Can I survive the arctic blast without power?
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- čas přidán 22. 05. 2024
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00:00-Intro
01:25-Upgrades
08:25-Turning the power off
09:42-4 hour update
13:21-7 hour update
17:39-12 hour update
19:15-stats and graphs
21:22-Final thoughts
23:18-Update on CO readings
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Your wife is like "I don't care about your silly test, David. I've got things to do."
She'll be grateful he was prepping for these kinds of things
@@yeabuddy1610
You think so? I mean, maybe, but the fact she wouldn't let him test it properly doesn't inspire a whole lot of confidence.
I think we have the same wife.
Honestly that seemed a little sad, but I guess it's realistic that whoever you have in your house is going to use some of the electricity, and maybe not adjust their activities based on how much power is available.
I wonder if she does that sewing all the time or just had to do it during his test. Their are people like that. A great example was during covid. There were people who hardly ever went anywhere but then when you weren't supposed to go anywhere all of a sudden they had to visit everyone they knew.
The mismanaged texas power grid has turned everyone into a survival prepper lol
American Goverment got your back. Assuming you don't mind dying.
@@deenaxic9134 Privatized luxury!
@@deenaxic9134 American Government? The Texas grid has been heavily privatized and deregulated, more than any other in the US.
Why is Walter White in the thumbnail?😂
so what
For some reason I thought it was Coury from MyLifeInGaming...!
Because lazy AI usage :)
The man was clearly cooking during the test.
There's always that one guy out there: the one who wants to ruin the party for the rest of us by asking something like "So what," huh, @? 🙄
From a northerner , if you have super sealed windows , crack one a bit when running a kerosene heater.
You need fresh air. Great video! I dabble with solar as well.
The only plausible explanation for the temperature dip in the bathroom is that it must be haunted. Ghost had some ethereal enchiladas.
Clearly, haunting is a good solution for cooling the house in summer ;-)
Was it you?
LOL!!
Ethereal Enchiladas sounds amazing...
the spookie dookie
If you're burning things for heat inside your house, whichever way it's done, extra ventilation is always going to be needed (and our houses aren't designed for that kind of heating). (Good job on the experiment, it takes a lot of dedication to be that thorough!)
I love what Texans call an "arctic blast." It's kind of adorable.
I love the comment "temperature is hovering around 66 degrees which isn't great". That happens to be our indoor winter temperature setting here in Denver. I guess Texans can't handle a little cold. lol P.S. Kerosene heaters are wonderful and very efficient. I've been using them for the past 40 years with no problems. You just need to keep a window cracked a little bit for fresh air and to cool down the area you are heating (within a couple hours of use, the temperature will climb to 75 degrees, almost too hot).
"the most overcast day ever" also made me chuckle.. where I am in Europe it's often hard to know if it's daytime due to the blanket of cloud and lack of sun.. 😊
Yeah, modern houses built for efficiency (or upgraded for efficiency) generally don't have enough air flow. 100% you need that fresh air source, keeping it low and close to the heater is definitely the best bet.
My old house would do better as I have Natural Gas heat and only draws a couple hundred watts in operation. When it went -40 where I am, I pulled my generator inside to warm up and my plan was to run an extension to the furnace with the generator just outside the door. Would have at least kept us warm, if not quiet.
As a Texan, can confirm. It isn't supposed to be below freezing outside of a freezer. Gosh-darn unnatural, I tell ya.
I'm in Quebec. I leave my room at 15 °C 59 °F during winter and I wear a jacket. The rest of the house is on 7 °C 45 °F to 10 °C 50 °F.
It saves a lot of money.
I hate workspaces that set their temperature at 25 °C 77 °F. The air becomes too dry and I have to wear a T-shirt otherwise, I sweat.
I'm in Minnesota, and this has been the most mild winter of my life by far. Currently it's 38°f outside, which is more like springtime weather. It's awesome. Negative temps this time of year are extremely common. I'm currently out in the garage right now watching this video.
Also, no, Texans can't handle the cold. He mentions a few years ago when it snowed there. Remember it became national news because of all the houses caving in and power outages? Yeah. That's pretty sad.
Honestly though, I don't think humans aren't meant to live in places like here. Because it gets nearly as hot as Texas here in the summer 100°f is possible, 90's is more common. But it's usually humid asf. Which, yeah, does make a massive difference. And then in the winter it gets below 0°f every winter without fail (even this season). The coldest I've experienced is -42°f back in 2018. Which means it can range by close to 150°f in a year. It might get 10° or so degrees hotter during the summer down there, and for more days. But I'll take that in exchange for indoor temps outside in the winter. And clear skies. Almost every day for months has been gray skies here like in the video😔 I don't have to imagine it.
It is always a good idea to get to know your emergency equipment BEFORE you need it.
My dad had me change the tire on my first car BEFORE it was flat so I knew where everything was and what it was for.
Great video. Thank you again.
Very true, always test your preps. He should have played with the kerosene heater before he needed it. They are real life savers if you know how to use them.
