Saw a post recently where somene tried heating their home during a power outage by snaking a garden hose thru home connected to their hot water tank, dumping the presumedly cool water in their bathtub and running it slowly. kinda ingenious emergency raiant floor heating.
I wonder how well this would work? my furnace is a 40 year old lennox
130,000 BTU my curren hot water tank is 75,000 BTU.
live in pittsburgh, where it might be below 20 or even zero on occasion:(
would it be better to spread the hose thruout the home or concentrate in basement since heat rises? mine is 2 storys with basement.
probably best to close off most rooms and just keep some warm.
I have a emergency generator but believe in always be prepared;)
If your furnace is 40 years old and in a basement, it may run without electric. Open the filter door and see if there are emergency instructions. I assumed it's forced hot air?
yeahforced air but no way to do this safely with this model, valves cant be opened manually and a good friend says it would crack the heat exchanger. besides were talking of getting a new furnace since we recently paid off the home.
i am mst curious about the garden hose heater or me its a brand new idea
But if they do spring a leak, you've got wet floors, no power to run a fan to dry them and possibly cold enough temps so you'll have ice
*inside* the house as well as outside.
And therefore the sooner it will cool off.
And possibly a dangerous one. At a minimum I wouldn't leave the hose spread out if I had to leave the house. I think I'll opt out on this idea.
nothe goal would be to remain in your home, assuming a decent non leaking hose to start i doubt leaks would be a problem, since the water would be flowing not really under much pressure
You might look for a way to use the "waste heat" (80% of the output.)
... 100' of 1" diameter hose (ie 26 ft^2) and a 1.5 Btu/h-F-ft^2 slow- moving airfilm conductance might move (120-70)26x1.5 = 1950 Btu/h with
120 F water and 70 F house air. An 800 Btu/h-F automobile radiator might move (120-70)800 = 40K Btu/h. It would be more efficient to pump water back into the heater than to dump it down a tub drain.
Someone did this in NY during a power failure. It was reported on the radio. There are some companies who make tubes, to install hot water into the floor. Wirsbo comes to mind. You'll have to experement to see what works for you.
My guess is that this will not keep your home comfortably warm -- just barely warm maybe.
Christopher A. Young You can't shout down a troll. You have to starve them. .
I wonder how well this would work? my furnace is a 40 year old lennox
130,000 BTU my curren hot water tank is 75,000 BTU.
live in pittsburgh, where it might be below 20 or even zero on occasion:(
would it be better to spread the hose thruout the home or concentrate in basement since heat rises? mine is 2 storys with basement.
probably best to close off most rooms and just keep some warm.
I have a emergency generator but believe in always be prepared;)
A neighbor tried it and found it to be a waste of water. A kerosene heater is a good idea. They also provide heat if your furnace breaks! My wife doesn't care for the smell, but I don't notice it.
Seriously though..best to close off the house and heat one room. That can be done easily enough in a myriad of ways.
Never try to warm the entire house..aint gonna be any easy way to do it without some seriously bit BTUs
Gunner
Political Correctness
A doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical liberal minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.
in buffalo ny: we had 9 days no power in october 2006 wet 24" snowstorm. i never played with garden hose heating; i think your bathtubs and washtubs and gas stove will prove more powerful. we have our 50 gallon natural gas water heater at 175 degrees F. [but don't burn your little kids]. arrange your hot showers with the bathroom door open to warm and humidify the house. when you run out of squeaky clean occupants use the shower to fill the tub with HOT water, turning it into a big radiator. oven won't operate? start boiling spaghetti pots full of water for heat and humidity [and food]. [gee, that microwave popcorn will suddenly become less poppable.] electric coffee maker will also be at rest, like the can opener. use the natural gas stove [but not when sleeping or away from home] as if it is roasting a turkey, with a nearby window opened for oxygen replacement. is your gas stove is too new-fangled? right now check it out: electrically unplug it: then light the oven pilot manually [may take 45 seconds] to stay lit and relight the main burner to cycle the turkey's
400 degree oven. or install a millivolt gas direct vented wall heater to be a safe secondary source of 24-hour heat. [never an unvented one because in practical occasional use nobody wants to open a window in winter for proper combustion as they require.] find the snowsuits. find extra blankets. you will run out of working flashlights within the first day like we did, and be surprised to find out that C and D batteries have vanished from store shelves along with most flashlights in town. put the food ouside the house if it's below
40F there. use ziploc bags of packed fresh snow for your indoor coolers and refrigerators. now: buy more blankets.
Spring and summer are the good times to score snowmobile and decent insulated ski suits from the Goodwill etc, along with mummy bags and x-country skis. If ya get snowed in..you can be quite mobile with a pair of used Cross Country skis and "shoes", picked up at the second hand store for $5 (dont forget the ski poles of a proper length). Even if you havent used x-country skis before..they are simple enough when on the flat.
Coleman stoves and lanterns are also found regularly at secondhand stores and swap meets/yard sales. Test em and be sure to replace the generators on them if they show any sign of acting up, and keep a couple dozen mantles on hand with some stick matches. WHile Coleman type fuel is prefered..any gasoline lantern will actually work ok with automotive fuel Just dont store them with automotive gas in them, else it turns to goo and plugs up everything over time..and not a long time either.
A Coleman lantern will do a fair job of heating a single average sized room for at least 6 hours on a few ounces of fuel. Same with the Coleman 2 and 3 burner liguid fuel stoves, which hold about 8 ounces of liquid fuel at a time, and allow you to cook as well as warm up a room.
