Outage living is a seasonal subject wearing two coats: the January question (how do we stay warm) and the August one (how do we sleep in this heat). These are the questions people actually ask in forums when the forecast turns — each with the short answer here and the full math on its own page where one exists. This shelf hangs off our Home Readiness hub, under the master page What People Are Asking When the Power Goes Out.
Winter questions
Can a generator run my heat pump in a winter outage?
Only the big class can, and only with help: a 3-ton heat pump runs around 3,500 watts but can surge past 15,000 watts starting, so it takes a roughly 9,000–12,500 watt generator plus a soft starter — and the electric heat strips have to stay off. If the house also has a gas furnace, running just its blower (about 500 watts) on a modest station is the cheaper winter answer.
Can a power station run my furnace blower?
Yes — and it’s the cheapest winter win most owners miss. Most gas furnace blowers draw roughly 300–800 watts, and the furnace only runs part of each hour, so a 2,000 watt-hour station can carry a house’s heat through a night or more in all but deep cold. The catches are the plug (many furnaces are hardwired) and being honest about duty cycle, both of which the full page works through.
Backup power for a small house heated by mini-splits
Electric heat changes the math, but a mini-split is the friendliest version of it: a 12,000 BTU unit draws about 1,000–1,300 watts flat out and can idle down to a few hundred on its low stage. A small house (the asker had 650 sq ft and two heads) can heat one zone on a mid-size generator — it just spends most of the fuel budget doing it, so the plan is one warm room, not the whole house.
Winter heat, in watts
Heat pump (3-ton) — runs around 3,500 W but can surge past 15,000 W starting: a roughly 9,000–12,500 W generator plus a soft starter, and the heat strips stay off
Furnace blower — gas furnace blowers draw roughly 300–800 W and run only part of each hour, so a 2,000 Wh station can carry a house’s heat through a night or more
Mini-split (12,000 BTU) — about 1,000–1,300 W flat out, idling down to a few hundred on its low stage: heat one zone, not the whole house
How do I keep the house warm in a winter power outage, safely?
Shrink the house to one room, hang blankets over its doorways, dress in layers indoors, and let body heat and cooking heat work for you. The safety line is absolute: no charcoal, no gas oven as a heater, and any fuel-burning heater needs ventilation and a working carbon monoxide detector in the room.
Covered in: When the power goes out: the six problems every house has to solve
Can I run a propane Buddy heater or a kerosene heater indoors in an outage?
The two get different verdicts. A Buddy-style heater is indoor-rated by its maker, with an oxygen-depletion sensor — use it with a window cracked, a CO detector in the room, and clear space around it. Kerosene heaters are the harder sell: many fire services advise against indoor use outright, and the fuel smell and tipping risk come free. Our order: passive warmth first, the rated propane heater second, kerosene last.
Covered in: When the power goes out: the six problems every house has to solve
Can I heat the house with the gas stove or oven?
No. An oven run for heat fills the room with combustion byproducts including carbon monoxide, and both manufacturers and fire services say plainly not to do it. Cook on the stove, briefly, as cooking — then turn it off. This is the one outage improvisation with a body count.
Covered in: When the power goes out: the six problems every house has to solve
Staying warm: the safety lines
Shrink the house — one warm room, blankets over its doorways, layers indoors; let body heat and cooking heat work for you
Never for heat — no charcoal, and no gas oven run as a heater: combustion byproducts include carbon monoxide. This is the one outage improvisation with a body count
Buddy-style propane — indoor-rated by its maker, with an oxygen-depletion sensor: window cracked, a CO detector in the room, clear space around it
Kerosene — last in the order: many fire services advise against indoor use outright
Summer questions
Summer outage with no AC: how do you keep the house — and the people — cool?
In order: shade the sun-side windows, flush the house with night air, then defend one cool room with a fan (about 50–100 watts) or a small window unit (a 5,000 BTU air conditioner draws roughly 450 watts — about 3–4 hours on a 2,000 watt-hour station). The people part matters more than the house part: heat illness climbs fast for babies, older adults, and anyone on certain medications, and “toughing it out” is not a plan for them.
The question behind the questions
Fridge rose 40→50°F, freezer 2→17°F by 6 a.m. in a 12-hour blackout — when do food temps become a problem?
Perishable food held above 40°F for more than about two hours is the USDA’s discard line — so a fridge at 50°F by morning means the milk, meat, and leftovers go, however cold they feel. The freezer at 17°F is the happier story: food there stayed frozen or near it, and most of it survives. The staging lesson from that same post: the gear only counts if it’s charged, findable, and plugged in before bed.
Covered in: When the power goes out: the six problems every house has to solve
Money questions
How much cash should I keep at home for emergencies?