I taught several gfs and friend's sisters this over the decades. I ought to show my wife, but I know she's just gonna call me... or drive home on a flat (ask me how I know!)
That's the first thing I do when I get a new car. Too bad more and more no spare is provided at all.
@@granitepenguin Yeah I'm hearing that more and more, apparently they provide a fix a flat? Real useful when you tear open the sidewall. FFS, first it was econo spares, now no spares. Ask yourself though, when was the last time you saw someone try to change a flat? For me, must have been about 20 years ago.
With that said, I'd probably last at least a few years into an apocalypse.
@@the_kombinator yeah, the reality is you can't hardly fix anything on a modern car without a full service station and computers to run everything. Why should tires be any different? 😞
Not the ai generated thumbnail...
ikr who's it even supposed to be? :)
I've never been more unwilling to click on a video than with this thumbnail
i dunno but he sure has a lot of fingers on his left hand
I thought this was something else entirely, and I almost unsubscribed by accident! Glad to see this upload, but mayyybe a different thumbnail might be nice.
Okay, I'm going to go enjoy the video now. :)
HEY, WAIT, I'VE GOT A NEW COMPLAINT
Kerosene heater: You need a fresh air intake feeding air directly to the heater. A dryer vent tube from a window to within a foot of the heater can do the trick. ANY combustion based heat will need a fresh air intake. In an old drafty house, it's not an issue. In a modern "tight" house it can be a real problem. Also, if you heat a mass (bricks or water) and move them around it can better distribute the heat. Lastly, if your house has a fireplace, a pellet stove fireplace insert is an extremely efficient emergengy heat source. My unit will heat half my house and pulls less than 500wt for about 10 minutes during ignition and less than 100wt once lit and running. I use about 3 bags of pellets a winter in Arkansas at $6 a bag.
Leave it up to David to half-ass a project every time. His incompetence is part of what make his videos so addictively charming.
@@Psythik I don't think he half-assed it. Most people I know never think about air circulation with with combustible heat INCLUDING BUILDERS. I grew up around these heat sources and still use them enough to know the downsides and precautions. People have the same problem with dryers and don't even know it.
@@Psythik Yeah, you're right. David should just post pointless video game footage every few years like you instead of actually educating anyone, thank you for your valuable input.
@@Clipazine 🔥🔥🔥
@@Clipazine or he should waste his time ranking gmod and source film maker videos like you
Inaccurate detector aside the problem with the carbon monoxide is that it weighs slightly less that air. If warm it will rise and fill the room from the top (which is why your counter top carbon monoxide detector didn't show anything for ages and then spiked up to a crazy amount). This is why if you have a carbon monoxide detector in your home it's usually installed high on the wall or the ceiling.
Not to mention, I don't think he did the break in period(15min burn in a well ventilated area to burn off the manufacturing preservatives). You should always allow the wick to soak for about 30mins for the first time it is fueled, before lighting.
Not doing either of those things can cause unpleasant odors as well as combustion gases you don't want in a house.
Too many people jump into using things without actually reading instructions FIRST.
The Fire Marshall of my state addressed this a while back. In a room at "standard temperature and pressure" (about 72℉ & one atmosphere) the molecules have enough energy that they'll stay rather well mixed. Therefore you can put a carbon monoxide (CO) detector pretty much where-ever it is convenient and it will work the same (within a couple parts per million). As for that CO being a combustion byproduct, just consider how much air was in that room...it isn't going to be hot enough to rise to the top of the room and stay there as the heat from combustion is fairly easily transferred to other molecules. Additionally, he had the heater on the floor, so it isn't like there wasn't plenty of cooler air to loose heat to before reaching the ceiling. The NFPA (National Fire Protection Association) has tested this and it is why you can have CO or carbon dioxide detectors pretty much anywhere but smoke detectors have to be high up to work properly and not have huge numbers of spurious detections (EG: every time you cook something).
@@happyogre I think you may be closer to the truth. I've heated with a kerosene heater before and those things definitely matter a lot.
Leave it to the comment section to explain what to Dave what he should have already researched!
For me this is my favorite type of video you make. Amazing to follow along seeing the narrative of your place being damaged by the famous Texas freeze, seeing you upgrade your setup, and seeing you overcome it now and run experiments. Also the data you share is amazing. More of this!!!
I feel the exact opposite - This was my favorite channel for years then it just... changed. Still watch though, I care :)
8:42 *SHTOMP* _suddenly all becomes dark_
I laughed like a mofo on this part 😂😂😂
Welcome to camping with 8bit guy
I was waiting for him to pull out a step 2
Great video! After I moved out of the house at 18...my parents, yland younger sisters suffered carbon monoxide poisoning. My Dad would run the heater over night in the house...one morning...very, very luckily, my Pap(who lived next door) was suspicious about having not heard from anyone by 8am. This heater was run all the time, and no plans had been made...he was just suspicious. He called...no answer....he walked over and woke everyone up, opened windows, called paramedics....carried out younger sisters and pets....I bet that heater was running incorrectly as well as it was very old.
