4 Forgotten Ways Your Ancestors Stayed Warm During Winter

Your home’s heating is an essential part of your survival in cold weather. Even if your house is insulated well, it will eventually get dangerously cold if your heating system is off or the power grid goes down.

Many homesteaders have fireplaces or wood-burning stoves in their homes, an idea that has plenty of merit, considering that wood has been the most common heating fuel throughout history.

On the plus side, wood is a renewable resource that one can harvest on their own. On the minus side, a fireplace or wood-burning stove is limited as to the area that it covers. You can’t heat an entire home with a fireplace.

Our ancestors solved this problem in a variety of ways — many of which we can adapt to our own use. Knowing what they did and why they did it gives us some insight into how to keep our own homes warm without electricity, even in the midst of a winter storm.

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I have seen fireplaces heat an entire home with fans built into chimney with tubes attached to chimney that run into each room including basement. Fans blow heat into tubes. Each tube has a filter as well.

Great idea....and it works.

a reply to: Mizzazz22

You are preaching to the choir .
Not only did I know all this , I have had the opportunity to live the life back in my day .
In my time , a person entered training to survive the moment the doctor slapped them on the ___ and they took their first breath .

a reply to: Mizzazz22

Are you familiar with the phrase "3 dog night"?

originally posted by: DeathSlayer
I have seen fireplaces heat an entire home with fans built into chimney with tubes attached to chimney that run into each room including basement. Fans blow heat into tubes. Each tube has a filter as well.

Great idea....and it works.

a reply to: Mizzazz22

Fans require electricity .

originally posted by: olaru12
a reply to: Mizzazz22

Are you familiar with the phrase "3 dog night"?

"Not one ,
Not two ,
but 3 dog....."

Oops , wrong version .

originally posted by: olaru12
a reply to: Mizzazz22

Are you familiar with the phrase "3 dog night"?

Jeremiah was a bullfrog, he was a good friend of mine😉

Don't forget sex.

Got to keep making the "little heaters".

On the extreme end, my grandma used to tell me stories about the really poor kids who would come to school wrapped in lard and newspaper as insulation, as their clothes and shoes would have holes. This would put it at 1930's scotland.

Wasn't sure how true it all was as my grandma lived in an average area in glasgow, which at the time was very segregated by religion and class, so less likely to have kids in that extreme poverty. On the other hand, her father had died leaving her mom, crippled with rheumatoid arthritis, with 5 young kids so she may have been experiencing it herself, given there was no social system in place.

Regardless, it might work if conditions were extreme and resources were scarce.

a reply to: Mizzazz22

Cool article but this

The average home size now is 2,600 square feet

Can't possible be true?
I and every single person I have ever called friend or family have never lived in a house with over 1000 square feet of space.

My average for all the places I have rented ( never owned a home :cryb is 800 square feet.

a reply to: Gothmog

Fans require electricity .

No they don't. They can make their own electricity.

a reply to: Mizzazz22

When I'm out camping I like to camp ruff.
Very limited supplies.

When it's cold I go the soapstone rout but in the form of hot water bottles.
I wonder if the hot water bottle holds heat longer then a soapstone would though?

a reply to: beyondknowledge

That is awesome!

I had no idea that this was a thing!

I use solar panels and batteries to power my camping fans.

Dude I'm going to order one of these right now.

a reply to: scraedtosleep
They are called peltier cells. They are commonly used to cool micro pressors. If you heat one side and cool the other, they make electricity.

a reply to: Mizzazz22

There are wood-burning furnaces but, as with any fire, they must be fed.

When I was a kid we had a coal fire. Everything was thrown onto it, old shoes, old clothes,scraps of wood, potato peelings,etc. In fact anything that would burn went on it.

The great part was that there was a back boiler in the flue which gave us hot water as long as there was some heat coming from the fire. The water fed into a copper cylinder and would stay hot long enough for me and my six siblings to have our baths when we wanted to.

a reply to: Mizzazz22

A Kelly Kettle and some hot water bottles.

Very little fuel needed to boil the water. You could do it on an apartment balcony.
Just don’t burn the place down. It would get way too warm.

If the temperature indoors drop into the 30’s or 40’s, I might put on a jacket or use a blanket.
I’m hot blooded instead of cold blooded like many here in the southern US. I suffer from the heat for months in the summer so always look forward to highs in the 60’s or cooler unless I want to do warm weather activities outside.
I will probably turn on my air conditioning tomorrow. It feels hot to me when indoor temperatures are above 71 or 72.

I remember someone had their house heat at 80 for their baby. When I was that young my parents said they bought an air conditioner so I could sleep without sweating and they said I would lie down on the bare cold floor. I read I could be related to the Vikings so maybe it’s in my genes to not easily get cold.

However it hasn’t dropped below zero here in ages and I know that feels cold. I’m happy to let all that cold air stay in the northern states. I do have quilts if it gets really cold a relative made for me. I run my heat because I roast everywhere else if I get used to the cold. I have had issues with not adjusting to indoor heat. Some people like it hot year round. Mid 70’s is hot for me in the winter.

a reply to: Mizzazz22

we have a gas fireplace and if the bas ever went out we can tap into it with normal propane outside


I live in upstate NY and regularly walk around in 20F weather with shorts and a hoodie on


i love the cold


when i did some survial classes with the af in cold weather its pretty easy to stay warm if you dont have people shooting at you and if you can get out of the wind into a shelter even a cold house.


bundle up and share body heat.


drink warm water heated with a fire place or fire.

put rocks arounds the fire and put them where you sleep....if you have good winter clothing and a good sleeping bag and get off the ground youll be okay.


getting out of the elements is the first and most important step

originally posted by: Gothmog

originally posted by: DeathSlayer
I have seen fireplaces heat an entire home with fans built into chimney with tubes attached to chimney that run into each room including basement. Fans blow heat into tubes. Each tube has a filter as well.

Great idea....and it works.

a reply to: Mizzazz22

Fans require electricity .

Sitting in my living room with the TV on watching with one eye , my iPad sitting on my lap playing catch up on the news ready to switch to football. Literally broke out laughing. Somehow, BUSTED comes to mind. Way too funny. Thank you for the grin. That was a really good post!

Denny