winter is coming

winter is coming and there will deffinately be power outtages. so my question is what should i do to prepare for this without having a generator?

I was wondering about this also. I've thought about buying a few of those "hot pack" things that you can get at most pharmacies. I used one before, they stay nice and warm for a long time (8+hours). I don't know the exact temp though.

Someone has talked about the computer battery packs that can run a comouter, monitor, and everything for like twenty minutes. Guess depending on how long your power is out but would imagine just the drain from the thermostat and heat tape wouldn't be enough to drain it very fast.

I'm thinking of purchasing a somewhat cheap generator. But even then a cheap one is still pretty expensive and doesn't help when im at work and i cant turn it on.

Yeah i wondered the same, well a gen. would be great if you were home when it happened but if you are not i guess we are all out of luck. The only problem with the battery backups for a computer will not last long at all since i know that my one rack with back heat would kill one of those in less than 20 minutes. My only relief is that i dont have really bad weather and its very unlikely that the power would be out for to long where i live.

If your willing to spend a little over $100...sometimes less even, you should be ok with a computer type UPS. There are some out there that are designed for very short amounts of time and others that will last longer. If your good with numbers (I am not) you could easily figure out what types of units and how many you would need.

UPS's are not based on a set amount of time. When your looking at specs and it says "20 minutes" or whatever, take into consideration that this is probably an estimate of how long the unit would last at full load. A desktop computer may be pushing 500-600 watts just within the tower, monitors vary (CRT's draw alot, LCD's do not). So if you have say a small rack with 20 feet of 3" flexwatt drawing 2 watts per foot (this may not be accurate but just a number) you would only be drawing 40ish watts of power which is no where near the UPS full load capacity. Because your at such a low load, the actual "up time" in the event of a power outage would be greatly extended beyond the "advertised" time period.

We are getting a natural-gas wall heater. I am not sure of the actual name of the unit, but it installs into your wall, and is fueled by natural gas. So if our power went out it would go on. It does not use electricity. It would at least keep the ambient temperatures warm enough.

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Originally Posted by Ginevive

We are getting a natural-gas wall heater. I am not sure of the actual name of the unit, but it installs into your wall, and is fueled by natural gas. So if our power went out it would go on. It does not use electricity. It would at least keep the ambient temperatures warm enough.

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Just a question. Unless you are perhaps buying a very old natural gas wall heater wouldn't it have a thermostat on it that operates on electricity even if it has a pilot light and doesn't use electricity to ignite?

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Originally Posted by dsirkle

Just a question. Unless you are perhaps buying a very old natural gas wall heater wouldn't it have a thermostat on it that operates on electricity even if it has a pilot light and doesn't use electricity to ignite?

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I was wondering the same thing myself. Unless there is some sort of battery or alternate power source this type of heater might not be all that great of a fail safe. I'm sure at this day in age something like this must exist though. I guess if the unit did not have the ability to kick on in the event of a power outage you could always turn the gas on and light it manually...but if your not home to do this...

I'd go with low duty (computer type) UPS units for individual racks as well as one for an oil filled room heater. I guess if I had to only pick the rack or the space heater to be on a UPS I'd pick the space heater to keep the ambient temps steady.