A cool and useful video all-around...I love tests like these and 8 bit guy always gets just technical enough to make them useful. I really liked this one.
It happens all the time, unfortunately. That's one reason I buy combination CO/smoke detectors and have one in every room, now.
Insulation makes such a huge difference, it was -30c here a while back and I shut off the heat completely and the room temp only went from 19 to 16c in like 12 hours.
Electricity was really expensive on that day since my electricity cost is calculated on an hourly basis, saves money on most days but certainly didn't that day hence why I went to such drastic measures
Scandinavian I guess? :)
Yes insulation is a huge key on preserving energy! Often it suffices once the sun is out even in negative C (below 33) that the sun is out for no heating, But for cold the worst case scenario means you always need some kind of backup which does not rely on battery, while I loath wood stoves for day to day usage, they are really usefule for keeping you warm for relatively long periods of time in emergencies, you need to get some wood though, but a certain amount of backup wood could get you through an entire winter in the worst case! Greetings from the north!
Minimum R40 in the attic and closed cell spray foam in the walls :-)
Finland briefly hit €2.35 per kWh during that last one, gotta say that's pretty terrible 🥲
Whats c?
Thank you for displaying the temperatures in celsius! Greatly appreciated.
I noticed more and more American CZcamsrs doing that. 👍
well i got some objections ... 14:18
@@chojnb Pretty chilly!
@@HelloSwiftful Makes sense when over 95% of the world uses Celcius.
@@chojnb You just need common sense and the minus sign magically disappears.
This is a great start to the new year. I'm glad you're doing this approach like you talked about. Very informative!
Like others are saying, I'm wondering why you aren't using the heat pump/mini split for heat. Would like to know how that goes.
I was screaming that at the screen
That would also have used 500-600W but made 2000W heat with that.
Grew up with kerosene heat and the aroma makes me so homesick. They are wonderful machines when it's cold. Huge heat output and we heated big pots of water on top. You've got to adjust the burner carefully to reduce CO emissions and it changes as the fuel level drops. It's second nature to me. But I spent years and years of winters with one as our only source of heat. We had to learn how to master it or freeze.
I too grew up with kerosene heaters. Sadly, the smell reminds me of the asthma attacks they usually triggered.
You might be careful about only heating living areas. It makes sense, but I'd be concerned about pipes freezing, so may want to try to dedicate some amount of heating to those locations (kitchen and bathrooms especially) as well.
I would suggest making the kitchen the living area.
@@autohmae "Honey...we'll have to poop in the sink."
It would probably be best to wrap as much plumbing as possible in heating coil
@@DoggoneNexus I obviously mentioned, if you depend on having a kitchen, then use that also for the activities normally done in the livingroom.
Texans don't believe in burst pipes.
In comparison, here in Iowa we are all excited about the temps reaching 25 degrees - 35 degrees this week. It's going to feel like a heat wave. We have been in 1F to -25 F here in the last week. 16:06 Sleepy time. 17:08 This is why I love eating cold left overs. I figure I'm acclimated to cold food, so if I ever lose power, I'm good!
as a minnesotan, 26 degrees being "bitterly cold" is... alien.
@@animehair05silently88 in North East Indiana thats hoody weather
I'm in Washington state and we recently had a week where it didn't get warmer than negative 10 degrees F.
Ditto for Nebraska; never underestimate the value of warm sweats/fleece pants, long sleeve shirts, and thicker socks for "surviving" a day or so below zero-Celsius!
This was very informative! I would love to be able to do this in my own home at some point. Keep up the great work, David!
Being from a cold state (Wisconsin) my main concern is to keep the furnace going. This is the most efficient way to heat as we have gas. I assume you may have electric. I worry about freezing pipes. I have a small generator to run furnace and a light or 2. Also I giggle a little when Texans talk about surviving the cold and snow.
Wisconsin too. I also came here to say the furnace breaker should be on his backup panel.
I get my furnace looked at once a year. in the north we really need it working in tip top shape
Texans heat with electric power
Didn't the gas-pipes freeze on that cold-catastrophe in Texas, too, because it had too much moisture in it? A local tank would probably have no/different problems.
Minnesotan here. I have another friend in Alaska, and we laugh at a friend in Arkansas when he says its cold or snowing. Then again, the same friend laughs at me when I say its hot out in the summer.
Your heatpumps [the mini split and your window unit] are -way- more efficient than those space heaters could ever be. Also having your gas furnace on the smart panel would have been a good idea, just don't have the outdoor AC on it and it should be more than possible to run the fan and gas.
They are more efficient, but the efficiency also goes down significantly once it is below freezing outside, still way more efficient, however they still suck power. I will give you an example, I have a heatpump which basically heats my house, in december/january my heatpump will use somewhat like 20-40Kwh in normal below freezing situations for lets say 120Kwh heat I need to keep everything at cozy temperatures (efficiency floats betweem 2.8 and 3.4) because we are niot permanently below zero, once I reach the daw point it goes through the roof with 3.8 - 5.0 efficiency (3.6. - 3.8 around 4c, 5.0 above 10c!), but still better than any other electrical heating system which permanently cannot reach even 1.0 thanks to being a direct heater instead of a heat exchanger!