Europe’s governments now name a figure — the Netherlands advises €70 (about $78) per adult plus €30 (about $33) per child for 72 hours of failed card payments, and Sweden aims at a full week. Ready.gov names no amount at all. Priced out for a US household, three days of essential cash spending lands near $300 and a week near $500 — kept somewhere that survives fire and water.
What denominations should emergency cash be in?
Small bills, weighted toward fives, nothing over a twenty. For a $300 stash: twenty $1s, twenty-two $5s, eight $10s, four $20s and a $10 roll of quarters — a mix built around the change problem, because in a cash-only line the person who can pay close to exact is the person who gets served.
Emergency cash: how much, in what bills
The stash — about $300 covers three days of essential cash spending; about $500 covers a full week
The $300 mix — twenty $1s, twenty-two $5s, eight $10s, four $20s, and a $10 roll of quarters (the mix sums to exactly $300: $20 + $110 + $80 + $80 in bills, plus the $10 coin roll)
Why small bills — nothing over a twenty: in a cash-only line, the person who can pay close to exact is the person who gets served
What happens if card payments go down?
Your money is still yours — you just cannot reach it. Terminals and ATMs both need power and a network, so the cash that spends is the cash already in the house: about $300 in small bills covers roughly three days of essentials for most households. The layered backup behind it is physical cards on two different networks, with their PINs known, plus a phone payment route that runs on different rails.
The duration question
If the Pentagon is preparing for 90 days, how many days should a family prepare for?
Not 90. The FORTRESS programme for military bases is confirmed; the 90-day figure comes from unpublished documents Fox reviewed and the Pentagon has not confirmed — and bases have fuel farms and supply chains a house does not. Household guidance tops out far lower: 3 days in US federal and new UK advice, a week in Sweden, 10 days in Germany, and 14 days in Oregon, Hawaii, and Washington. For a family of four, 14 days is 56 gallons of water and 112,000 calories; 90 days is 360 gallons and 720,000 — the math itself is the answer.
How many days should a family prepare for? — the household numbers top out at two weeks
US federal and UK advice — 3 days
Sweden — 7 days · Germany — 10 days
Oregon, Hawaii, Washington — 14 days
Military bases (reported) — 90 days
For a family of four, 14 days is 56 gallons of water and 112,000 calories; 90 days is 360 gallons and 720,000. The 90-day figure comes from documents Fox reviewed and has not been confirmed — and bases have fuel farms a house does not. The math itself is the answer.
Communication questions
What radio station or channel do you listen to in a blackout?
There is no single channel. Weather warnings live on NOAA Weather Radio — seven channels from 162.400 to 162.550 MHz, one of them your county’s transmitter, with SAME codes so the radio only sounds for your county. Local emergency news lives on your regular AM and FM stations through the Emergency Alert System, and family talk lives on licence-free FRS channels 1–22. The full chart puts all of it in tune-to order.
How does a family reach each other when cell service is down?
With a plan written down first: one out-of-area contact everybody texts — texts slip through congestion that voice calls cannot — two meeting places, and FRS radios on one agreed family channel with check-ins on the hour. The one-card plan, its charging rules, and the GMRS licence facts ($35, no test) are on the full page.
What is the best communication if the grid goes down?
In layers: a weather radio for information, FRS handsets for the neighbourhood, and — only where the outage is regional or family is spread across dead zones — a satellite communicator, which texts through satellites and ignores the local network entirely. Every satellite device needs an active subscription to work at all; our comparison scores the Garmin inReach Messenger (88), Mini 2 (85), ZOLEO (82), and GPSMAP 67i (79) on battery, weight, and phone dependence.
Communication, in layers
Weather information — NOAA Weather Radio: seven channels from 162.400 to 162.550 MHz, with SAME codes so the radio only sounds for your county
Local news — your regular AM and FM stations, through the Emergency Alert System
The family plan — one out-of-area contact everybody texts, two meeting places, FRS radios on one agreed channel, check-ins on the hour
The licence step-up — GMRS facts, including the $35 licence with no test, are on the family-reach page
The regional layer — a satellite communicator texts through satellites and ignores the local network, and needs an active subscription to work at all
The 72-hour kit
What should be in a 72-hour emergency kit for a family of 4?
Twelve gallons of water and about 24,000 calories — 36 meals that need no fridge and little or no cooking — plus light for the rooms you sit in, a weather radio, phone charging, three days of everyone’s medicines, a blanket each, documents, and $300 in small bills. Counted line by line, sized for two adults and two kids, and stored in one or two bins the whole house can find in the dark.
How we answer
Ordinary Prepper is a research desk, not a test lab: we do not claim hands-on testing. Heating and cooling figures come from manufacturer specs and standard load references; food timelines are USDA guidance; safety verdicts follow manufacturers and fire-service guidance, stated plainly even when the plain answer is “don’t.”