Two new survival tips I learned.

a reply to: JAGStorm

It would be very difficult to thread that line and bucket thru 300 feet of electric cable and water line that goes to the pump at the bottom of the well. Once they become tangled that would be the end of your experiment. But good luck with the idea. The only thing that would offer a real chance of working on that deep of a well would be a solar system.

Another way to get heat into a room is to put hot ashes from your stove/fireplace in a metal container and place the container in the room on a heat-proof surface. We discovered this method when our power was out due to an ice storm. Our bathroom was far, far from the heat source (fireplace) but because it is a small room we were able to put the ashes back there and bring the temperature up a bit, to the point we weren't worried about the pipes freezing. We set the bucket on a couple of bricks to protect the floor and were amazed at the difference it made.

originally posted by: diggindirt
Another way to get heat into a room is to put hot ashes from your stove/fireplace in a metal container and place the container in the room on a heat-proof surface. We discovered this method when our power was out due to an ice storm. Our bathroom was far, far from the heat source (fireplace) but because it is a small room we were able to put the ashes back there and bring the temperature up a bit, to the point we weren't worried about the pipes freezing. We set the bucket on a couple of bricks to protect the floor and were amazed at the difference it made.

Hmmm, that method scares me a bit. I had friend put some fireplace ashes in a metal trash can and the following day part of their house burnt down.

a reply to: JAGStorm

Could happen if you don't use the brick under the can I'm sure. I have an old coal scuttle that has been used as an ash take-out container for longer than I've been alive. I've never had a problem with setting it full of hot ashes on a wooden porch because the bottom of the container is elevated above the wood surface. I wasn't sure about the heat from the bottom impacting the vinyl floor so I used the bricks to hold it off the vinyl. The side benefit was that the bricks absorbed the heat and held it. Same principle as the gizmo that uses a candle to heat bricks except that the heat source is above the brick rather than below it. Any kind of thermal sink is good when heat is dear. We had a large jar of sand that we set on the hearth for an hour or so then put behind the washer to keep the pipes from freezing.

Oh, and when your power is out and you aren't using your dryer plug the vent to prevent cold air seeping in and warm air flying out.

a reply to: JAGStorm

learning to acclimatise is someone everyone can and should do. The thing is to do it slowly turn of the heaters and coolers when possible and much more time outdoors.

There is a video getting around about some bloke who can sit on floating ice wearning not much more than shorts and tee shirt.

All this bloke did was to have a slightly cooler shower each day until little by little he become acclimatized to the cold. I read somewhere a long time ago that humans have a built in temperature compensating device in our bodies but it has fallen into disuse because we control the heat and the cold.

The aborigines of Australia were a naked (nude) race, that is to say they never wore clothes. On the coldest of nights they would dig a hole, light their fire in it, and when they were ready to bed down for the night they would throw rocks into it and then after the fire has burned down a bit they would move all the dirt back over the fire and then they would all sleep on the warn ground on top of the fire. In the winter there are quite a lot of places in Aus that go subzero at night in the winter time.