Also PV in winter, it will support you but do not expect any significant coverage at least where I live from mid november to lets say mid february by mid february the PC can take over until may for heating almost entirely, in december you get between 10 and 80% coverage on normal winter weather for your heating energy, good days might cover you entirely, but they are rare, filling the battery, depends on your battery size but often you can get 20 -40% max, and thats about what I give my battery for day 2 day ops atm to have as much emergency power available as possible (have 10Kwh backups here which in summer give me a full autarky, until lets say mid october)
@@werpu12 Heat pumps are always above the 1.0 of a space heater.
@@der.Schtefan That's misleading. This is based on a naive comparison where you are acknowledging the fact that the electric motor itself gives heat to the system pushing it over 100% heat transfer. The truth is if we ignore the waste heat, the transfer of heat is never 100% and dramatically slows down when the outside temperatures fall. The colder it is outside the less efficient a heat pump becomes. The speed of heat transfer is based on temperature difference. A heat pump is just an air conditioner running in reverse. A space heater is always 100% efficient all of the time. All of the energy consumed is converted into heat.
@@tripplefives1402You don't seem to know how a heatpump works. Waste heat does not factor in. A resistive heater is always 100% efficient, a heat pump goes beyond that. Usually they sit around 200-300% (this is where the coefficient comes from. 300% = x3.0).
And not everybody has gas heaters
Interesting video. Thanks Dave, very cool those new EcoFlow batteries and setup
This was a really interesting watch thank you!
Nice video! By the way, I once bought that same Air Quality Monitor because I saw it in the old video, and I quickly found out it was FAKE. There's no actual sensor in there, I can make the Carbon Monoxide reading reach 800 by blowing really hard at the vents with my mouth which makes no sense because humans can't generate Carbon Monoxide. Ended up returning it.
Yes frequently they only have a cheap TVOC sensor. For a proper co2 sensor it should be NDIR like the Senseair S8. Other channels have made the same mistake. No air quality meter should be substituted for a proper Carbon Monoxide Alarm.
he talks about the air quality monitor at the end of the video.
Yeah I know, I did say I bought the same detector years ago the day the old video came out then I quickly found out it was fake too the few days I had it. @@colausbra
In Alberta Canada, #1 circuit one (at least me) would put on battery would be the furnace. The furnace would move the heat generated by burning natural gas. Heat is the number one requirement FAR over any other need. Recently we hit -40, and I'm sure that without the furnace things would get bad in a matter of hours. Batteries would be depleted quickly.
Yes, please be careful with that kerosene heater, and also ensure your pipes do not freeze.
If you have a furnace that should definitely be #1, followed by fridges. David doesn't, I believe his house is all-electric. Even if his heat pump was good in cold weather he probably couldn't run it. As for furnaces, modern ones with ECM blowers use much less electricity. I installed an ECM upgrade a month ago and it only uses 370 watts when heating; the old PSC motor was probably close to 600.
Your dedicated research for the cause is very appreciated. I hope you continue being the dedicated researcher we love.
Great video again. Liked the way you added Celsius to your temperature readings for us in the UK, and beyond.
Although not a complete day of power, still better off than the neighbours, and kept you in residence this time and on frozen pipe watch.
PS still like the solar video’s 😊
-17.5C in the studio (14:17) lol ;)
You mean for almost the entire rest of the world who don't use such a ridiculous and outdated scale as Fahrenheit! 😂
@@Codetapper Not even almost, since USA is alone in using Fahrenheit, and they're alone in using the US Customary measurement units for mass, length, energy, volume and so forth. Having 100°F based on some person that had fever is literally sick, very slight fever at the time, but normal human body temperatures have been dropping since then, perhaps because we don't have as many chronical inflammations as people used to have.
The US Customary system is not really British imperial either, since those diverged in the 1700s or so, and the US Customary units are based on metric since 1860s (called SI; System International units since then). Therefore US inches are defined as exactly and not roughly 2.54cm and so forth, so basically the US system is metric, but with very weird and cumbersome conversion ratios between the units, which is just simply stupid. Even if they think it's easy to think of thumb widths per inch and such, it's as simple to ballpark 10cm as the width of the palm, or 1cm per pinky nail width, 1m per properly walked step or whatever, assuming average size man dimensions.
I believe the only reason US didn't get aboard the SI units in civil use is because they had their civil war around the time they committed to changing, and the time envelope most other countries did too, and it didn't help that US people were pretty ignorant and unaware of the world in those wild west days.
