# How to heat my home in a SHTF senario?



## RedTartan (May 2, 2006)

My house has no fireplace and no wood stove. I have a gas furnace that requires electricity to turn on. 

Is there anyway to manually turn on my furnace bypassing the electric stuff?

I'd love to have a fireplace or a woodstove but the cost is killing me.

What do you guys recommend? 

Worried about winter...


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## Bearfootfarm (Jul 13, 2006)

You need some back up heaters that DONT need electricity.

Youre not going to be able to use your furnace without power. Even if you could light it, you need the fan to run to get the heat into the house

Do as Rose suggested and look at unvented heaters. They arent all that expensive, especially now since it's still Summer


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## Cyngbaeld (May 20, 2004)

A through the wall vented propane or natural gas heater is not real expensive. I have done the installation myself. If you go with propane you will need a tank and fillup.


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## stanb999 (Jan 30, 2005)

RedTartan said:


> My house has no fireplace and no wood stove. I have a gas furnace that requires electricity to turn on.
> 
> Is there anyway to manually turn on my furnace bypassing the electric stuff?
> 
> ...


So define SHTF....?

1.If you mean to have heat for the long haul, I'd go with wood tho I live in the mountains and the trees can be fell, bucked, and processed into fuel (fire wood) with hand tools.
2.If you want a source of uninterrupted heat, That is independent of grid power, That can be purchased on a yearly basis at low cost. I'd go with coal. Several years worth of stock pile can be had for a few thousand dollars.
3.If your worried about frequent power outages and the like. Say the power is out several times a year but short duration like a day or so. I'd get a Natural gas wall heater. They are cheap and efficient.
4.If your just worried about the occasional storm or car hitting a pole. Then go with kerosene. They are cheap and several days worth of fuel can be stored easily.

So it really depends on what you feel is the level of preparedness required.


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## 7thswan (Nov 18, 2008)

Go get yourself a barrel kit. They can be used on a 55 gal. drum. Not sure but maybe can be used on a smaller one with a little adapt. In SHTF you could always vent it thru a window with regular pipe and a peice of metal covering the window opening with hole cut thru. Regular pipe is cheep, it's the triple wall that is expensive. You would have to be careful and use common sense, but it can be done. Oh ya get a damper for the pipe, to help regulate the heat.


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## NCLee (Aug 4, 2009)

I have one of these in my woodworking shop. 
http://www.vogelzang.com/browse.cfm/cast-iron-stoves/standard-boxwood-stove/4,13.html

I've had it and the accessory grate for about 10 years. Use it every winter. It puts out so much heat that it's almost too big for my shop. It can serve as my backup for the house if we ever have a very long term power outage. Although I've been giving some thought to getting one of the ventless propane once since we put in a gas stove in the kitchen.

BTW.... I paid $129 for the stove and $20 for the grate. Bought it at a local store - no freight. Couldn't believe how much they've gone up in price, since the last time I looked at their web site. 

Could have bought a box stove from a friend a few months ago for $50. Decided a few days later to buy it to put on our backporch. But, he'd already sold it. (groan) Mentioned that because you may be able to find something similar by checking around in your area.

Lee


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## RedTartan (May 2, 2006)

Okay. After careful deliberation, I've decided that the best fit for my needs is a direct vent natural gas fireplace that requires no electricity to turn on. 

My FIL will handle the gasline. How difficult is it to vent one of these? I plan on getting one that will vent right out the back.

Thanks for all your responses! They were all helpful and I looked into every single recommendation.


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## stanb999 (Jan 30, 2005)

RedTartan said:


> Okay. After careful deliberation, I've decided that the best fit for my needs is a direct vent natural gas fireplace that requires no electricity to turn on.
> 
> My FIL will handle the gasline. How difficult is it to vent one of these? I plan on getting one that will vent right out the back.
> 
> Thanks for all your responses! They were all helpful and I looked into every single recommendation.


Ahhh!!!

Won't direct vent require a fan. Get a ventless. They are the same cost.

P.S. Good choice. They are very reliable and cheap to run.