They do generate some CO..so keep some ventelation going.
Gunner
Political Correctness
A doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical liberal minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.
Why would the water be cool? Unless the WH is broken it will be hot.
But a hose won't radiate much heat. Better to stop the tub and run the shower until the tub is 3/4 full. The steam will humidify the air in the house and give a much greater feeling of comfort than the heat from the same amount of water.
You should be there while the shower runs, because the overflow is totally insufficient to actually drain overfllowing water. It will run over your tub and through the floor to the stuff below. Many overflows seem to do almost nothing at all.
I say 3/4 to allow room for you to make a mistake of a minute or two.
After youturn off the water, let the hot water sit in the tub until it is cold. That will release heat and humidity also.
You can also boil water on your stove, gas or electric. It takes an hour a gallon or something like that to evaporate water, once it is boiling. I forget, but you can figure it out. If you let the pot boil dry, you may well damage the pot, but you probably won't start a fire unless there is some othe factor I can't foresee.
It won't work well at all. But I have on numerous occaions heated my apartment in Brooklyn, NY, and later my two story 1400 sq. ft. home in Maryland that way. It can make a 50 degree house feel like at least
60 degrees. And that is only one bathtub of water per night. And almost never the stove and bathtub on the same night. I didn't do more because I figure there is a limit to what humidity can do, but I'm not sure the limit isn't higher than what I did.
Also wear a lot of clothes, a t-shirt, shirt, sweater, and jacket if necessary. Sleep with your clothes on including socks, and get an electric blanket. Every blanket I've had was warm on a setting of 1 out of 10 and hot at 2 out of ten. I don't know what 7 or 8 would be like. If you can't tell if the blanket is heating, fold it a few times and let it sit for 5 minutes. Then you wiilll be able to feel the heat. Don't leave it folded liek that.
An electric or kerosen space heaters if necessary, but I've been too cheap to use those. I figure when I'm cold, I'm losing weight.
Of course.
An emergency generator won't help if the furnace is broken. I've only once lost heat because I lost electricity. But I've lost heat because the furnace, either the landlord's or mine, was broken on several occaiosns.
To give my house a bigger look, they put no doors on any first floor room or on any part of the stairs, so the basment club room, the living room, dining room, kitchen, hall, and upstairs hall are all connected. I could retreat to one room, but it hasn't been necessary yet. It would also cut me off from the bathtub steam.
There was one time when we had no electricity for I think 3 or 4 days, and I was starting to call peopel for a place to stay. Unfortunately most of my friends didn't have electricity either. Just when I was really feeling cold, the power came back on.
You have to have a source of fresh air if you are burning kerosene or propane, and I'mnot sure how big a source. Once for a friend, Icouldn't decide and I was afraid she'd lose more heat out the window than the propane heater would make. Any advice on that?
This is stupid. You wont get enough heat out of a hose.
Here's a better plan. Drive your car thru the front of your house, so only the front of the car is inside the house. Liberally apply duct tape between the vehicles body and the remains of your house walls to seal any gaps. Leave the car run. The cars radiator and cooling fan will divert the engines heat into your home keeping you comfortably warm.
Note: (Even if you are a republican, you must apply the duct tape LIBERALLY).
Unless you are using a "flash heater", once the hot water is used up..the "make up time"..the time the hot water heater needs to reheat the 25-60 gallons in it..is rather long.
Gunner
Political Correctness
A doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical liberal minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.
Humidity is highly overrated. A bedroom is a good place to lager up, particularly one with a bathroom Heat rises..second story is good, though a case can be made for basement, with its natural surrounding heat sump.
Sure. Open a window about 1/2" or so...this of course only if your window opens vertically. The sliders need less of a gap than that. If you notice a headache coming on..open it a bit more.
On the other hand...a very GOOD investment is one of those First Alert CO detectors that can run off batteries when the power is off. I have one in each area of my house. It comes in handy no matter what, in the winter time. One can have a leak in the firebox or heat exchanger during normal times and get monoxided without knowing about it. Smoke detectors and CO detectors are part of the Normal preparations a survivalist needs.
I should mention..I grew up in the Copper Country of northern Michigan..up in the way upper part of the upper peninsula..that little finger of land sticking up with Lake Superior on both sides of it. Average snow fall being 144"...12 feet and the average mid winter temps around -20F on a warm day.
Been there, done that.
Gunner
Political Correctness
A doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical liberal minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.
Actually..a very bad idea. Cooling fans on cars are designed to pull air IN from the front of the car..and exhaust it out the back via the underside. So you would be sucking all the warm air from inside the house and using it to cool the engine, then exhausting it outside.
You would be better served to Back it onto the wall, to the front support posts, then taping all your vacuum cleaner hoses together and stucking them on the exhaust pipe and routing the end of the hose outside.
But remember when wrapping the hoses and the car with duct tape..only wrap to the Right.
Political Correctness
A doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical liberal minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.
Maybe that was your impression, but I have many occasions when humidity made the place feel at least 10 degrees warmer than it actually was. And I've never had any of the bad side effects, like water dripping off of things, that others warn about.
On the main occasion, it was an old person who I didnt' trust to keep track. IIRC, he had headaches all the time to begin with. :(
I think CO detectors are good things. Mine woke me up once with its noise, and it was a good thing. Another 24 hours and I might have been dead. And of course another 6 hours of CO and I might have been able to sleep for another 24 hours.
Political Correctness, a policy of not crapping on people because they are different, especially not doing so in public.
A policy of not calling someone a n***er, etc. even if that is the way you feel about him.
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