Imagine if everyone else stuck to their old ways as well, measuring things based on some long dead (human) ruler's body parts and the like. Here in Finland we'd still use peninkulma (distance a dog's bark can be heard) and poronkusema (how long a distance a reindeer needs between peeing) and the like, inculding the very different measurements of feet, thumbs, fathoms etc for the long forgotten rulers those were based on. We also did our conversions in the 1860s, but the only reference to old stuff are either in very old texts, or the contemporary wikipedia page of them, or false references such as 2x4 for wood planks, which in reality are 50x100mm when cut to dimension, and slightly more if rough cut. US 2x4 planks are way smaller than that, so it makes no sense at all there.
Every winter in Texas from now on: "can I survive _________"
"pray" the Sob's that run the private power grid, invested more into infrastructure and not bonuses.
"Can my solar-powered anti-air battery protect me from the invading aliens?"
"can I survive [without internet]"
If only he had built his house and studio with proper insulation. Then he'd not really have to do anything in terms of heating for short outages like that, yet still have more comfortable temperatures.
The fact that Texans think about 14-17°F is a record cold snap and then having to monitor their power grid for failure is a culture shock to me. That's like an average winter day in the Midwest. So I guess Texas houses aren't as well insulated?
"... things from a standpoint of status." I half expected you to say, "Houston, we have a problem," after that line. 😁
When I was a kid back in the mid 90s, the part of North Carolina I lived in got hit with a huge winter storm and we were without power for four or five days. Transformers blowing left and right, downed trees and powerlines, the whole nine. What ended up saving our butts was a wood burning stove. I remember it being a big deal when we finally managed to get out of our neighborhood and the roads were clear enough to go to McDonalds in town. The tragic situation in Texas a few years back definitely brought back some of those memories.
Thanks for the information. This is the first video over 5 minutes that I've watched all the way through in while. 👍
One of these days (and I may have missed or forgotten), you need to get into the financial statistics a bit: total cost of ownership, cost per kw-hr generated, cost management (how to deploy solar in phases that make cost more manageable over time, etc.
This was an interesting experiment, and you did better than I thought you would have. Having alternate sources of heating and lighting made your available power more useful for other purposes and extended your time off-grid considerably. Well done!
There are plug-in line meters available that can display voltage, current, and kW-hrs for individual loads which might be useful in gathering data on what various loads in the house are doing -- that data might be of interest for any future tests you might perform.
it takes year to calc over time. you can make a very very well insulated building. the problem is it become semi vacuum and monoxide issue to. their a yt atm that working on off grid and most cost postive building. but ran into ok did not expect issues. that to relate form what i said early
I’m pretty sure he mentioned costs in one of the previous videos, if not the last one. I remember because it actually discouraged me to look into it further, it takes years and years to recoup your investment, if at all.
@@vamwolf That's absolutly no problem whatsoeaver if you use HVAC as the heating system. Modern houses also beathe, just in controlled ways through specific openings and vents.
Thanks for C°s.
I think this is a great video, so TY for all the work that went into this. I think it's very real and honest for your specific situation. I must add though, that your "worse case scenario" is actually everyday winter conditions in many states. I'd love someone in Northern Maine try this same experiment with the same equipment.
Kerosene heaters are one of the best form of heating almost a full house with minimal fuel. I believe yours might be defective, as even 30-40 y.o. heaters dont have a problem with emissions. I used one when i lived in my grandma's house for several years, and it went through about a litter per 1-2 days. Relatively speaking thats dirt cheap for heating a whole house (back then iirc kerosene cost around 0.8€/l).
I hope you keep the kerosene heater. It is difficult to make it put out much CO and it is much safer than all those open flames. I saw at the end you did realize that meter was bad. Even the simple CO alarms you plug in to an outlet are far more accurate than that.
I run kerosene in a moderately small room all winter and have never measured more than zero ppm. You have to have the wick way out of adjustment to even make a little CO, and all those candles with yellow flames make CO more than a kerosene heater.
Agree with this 100%
I enjoy your videos in general but your videos about solar/backup power in emergency situations are some of my favorites
I absolutely love these kind of video’s! They inspired me to get some solar array myself :)
Funny. It inspired me to stay away from any solar crap.
Super interesting video, if you'd like to experiment with this more in the future I'd be sure to watch! And big thank you for converting the farenheit to celcius! One suggestion for the future: the warmth graph for different rooms had such small lines it was hard for me to tell which room was which, only bathroom was clearly different, so I had to pause the video and squint to figure out the order. Thicker lines or more distinct colours should solve that for the future.
Thank you for sharing this experiment! ❤
Nice with some real life testing 👍 Our emergency system is more of a budget one, first level is to use the 48V batteries from our electric bicycles, they will provide light, USB charging and running a fan all day. Second level is a 4kW generator (3kW continuous) it will power pretty much everything and as long as we're a bit careful it will also power the bedroom aircon. I do understand not everyone are allowed to run a generator, but I built an insulated box for it and extended the exhaust up in the air. You can barely hear it when inside and I doubt any of our neighbors can hear it at all. I store about 13 gallons/50 liters of fuel, that's enough for 24 hours.
Regardless when running a kerosine heater, you should have a window cracked open to allow in some fresh air.
