Now that the winter months are upon us, we need to be prepared for power outages. How do you stay warm if the power goes out during a cold winter storm? Here are some points to consider:
Move to One Room
Instead of trying to heat the whole house, focus your attention on heating just one room of the house. Everyone’s body heat in one room is a great help to keeping everyone warm. Try to pick a room that gets a lot of natural sunlight and has a heating source. Ideally, you would pick a windowed room on the southwest side of your home.
“We’re Not Heating the Neighborhood!”
Like your parents yelled at you as a kid, “We’re not trying to heat the neighborhood!” Try to plug up all those leaks where the heat is seeping out of the room. Stuff towels and small blankets into window sills, door frames and other areas where the heat is leaking out.
Shower Curtains Over Windows
You’ll want to keep heat in your room but still allow natural light to enter the room from a window.
A great way to help you do that is with a shower curtain.
Remove the shower curtain from the bathroom - without power no one is going to want to take a cold shower anyways. Carefully tape or attach the clear shower curtain to the wall so that natural light can come through the curtain but it prevents hot air from leaving through the window.
Rugs or Carpet
Make sure that heat isn’t escaping through the floor either. Take rugs and mats from around the home and lay them down in your room. Add a few layers between you and the cold floor.
Tents in the Living Room
A great idea that we have seen is to set up tents inside your living room. One family had a tent for the boys and a tent for the girls. This trapped in the heat to an even more confined area inside their living room.
Put on a Hat
“[The] reason we lose heat through our head is because most of the time when we’re … in the cold, we’re clothed,” said Richard Ingebretsen, adjunct instructor at the University of Utah School of Medicine. “If you don’t have a hat on, you lose heat through your head, just as you would lose heat through your legs if you were wearing shorts.”
Leave During the Day
You don’t want your home to become a cold dungeon. Make the family go outside and soak up the rays during the day. Obviously, if there is a winter storm, you’ll have to stay indoors. But make the house a warm location to return to at the end of the day instead of a cold jail.
Eat Before You Go To Bed
By eating before you go to bed, your body will be digesting during the night time - keeping you a little warmer than normal as you sleep.
A great way to help you do that is with a shower curtain. Remove the shower curtain from the bathroom - without power no one is going to want to take a cold shower anyways. Carefully tape or attach the clear shower curtain to the wall so that natural light can come through the curtain but it prevents hot air from leaving through the window.
Rugs or Carpet
Make sure that heat isn’t escaping through the floor either. Take rugs and mats from around the home and lay them down in your room. Add a few layers between you and the cold floor.
Tents in the Living Room
A great idea that we have seen is to set up tents inside your living room. One family had a tent for the boys and a tent for the girls. This trapped in the heat to an even more confined area inside their living room.
Put on a Hat
“[The] reason we lose heat through our head is because most of the time when we’re … in the cold, we’re clothed,” said Richard Ingebretsen, adjunct instructor at the University of Utah School of Medicine. “If you don’t have a hat on, you lose heat through your head, just as you would lose heat through your legs if you were wearing shorts.”
Leave During the Day
You don’t want your home to become a cold dungeon. Make the family go outside and soak up the rays during the day. Obviously, if there is a winter storm, you’ll have to stay indoors. But make the house a warm location to return to at the end of the day instead of a cold jail.
Eat Before You Go To Bed
By eating before you go to bed, your body will be digesting during the night time - keeping you a little warmer than normal as you sleep.