Cold & Wet · 1 hour · Basic
Use the Cold as Your Freezer (and Stop Your Water Freezing)
Turn an outage freeze into an advantage for food storage — while keeping your drinking water and batteries liquid and alive.
This is for educational purposes only. Not professional medical, electrical, or safety advice.
- 01
Build an outdoor cold box
A cooler or sturdy box on the shaded north side of the house, packed with food and topped with a blanket. Check the temperature inside, not the air outside — sun and wind make it unreliable.
- 02
Measure food temperature
Keep refrigerated perishables at 40°F or below and track any time above that temperature. Outdoor air is not reliable refrigeration: sunlight and temperature swings can warm food. Follow the official outage discard chart rather than trying to eat or preserve unsafe food.
- 03
Use a controlled cold source
Prefer a closed refrigerator, freezer or cooler with sufficient ice and a thermometer. Outdoor freezing is not a reliable storage plan. Thaw food in a refrigerator or another USDA-approved method, not in an unmeasured cool room.
- 04
Keep drinking water liquid
Bring jugs inside, off the concrete, wrapped in blankets in a box. A frozen jug isn't drinkable until you burn fuel melting it — plan for that before it happens.
- 05
Keep batteries and phones warm
Lithium batteries can lose a third to a half of their capacity in hard cold and recharge poorly when frozen. Keep spares against your body in an inside pocket; warm a dead-looking battery before judging it.
- 06
Don't store food where animals dig
Hungry wildlife and rodents find a cooler in a night. Anchor it, weight it, or keep it in a sealed outbuilding.