There’s also low CO propane heaters on the market, that have built in CO detectors, they are safe to run indoors, but again you do want a window cracked open.
Too bad this setup wasn’t a whole house transfer switch, then you would have the ability to run what you want.
Also, that would give you the ability to tie in a generator, if needed for the entire house.
Holy cow David,I actually asked for this,and i was excited when i saw the thumbnail for your vid yesterday.
Enjoyed this much more than the rest of your content over the last year.
It was one heck of a cold snap nationwide. Up in the north it was -30°F where I lived for a couple days. I’m very glad I have a cast iron log stove in my little cabin to supplement the electric baseboard heat. And that firewood is very easy and cheap to harvest out here, too.
Thanks for sharing your experience! I can confirm that I made my own experiences with running the house on emergency power from the batteries: 1) Expect the power outage when your batteries aren’t fully charged. 2) Good insulation helps a lot 😅 3) Shutdown unnecessary consumption such as lights, servers, etc. 4) Bigger is better: The more panels ( I‘ve got 30) and the more batteries, the better.
You made the right choice to turn off the kerosene heater! I would only use one in a garage to take the edge off the cold. You are better off wearing two sweaters and some thermal under ware. When I was a kid, my bedroom was a balmy 35-40F Jan-Feb with -20to-40F outside. We used to just pile the blankets on the bed (I could see my breath very easily) and several layers of clothes. The main floor of the house was a balmy 55F. Our furnace was old diesel#2 central heat system. I can say that by spring, 40F felt like T-shirt weather to me. :)
Brilliant video!! So helpful! 😊
14:19 -17c!!!
Small error LOL
I grew up with a large kerosene heater as the only heat source in the home.
We didn't have to worry about air quality as we had jalousie windows.
On the rare days that we needed the heater we would cover most of the windows with plastic sheets and keep one window on each end of the house uncovered.
I grew up with a sleeping bag, gloves and a beanie as a heating source. Dad didn't want to pay for the kerosene. 😂😂😂
Kerosene heaters do not produce CO when they are adjusted correctly. I use kerosene heaters regularly. You really don't have to worry about CO2 unless your house is very well sealed. I love kerosene heaters. The one downside though is they aren't adjustable. You get whatever the thing is rated at. If it's a 20kbut unit, you can only get 20k, not 10, not 21.
The really great thing about them is you can store kerosene for years on end and it will work fine. You just cannot do that with gasoline, though gasoline would make a terrible heating fuel anyway.
@@tarstarkusz the unit I grew up with was sort of adjustable... It had 2 burners and frequently we would only light 1 to save on fuel. Thing was probably older than my parents.
@@tarstarkusz⛽💣💥
@@iwontliveinfear OK, that makes sense. I love them. All the "spot" warmth of a fireplace without all the work of a fireplace.
You mentioned you were not heating your bathroom. You may want to have at least some auxiliary heating plan there, you want to keep it over freezing to prevent the pipes from bursting.
That's some pretty sweet drone work!
As a Canadian what you gone through it just a normal day for us xD
Do you ever experience 72 degrees Celsius during summer? If not then you don’t understand that Texas isn’t built for cold, just super hot.
in the north east part of the usa we go from this being a normal day to some days in summer being in the 90s, the weather over here is weird.
@@Super_Bros. Yeah we do. We experience those things during the summer
@@mizu_the_floatzel
It says online the average hot summer in Canada is around 30 Celsius in the warmest areas, so you must be in some crazy area of Canada with horrible temperatures both directions.
@@Super_Bros. I'm in the Toronto area. Well originally I'm a misplace. Long story short, live in the states. Don't want to go in the full detail but yeah I had my fair share of crazy weather while living up in the Toronto area
I appreciate you giving the temperatures in Celsius as well 👍🏼
Same
Shame he missed Kelvin
@@Wockes Kelvin is just Celsius +273
Yea fahrenheit is very annoying when i google things and i have to convert it
very informative - thanks - i'm in toronto, canada - a few days ago it was -13c/8f - today it's a balmy 0c/32f
Good episode Interesting test. I'm glad to see you have a proper amount of merit items (battery ower, flame heaters) and the air quality and CO meters. :) Congrats. :) Cheers.
Thank you for celsius values.
Very good video, Dave! Here in Utah emergency preparedness in preached and taught about semiheavily, so I like it when you also delve into it once in a while. We can all probably use some good practice at it!
Interesting video. I would love too see another one of these updates as you upgrade your system and even maybe show the cost. I would look at the Ecoflo Wave 2 unit since those could be worth getting.
Your point at 21:40 is not useful because you can't predict the length of a power outage. The utility will often estimate a short period of time to restore power and end up taking 2-3x longer. When the power is out, if there is a safety risk you need to focus on duration. Your usage of camping heaters is a good idea though, as for heat specifically, going with a fossil fuel is a good idea. If you do this test again I'd be interested to see something like a Mr Buddy heater since propane has less of a CO risk. Kerosene is cheaper but propane is safer.
