What's you cage like? You shouldn't have to keep your room so hot just to keep your snakes cage ok. My room snake room stays at about 74-75.
Can't help you on your power outage issue. I pretty much only loose power in the summer and down here in FL I definitely don't have to worry about the snakes getting too cold. Unless your power is out for more than a day or 2 at a time I would not really worry too much about it except maybe in the winter.