot, so by the time the HVAC rebooted and ran some heat, we'd lose power again. Central heat couldn't keep the heat up.

I've started a list of stuff I'm going to buy and store, most of it already mentioned here.

Also going to have a transfer switch installed and buy a larger generator to run more stuff. Really liking the concept of the dual fuel generators because you can store propane forever and don't have to worry about gas gumming up the carbs. But I can't find anyone that has experience with them so still researching. But definitely want to be able to run the HVAC, one of the fridges and a freezer, and some key outlets in the house powered. Would like to have enough propane to sustain for 5 days.

Right there with you. Only ran the generator sporadically to keep the fridge cold. There was no wifi or cell service to be had even when I plugged stuff into the generator. I have 2 16000 mAh batteries for recharging cell phones and lots of headlamps from deer hunting for light.

I used my coleman lantern for light of the entire room.

You can find these used for $50 - $100 (sometimes less) if you keep your eyes open. Make sure the ones you get have the right setup for NG or propane, depending on how you plan to fuel them.

Firewood is free in my area. I'll be looking a a gas fire started piped into my fireplace. I remember that Kyle tried all the THF advice and still cried.

I scored a new in box Big Buddy heater from a guy on Nextdoor a few days ago for $75.00. Super nice guy from Vermont. He even threw in 2 new 1lb propane bottles. Wish I'd had it for the blackout. I have 2 little Buddies but they were at the lease.

Anyone know how to turn off breaker and plug generator into dryer outlet???

Some guy was talking about it today. Sounded interesting.

Check the post on TFF, lots of info.

Should only do something like this with a Generator Interlock Kit installed on your breaker panel
(to be NEC compliant, and perhaps legal in most municipalities).
The 220 outlet won’t be useable once the main breaker is turned back on
( the interlock is a simple metal slide plate that prevents both from being on at same time).

Whoa whoa whoa I don’t remember crying Mr Bill.

Once I got my bed of coals going I was good to go for the week. My garden torch and some dry 2x4’s did the trick. I was plenty prepared for this little blip.

Only thing we really needed was more water for washing and flushing toilets. Which I’m rectifying this week with 4 55 gallon water drums all piped together.

Just need a cord/plug that matches up. Turn off the main and all breakers, connect generator (*leave main off*) and turn on dryer breaker and then the breakers to the loads you want to run. It's an easy way to connect everything but like said above it creates a huge safety hazard if your generator energizes the lines outside of your house, it could kill a lineman working on lines. It should only be done in an emergency and you know what your doing. I suppose it would mess up your generator if the power came back on and you had the main on.

The whole idea just screams, "HOLD MY BEER!!"

Followed by sirens

Followed by big lips and sad faces.

Just an expression I used to get your attention. Are we square?

"Definition of All's Fair In Love And War by Merriam-Webster
All's fair in love and war definition is - —used to describe a situation in which people do not follow the usual rules of ..."

Lol, I know you didn't mean anything by it.

I saw a adapter plug in Lowes the other day that adapted from 115v plug to a dryer/rv plug. Not sure how that works....will have to study it.

I put Crisco on there. Took off those little bitty strainers to empty the sediment... First I had to figure what tightly righty was upside down. Then I couldn't get the threads to catch. Crisco solved the problem

We did great. It was just like a camping trip. I'm just glad I had brought my buddy heaters home to clean after deer season.

That's just a 30amp to 15amp adapter - 120v - used to plug you RV's 30amp 120v cord into a standard 15amp 120v socket.

Attempting to 'back-feed' a portable generator output into house wiring using only a homemade cord with 'male prongs' on both ends is dangerous and illegal across most of Texas.

