On 16 Dec 2006 09:14:48 -0800, "
wrote:
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
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.
running it slowly. kinda ingenious emergency raiant floor heating.
I wonder how well this would work?
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.
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.
Of course.
I have a emergency generator but believe in always be prepared
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.
any thoughts on this idea?