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## wyld thang (Nov 16, 2005)

do you have a chimney or stovepipe already in the house?

in our former house we had a fireplace. We bought a harbor frieght boxwood stove(small and simple, NOT airtight) for about 200$. we shoved it, without the legs, as far into the fireplace hole as we could, put bricks around it underneath to support it. We got a few feet of stove pipe to get the smoke going up the chimney. Then we filled in around the stove with bricks. It worked pretty well. You might have something like that you could jerry rig if SHTF. Of course be really careful about it!


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## Callieslamb (Feb 27, 2007)

I would forget about heating the house and heat yourself. Get a small propane heater and move it to where you are in the house. My parents used portable kerosene heaters in their house for years - for the rooms the wood furnace wasn't ducted to. They said their house was so drafty, they didn't need to worry about ventilation.


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## Cyngbaeld (May 20, 2004)

The thru the wall vented heaters do not need electricity to run.

If you have a standard stick built house, it is real easy to cut thru and install it. Your FIL most likely can do it or help with it.


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## pickapeppa (Jan 1, 2005)

You could take in local tent city residents each night for the extra body heat.


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## whodunit (Mar 29, 2004)

pickapeppa said:


> You could take in local tent city residents each night for the extra body heat.


Speaking of tents...seems I've heard someone say that setting up a small tent inside a house and using candles for heat works well. The idea is that you are heating just a very small space. I'm sure there are safety considerations with an open flame and of course, the rest of the house, and its water pipes, will go unheated.


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## NCLee (Aug 4, 2009)

Last time we had a power failure because of an ice storm, we took a different approach. Covered all the windows with quilts, blankets, bath towels according to the size of the windows. Just clipped them on with clothes pins, bankers clips, woodworking spring clamps -- whatever we had that fit the situation. That made a big difference in keeping heat in the house. 

Have a roll of 6 mil plastic in storage. Next time, we'll also make doorway "curtains" from it. Use painter's tape and thumb tacks to put it up. The center of our house has openings without doors between the living room, den, dinning and kitchen. There's no point in wasting heat for the living room and dinning room, since the den and kitchen are where we stay during the day. 

For the bedrooms we just put on a few extra quilts and blankets. Fortunately for us, outside temps at night haven't dipped low enough to freeze the pipes. However, we do open the cabinet doors where the sink is on an outside wall. (Well - no power, no water, so we can't leave the faucets dripping to prevent freezing.) 

Oh, one more thing that you may not have thought about when dealing with heating and power failures...... get yourself some thermal underwear!

Lee


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## ihedrick (May 15, 2005)

Something else to keep in mind in heating is keeping the water pipes warm enough so they don't freeze and break. I know from experience that if you put on some long johns, sweats and sleep under a heavy blanket; you will stay warm when temps hit 20's; just doesn't help the pipes any. Those pool "noodles" however are going to be in the clearance bin soon and make wonderful pipe insulators. But this is for the SHTF situation; not your day to day living.


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## NCLee (Aug 4, 2009)

With a SHTF situation, I'd bleed the lines and/or use RV food grade antifreeze. I use that to protect the lines/drains in our travel trailer. An air compressor can be used to help clear lines. For the RV I have an adapter to use with a compressor. 

As long as there's enough air space in the lines for the water to expand when it freezes, the lines won't be damaged. All the faucets have to be left open, head removed from the kitchen faucet sprayer, etc. Leaving the water exit points open allows the expanding ice to push out the air. 

This suggestion doesn't mean that in a deep freeze there won't be any damage. However, it will cut down on the potential for damage, and will lessen the damage that does happen. It's better to have to repair 1 burst pipe than it is to have to repair a bunch of them throughout the house. (That happened to my brother one time, when he was away from home and lost his heat.)

In our situation, we don't do anything special until the night time temp drops to below 25 for an extended period of time. A short period of 25 won't freeze water enough to cause damage. Anything below 25 in the forcast, we prep for winter. In a without power situation, so far we haven't had problems as long as the temps are in the 20's at night and are above freezing during the day. 

That's just our experience. Your's may be different for a number of reasons.

Lee


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## ChristyACB (Apr 10, 2008)

ihedrick said:


> Something else to keep in mind in heating is keeping the water pipes warm enough so they don't freeze and break. I know from experience that if you put on some long johns, sweats and sleep under a heavy blanket; you will stay warm when temps hit 20's; just doesn't help the pipes any. Those pool "noodles" however are going to be in the clearance bin soon and make wonderful pipe insulators. But this is for the SHTF situation; not your day to day living.