To correctly and legally do it requires at least these three things:
1) Generator Interlock / Lockout Kit - installed on main breaker panel (prevents main breaker from being turned on while generator-input-breaker(3) is in ON position).
2) Generator Power Inlet Box - receptacle box with recessed male power prongs - let you use a standard (legal) male-to-female power cord to connect generator to house.
3) Breaker - dedicated & sized for generator input and must work in conjunction with (1) above, so that it can only be turned in ON position when main breaker is in OFF position - usually a standard dp breaker.

sample of Generator Lockout kit - LINK : https://www.lowes.com/search?searchTerm=generator+lockout+kit

Sample of Generator Power Inlet Box -LINK - https://www.lowes.com/pl/Generator-power-inlet-boxes-Generators-Electrical/4294641568

You will also need appropriate dedicated wiring from the Inlet box(2) to the breaker(3) in the Main panel - this can get costly for long distance, as heavy gauge is required.

This is just a summary of the minimums to do it safely/legally, and assumes you have a generator with 240v output plug.
You would also need knowledge/understanding on turning certain other breakers off (to keep from overloading generator),
and to some degree on 'balancing 120v loads' across both legs of the 240v feed.

Just posting this before someone tries to 'hotwire' something and kills somebody!

My neighbors son came to his house to cut down some trees. He was selling a pickup bed load of wood for 275. Told him I thought he was to high on his price. Said he had 6-7 people waiting on a truckload now. As of yesterday he still had people ready to buy wood from him.

30 years ago when we went hunting on the cold mornings we would get a coffee can and put a roll of soaked toilet paper in it and it kept us semi warm. Showed several of my friends this old trick. They thought I was a genius.

alcohol soaked (I presume)

we also used rolled up corrugated cardboard soaked in cooking oil

Yes Sir! When I was growing up that’s the only kind of heaters we had in deer blinds. Dad always had coffee can heaters. Toilet paper soaked in rubbing alcohol.

Remember those too...it was still cold but we were tougher hunters back then...

I will more than likley prepair a little less. I had way to much beer and wine in stock. My head still hurts and I gained a few pounds. But I got to drink a lot of beer!!!!

Lol, yeh roger. I think he only carried those heaters around for me. I would huddle around the coffee can heater on the floor with a thermos of hot chocolate until the deer came out.

Here are a couple videos showing how to properly connect a portable generator to your panel using those three things I mentioned above (Generator Interlock Kit, etc...)

hmmmmm

I made do with what I had, when I didn't have what I needed.

We were tolerably well prepared with a wood-burning fireplace (gas starter), two truckloads of firewood, propane grill with three full 20# propane bottles, about 80 gallons of bottled water stored throughout the house, plenty of non-perishable food, flashlights, etc.

Lesson: absolutely, positively going to get a generator. Also getting a fireplace insert.

Refill Adapter for 1lb Propane Tanks

+1

Thanks oldoak, I didn't even know that was possible.

Anybody remember Sterno? Small resealable metal can of flammable goo. We used it to try to stay warm in a tent in northern New Mexico back in the 80’s. Never really went to sleep, thought my sleeping bag would catch on fire.

I just took some of the covers from my bed. Getting too warm.

I have 8 cans in the closet. Need to open them to see if they are any good. They are pretty old.

I heated the twins dinner up with a couple in a water bath last monday. I will be buying a couple more of those needless to say.

This is me. I'll be replacing burned firewood and water storage over next 2 months. Already looking at some type pipe exchanger insert grate for cheap builder grade fireplace. (I have gas line lighter) I have generator used for camping but will be buying a dual fuel unit and putting in an interlock kit and outdoor receptacle to panel for ease of select which breakers/items to run. I have a dozen 20# and about 4-5 #30 propane tanks. Now I just have to decide how large a generator to buy 7500, 10,000, 12,000. Not a significant price difference (to me) over long term and it looks like I can keep the whole purchase and electric panel work under $2,000. I figure the summer rolling blackouts is next. I have way to much game in multiple freezers to lose over a simple fix and it will give me some piece of mind and keep wifey more pleasant with some lighting and fans operating. Oh, and I live in the city but wish I lived rural.

I agree with the Interlock kit. seems like a no brainer. I will be getting all over that this spring.