You could also reach out to Vevor and get one of their diesel heaters. Since those use a little electricity to get started I think thats a useful test too.
I'm curious what your results would be if you were to use your minisplit for heat pump heating since those would still have a COP over 1
Was going to ask this - would be way more efficient than your space heater, even at those temps!
Heat pumps for heating have a cheat code.
Fueled heating is roughly 50% more efficient per dollar than electric resistive heating (which can be thought of as perfectly 100% efficient, because it is). Thus, when a heat pump drops down to 150% efficiency, they start losing out to fueled heating, per dollar. And a good fueled heater is at least 95% efficient at converting fuel to heat. Steam generation, spinning the turbines, stepping up and down, and transmission of power...on the order of ICE engine efficiency (30-35%). So even with a heat pump giving 150%, the entire system from power plant to you is only around 50% efficient. To be anywhere near efficient as a fuel-burning heater, they'd need to be operating up around 300%, which is what they get in mild (above freezing) temperatures, not these deep teens-and-below types of conditions. There really need to be a HUGE miracle for them to take over and make sense environmentally for VERY cold climates. These climate people will go on and on about how they're over 100% efficient and how good they are in the cold these days, but when you look at the entire system (which isn't gonna stop burning fuel to make electricity ANYTIME soon), they're just as bunk as electric cars.
@@timramich I have used heat pumps in Vermont so you’re not educating me here and you’re speaking like you’re more researched than you are with those pretty generalized numbers for what’s available on the market…. But he’s in Texas in the 20s on what he thinks is bad weather for his climate so go off on how heat pumps don’t pan out in colder weather. Never mind all the mild Texas days that heat pumps are way better than your convenient numbers. You’re also assuming 100% fossil energy which Texas has lots of wind too and the guy has solar on his roof which doesn’t allow for combustion. I’d rather put money into fixed capital like panels and a heat pump with many uses than a consumable like fossil fuels with one use, never mind all the other problems. Where I’m from when people want to burn things for heat they’d much rather burn wood in a fireplace and the propane tank is more of a “need to bc that’s what’s been around” and not a “want to because it’s the best option going forward”
@@codedGiraffe Ok diatribe. Burning fuel for heat when you have no grid power is smarter than a heat pump. It sips electricity.
Glad you have the Volt. We used our 2017 Volt as a home generator by attaching an inverter to the 12V battery and would leave the car on. The Volt kept us powered for 3 days. It did an incredible job. It is by far the best car to own during a power outage. Best of all possible worlds.
That is a fantastic way to fry the DC-DC converter in your car.
@@ouch1011 Well, a car from one of the most problematic car manufacturers to boot. Probably not as problematic as Tesla but GM is one of those vehicles I wouldn't own any current models. If I had a 1985 Oldsmobile 98 or even a Buick Sport Wagon/Olds Vista Cruiser, that's a different story. That said, I would probably swap a modern Honda or Toyota engine into it or even an inline 4 Kubota Diesel tractor engine. That would make the car even more interesting.
@@ouch1011 Proper car-to-load solutions are out there and more reliable than 12v inverter, and most regular cars with 220V plugs are probably more reliable with this solution as well - like an old VW Passat for example
" It is by far the best car to own during a power outage" this is utter nonsense. An EV is one of the worst cars to own during a power outage. An ICE car can be run off gasoline if the grid is down, but an EV becomes an expensive paperweight when you have no way to charge it. Power the key equipment in the house with a generator, not with your means of transport in the event of an emergency.
@@dancooper6002 The Volt is a plug-in hybrid and has an engine to top up the battery if it runs low.
You can concentrate most of your heart into one room but you still need to make sure the rooms that have plumbing don't get too cold to the point where the pipes freeze. Nice video!
I'm so happy you followed up on that last "solar survival" video!😀
we had about -17 in several regions in Luxembourg last week, thick ice rain had fallen on wednesday, making it nearly impossible to do a step outside, a lot of things stayed closed like schools official buildings, no buses, etc... people were told to work from home when possible, it was a similar shut down like in the pandemic period, roads were deserted. Would have been a good test day for EV autonomy though. Today we had a quick temperature rise, melting all ice and snow in several hours, from winter to autumn in one night :)
"a good test day for EV autonomy "
Luxembourg is 51 x 35 miles, you can do it on a bicycle.
In case of a zombie apocalypse, David is your go-to man.
He's got knowledge with guns, survival equipment, solar panels, electric generators and computers. Truly a jack of all trades, David. XD
Thanks for the Celsius conversions!
Those of us in the Midwest are chuckling at your definition of "bitterly cold".
Where I am in IL near Chicago 15 degrees is pretty much the average winter temperature. we just came out of a subzero week, and the wind chills were around -27 degrees.
I will take the sub zero any day over this freezing rain we have now lol
I’ll take the freezing rain any day over the 54 degree weather we have in socal now lol
Ya can't count the wind chill, John! All the No-daks and Canadians will laugh at that!