Tell me more about the pool noodles and insulating pipes, please.

We don't get substantially below freezing here often, but I have a 4 foot crawlspace for the flooding issue and it gets super cold down there fast when it does. I'd like to create some insurance for those pipes if at all possible. I did run my ducting down below the house...which I know makes my heating bill a tad higher, but in a pinch, I can also keep the temp up there a little so long as power is on.


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## Callieslamb (Feb 27, 2007)

In a real SHTF situation, it would bear thinking about just draining the pipes so you don't have to worry about them freezing. This is our plan. We can keep some of them heated, but not all of them. We can do with just one bathroom in an emergency and maybe even without the kitchen sink if we had the bathroom. It would cost way too much in gas or propane to heat the entire house if we weren't sure there was going to be any more propane.


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## Cyngbaeld (May 20, 2004)

Hardware stores carry foam pipe insulation, similar to the noodles, just pop it on the pipe. If you have a regular problem with pipes freezing, put heat tape on the pipes under the insulation.


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## GREENCOUNTYPETE (Jul 25, 2006)

i went with a air tite wood stove , installed in my living room i heat the house with it at least 75% of the time i keep the furnace (fule oil) set for 58-65 depending on how cold it is ot side warmer if it is colder as it takes more time to recover from letting teh stove go out in the middle of the night so i can clean it out before starting the fire the next morning at 5 am it actualy still has hot embers in it but i scrape them to one side and remove as much ash as i can 

as for pipes if you don't already have one have you FIL help you install a valve to drain the system at the lowest point you can get to then when there is concern of frezzing turn off the water open the drain valve and turn on all the faucets in the house it should drian enough to be safe , just leave it open , then a few jugs of rv anti freeze to pour in the toilet and toilet tank and drains just enough to keep the traps from freezing 

the next quesion is the hot water heater to drain or not to drain first make sure the breaker is off if it is electric or turn down to just pilot if gas the breaker is off so that if the power comes on before the water no damage is done 

if it is a gas the pilot should be enought to keep it from freezing if it ia in a basment that is not to drafty 
electric you may opt to drain but the valve can stick or leak if not opened and closed regularly if it is well insualted and in the basment it will brobably be fine for a day or 2 if that is all the longer you expect it to be out btu watch the basment temp if it goes to 30 it is time to drain


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## unregistered29228 (Jan 9, 2008)

Callieslamb said:


> In a real SHTF situation, it would bear thinking about just draining the pipes so you don't have to worry about them freezing. This is our plan. We can keep some of them heated, but not all of them. We can do with just one bathroom in an emergency and maybe even without the kitchen sink if we had the bathroom. It would cost way too much in gas or propane to heat the entire house if we weren't sure there was going to be any more propane.


We always drained our pipes too - especially when we lived up North. We've got a kerosene heater we used if the power/heat was out. Not ideal, but works fine in a pinch. We all sleep in one room with the heater (window cracked to avoid carbon monoxide poisoning).


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## soulsurvivor (Jul 4, 2004)

We use a woodstove to heat, especially when the temps are freezing. We leave the lower cabinet doors open so that the heat can keep the pipes warmed coming into the house. All the pipes outside are up next to the floor in a crawlspace and there's one outdoor spigot that we cover with an insulating jacket. 

In the 31 years we've been here, we've never had a pipe to freeze, even in substained temps to below freezing. That's likely due to the fact that we have an old Warm Morning woodstove that's too big for this small house. We're some of the few people that have to wear shorts inside during freezing outside temps because our stove keeps the house too warm even with windows open.


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## stanb999 (Jan 30, 2005)

You southerns are soft when it comes to cold.

When it's gets down to 20....... It's nice when the temps get up to 20 for the high of the day. This past winter I found the temperature at which I no longer sweat doing chores, -5. Course when it gets to 50F I'm down to just shorts and a t shirt. Then when it gets to 70 I'm dieing.


