Cold & Wet · 2 hours · Basic
Heat One Room and Keep It Warm
Stop trying to heat a whole house with no power. Gather into one insulated room and hold the heat your bodies and one stove make.
This is for educational purposes only. Not professional medical, electrical, or safety advice.
Warning
Combustion heating indoors requires working smoke and carbon monoxide alarms. If anyone gets a headache, nausea or drowsiness, get everyone into fresh air immediately.
- 01
Choose one small interior room
Smallest room, fewest windows, away from exterior walls. Everyone sleeps and eats there. Close every other door and seal gaps under them with rolled towels.
- 02
Insulate the six surfaces
Mylar or blankets over the windows, plastic taped over doorways, rugs or cardboard on the floor (a concrete slab is a heat sink), mylar on the ceiling. You're building a tent indoors.
- 03
Heat the room safely
A wood stove with a proper chimney and clearance, or a listed heater used exactly as labeled. Never a gas oven, propane camp stove, charcoal grill or generator indoors — carbon monoxide is odorless and kills families this way every winter.
- 04
Add body heat
People give off roughly 100 watts each. Sleeping in a pile in one room is genuinely warmer than separate beds. Warm the feet with hot water bottles wrapped in towels.
- 05
Ventilate anyway
Crack a window a hand-width on the leeward side, or run a small vent fan. Sealing the room airtight to save heat is how CO poisoning happens.
- 06
Hold the heat overnight
Close the shutters/curtains at dusk, get into the sleep system early, and stop opening the door. A room that holds 55°F beats a house at 40°F with everyone shivering.