Modern home heating is effective, efficient, and comfortable. But what happens when the power goes out? All modern heating systems require electricity to operate. My house is 100% electric so when the power goes out the heating system doesn't work. Natural gas and home heating oil burners are also controlled by electrical components. No electricity and they don't operate either.
One solution is to have a battery back-up or a generator to provide that needed power. It won't work on a 100% electric house like mine, the power requirements are too high, I would require a very powerful, whole-house back-up generator set-up. Those are quite expensive. But if you have coal, oil, or natural gas as your heat source, you can get by with a fairly small amount of battery back-up.
Gas and oil furnaces need some electric, but not much. You can operate them off of a car battery, the battery from your boat's trolling motor, even the battery from your lawn tractor. Click on this link to see how easy it is to do. (88) Did You Know You Can Heat Your Home With A Car Battery? - YouTube
You need three things: 1. A 12-volt battery. 2. A DC (Direct Current) to AC (Alternating Current) inverter. 3. An electric cord rated for the amps of your furnace.
Notes: The bigger the battery, as measured in amp-hours or watt-hours, the better. You will want a DC to AC inverter of at least 600 watts (I would go with 800 watts as a minimum, but they get more and more expensive as they get bigger. Check the label on your furnace to see how many watts and amps it draws.). You probably don't need to buy an electric cord; most likely you have some un-used ones laying around from broken appliances or computers. But they need to be thick, heavy duty cords.
If you live in an area where the power might be out for extended periods of time, you'll need a means to recharge your battery every two or three days. The best way is to have two batteries so that you can use one while the other is being charged. To recharge your battery, re-install it in your car and run the car for 20-30 minutes. This presumes that you didn't totally discharge the battery to where it won't crank your car engine. If you recharge it every other day, it shouldn't be a problem.
Alternately, you can buy and install a small 12-volt solar panel to charge the battery. I keep a tractor, with a snowplow mounted on it in the winter, out in a shed. On very cold days, the battery has a hard time starting the diesel motor. To keep it fully charged, I bought a 15-watt solar panel that has alligator clamps that connects directly to the battery. No charge controller is required for a low-wattage panel such as this. In direct sun, this panel will charge a nearly dead battery in three hours. If you have an access point, you could run the cable inside from outside and continuously charge the battery as it is being used.
Above is a small selection from Amazon but these panels are sold in lots of places such as Northern Tools and Harbor Freight. For the purpose of emergency backup power, I would go with a minimum of 30-watts since winter days are short and you never know how much sun will be available.
So, the above information is how to power your furnace. But what do you do if you have electric heat, like I do? It would take a very expensive to buy, and access to a lot of fuel to run, whole-house generator to operate the electric heating elements. For these houses, you will need to have some sort of a combustion heat source. In my case, I installed a wood-burning stove in my living room. I had an existing fireplace, but they are next to worthless for providing heat, Better than nothing, to be sure, but very inefficient. I bought a small woodstove, with an internal blower, and inserted it into the fireplace opening. It will heat the room without the blower operating but it is most effective and efficient with the blower operating; that requires electricity.
Several years ago, we lost power during a snowstorm and the power was out for five days. Outside temperatures were well below freezing. I got the trolling motor battery out of my dad's boat, connected a 400-watt inverter, and ran my woodstove's blower fan for five days (off and on, not continuously). We were also able to run a box fan at the hallway entrance to the living room to move warm air into the rest of the house. We were able to maintain the house at 65 degrees the whole time with this simple set-up.
After that experience, I decided to buy an Ecoflow solar generator with 400-watts of solar panels to keep it charged. There are many companies making these solar generators now. Do your own market research and buy the best system you can afford. My unit has a 1,300 watt-hours of power storage capacity and with the panels I can keep it charged indefinitely. My emergency essential power needs are fairly low but yours might be higher. These systems come in all sizes and price ranges. Watch for sales. I recently bought a 7,200-watt hours system at 55% off the normal list price. That is enough power to keep my home going for many days, even without recharging. But I will buy some used solar panels to keep it charged.
Worst case scenario: You have no power, and you have no means to generate power and you don't have a fireplace or woodstove, how can you keep warm? The best way is to select the smallest room in your house or apartment and congregate there. Human bodies generate heat and getting all your heat into one smaller space will help to warm it up. Bring all your blankets to that room, maybe also enough mattresses so everyone can lie down to sleep and not be on the cold floor. If you don't have a small space (think open floor plans), you can divide off a smaller space with excess blankets, tarps, drop cloths, whatever you have. Remember making forts inside the house when you were a kid? Now that experience can save your life. Use a tent if you have one. Set it up and get everyone inside. Unscented candles are a great source of warmth for small spaces. Place one inside a can or cook pot or something to prevent it from being blown out or coming in contact with people or things that burn. An upside-down terra cotta flowerpot works well so long as there is a wide drain hole on the bottom for air.
There are also indoors safe propane heaters such as the "Mr. Buddy Heater". You should still crack a window to reduce the buildup of carbon monoxide. They work nice, but they go through a lot of fuel.
Gather your supplies BEFORE you need them. Store them in a convenient place. Inspect them every year.
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