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## ihedrick (May 15, 2005)

ChristyABC the pool noodles are just like the foam ones you get at the hardware store for pipe insulation; except at the end of summer you can find them on freecycle or for a buck at the chainstores like walmart, kmart, etc. Just take a sharp knife and cut a slit to slip it over the pipe. If you don't have the noodles; you can take most any other type of insulating item and wrap around the pipes. May not be pretty, but it will function. You can also line up bales of straw or hay around your house and that will block some of the cold off the pipes.


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## Spinner (Jul 19, 2003)

How much power does the thermostat require? Is it possible a battery in the attic with a solar panel to keep it charged might make the heater work when the power is out? That could be a temporary fix for short outages, but you really need to work on getting a permanent source of alternate heat such as a wood stove. 

Have you checked at the farm stores in the area? Maybe put a wanted ad on the bulletin boards at them. An inexpensive way to get a chimney built is to inquire at a local vo-tech that has a masonry class. Talk to the instructor and ask him to recommend the best students, then talk to them. Get a couple estimates first. Around here a pro wants $2600 to build a chimney, a guy from vo-tech offered to build the same chimney for $500.


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## Ernie (Jul 22, 2007)

RedTartan said:


> My house has no fireplace and no wood stove. I have a gas furnace that requires electricity to turn on.
> 
> Is there anyway to manually turn on my furnace bypassing the electric stuff?
> 
> ...


Put in a wood stove. It's not hard to do. I did it for under $1000 and there are smaller models of wood stoves that run you under $500. If your spouse is less picky about appearances than mine, you could probably do the whole thing for only a couple of hundred.


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## chronic66 (Feb 19, 2005)

For two hundred dollars or less plus gas pipe, put in a ventless gas wall mounted heater, put one in basement and one upstairs if you want. You will be warm as toast till the gas runs out! Very, very efficient. We have heated our home with this setup for the last two years. Actually one is a fireplace insert ventless of course.


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## mpillow (Jan 24, 2003)

stanb999 said:


> You southerns are soft when it comes to cold.
> 
> When it's gets down to 20....... It's nice when the temps get up to 20 for the high of the day. This past winter I found the temperature at which I no longer sweat doing chores, -5. Course when it gets to 50F I'm down to just shorts and a t shirt. Then when it gets to 70 I'm dieing.


At 80 I'm nekid in the kiddie pool..

Okay so here's my take....

A woodstove will cost you more probably with proper chimney and hearth than a vented propane heater BUT!

A woodstove can be cooked on, a woodstove will dry your laundry, a woodstove will melt ice/snow for water necessities, it will boil water to make it drinkable...and you'll truly be much warmer.

I will always have a woodstove ALWAYS!


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## stanb999 (Jan 30, 2005)

mpillow said:


> At 80 I'm nekid in the kiddie pool..


But I bet them southerners don't expect that pool temp. to be in the low 60's. Like 62.


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## RedTartan (May 2, 2006)

ELDONATOR said:


> For two hundred dollars or less plus gas pipe, put in a ventless gas wall mounted heater, put one in basement and one upstairs if you want. You will be warm as toast till the gas runs out! Very, very efficient. We have heated our home with this setup for the last two years. Actually one is a fireplace insert ventless of course.


Ok. Here's another question you've reminded me of: What do you mean, until the gas runs out? I'm hooked directly to a well, does that mean my gas won't run out? Am I better off that those that get their gas from the gas company, or worse off?

My husband reminded me that we do sort of have a heat source. We have a gas cooktop on our island. It has an electric ignition, but when the electricity is out, we can still light it with a match. In a pinch, couldn't we put a big pot of water on to boil/simmer for heat? My husband wonders if there's some kind of metal surround to put on a gas burner to turn it into a legitimate heat source? Has anyone ever heard of such a thing?

So glad you guys are here to answer newbie questions :buds:


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## pickapeppa (Jan 1, 2005)

whodunit said:


> Speaking of tents...seems I've heard someone say that setting up a small tent inside a house and using candles for heat works well. The idea is that you are heating just a very small space. I'm sure there are safety considerations with an open flame and of course, the rest of the house, and its water pipes, will go unheated.


I did that in the greenhouse/chicken coop this last winter with a little space heater. You wouldn't believe how warm it got in there, and stayed warm. On the coldest days, they would take turns warming up next to the heater and taking dust baths in the planters full of dirt.


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