@@jeffbraxton2893 Let them Laugh, I have a sister lives in Minnesota and it get's cold there too. When Texans say Arctic blast, they haven't a clue. I was trying to let them know 15 degrees is not an arctic blast. And as far as Wind Chills you most certainly do count that. the wind can freeze you to death a lot faster than just straight up ambient temperatures. you lose body heat much quicker when it is windy.
A few tips: Insolation is essensial. Your temperature drop seems to indicate your insolution could be improved. Heavy curtains will insolate windows quite well.
For heat you want a stove with a chimney, preferably with a secondary burn "afterburner". It's unrealistic to expect batteries to heat a house, and electricity is too important to waste on heat.
As for kerosine heaters: CO2 is not that much of an issue, submarines regularly operate up to 5000ppm. CO on the other hand, is a killer. Kerosine needs a chimney or other way to evacuate the gases. Do NOT heat in unventilated areas.
A gas burner is much better option, select one with automatic shutoff. Preferably one sold in boat shops.
Lights: LEDs consume so little you don't really need to worry about it.
Electric heat: If you want to heat your house with electricity, get a heat pump. They will generate up to 5kw of heat for every 1 kw of electricity.
Backup: This was an excellent video and I guess you might be sponsored by Ecoflow, and their product is excellent. But: Real backup if you want to base yourself on electricity is a generator and diesel.
I work in a mill and if any of our gas monitors were showing 300ppm of CO the area would be evacuated. CO is so dangerous
Keep the inverter. It's always good to have a spare for the unplanned moment when you do need it.
The *spare one. Yeah, that's a good idea; I think I would do that.
I just hope the folks that are demanding the immediate end to the use of fossil fuels watch this video. As always extremely informative and I appreciate the amount of work you put into your videos.
Your heater should not be putting out much (if any) CO. A properly trimmed wick and a clean and properly adjusted chimney will create a bright blue flame at the very top and produce very little CO. If you see yellow or any non-blue flame at the top of the chimney (the thing in the middle is called the chimney), it is not burning right and needs adjustment.
Also, a properly burning kerosene heater will put out an equal amount of water into the air as the kerosene you burned. You burn a quart of kerosene, you get a quart of water in your air.
So tldr; you could use a kerosene heater to Jumpstart your hydrogen fuel cell? It'd provide the water and the energy to make more hydrogen?
@@skilletpan5674 No, it basically just replenishes water to the atmosphere. Humidity is relative. The warmer the air, the more water it can hold. If you heat the air but don't humidify, the air is VERY dry. Kerosene will rehumidify the air as it heats it.
@@skilletpan5674 If that was all it took to make hydrogen, we'd have found a way to make hydrogen fuel cell cars safer. You need a ton of electricity to make hydrogen via the most effective and industrial scalable method. So much electricity infact that EVs are much more energy effishent as you're not wasting anywhere near as much power to make fuel, rather you're directly powering the vehicle with the generated electricity.
Bonus fun fact, the way electrical heating is done is the same exact process which creates waste heat in electronics. Due to this, and the physics behind how electrons become thermal photons, electrical heaters are 100% effishent. All electrical power that goes into an electric heater becomes heat. It takes a lot of work and engineering to make electronics not use all their power to make heat, but if you want them to make heat, it's so easy you just need some thick wire. This makes the most effective form of heater on Earth an oil filled electric radiator, this is even factoring in electrical losses from power transmission and generation ineffishencies in the power plant.
The insane paranoia about the kerosene heater was somewhere between hilarious and annoying to people who have any familiarity with them whatsoever. Even in passing.
If they were even one tenth as dangerous as he was making out, then they wouldn't be sold for indoor household use and would be outdoor only devices.
Then again, despite his pretentions to being a good ol boy from texas, he's pretty clearly always been a city boy. I guess open flames are scary to them. I mean they might damage pans, apparently 🙄
@@medes5597 Yes, it was pretty cringeworthy. Even funnier was he had it as a backup heat source, unopened in his garage or something. You should at least have a passing familiarity with your alleged backup heating plan.
He is definitely part of the cult of safety. Kerosene heaters should not be taken lightly, but there is no need to be deathly afraid of them either. Like you said, they sell these things in Walmart.
A funny thing is, they really should never be used outdoors. They are completely unsuited for outdoor use. Even a mild breeze would make it burn very inefficiently.
I really love your solar series. We’ll be in the market at some point in the next 12 months, and it’s hard to know who to trust for information.
Honestly that sponsorship with ecoflow was well worth it, just look at how many things they've sent you over the years! They've also listed to you & updated one of the things you didn't like about it not every company does that, they definitely seem like a worthwhile company.
Love this video and the fact that you’ve tested your supplies in non- mission critical time. I would suggest adding a permanent carbon monoxide meter to your home, they mount just like smoke/ fire alarms and are always watching out for you.
David wearing extra layers when the indoor temp is higher than i have it when its -40 out is hilarious.
Reminds me of that time he got sunscreen in his eyes and almost died.
Do your summers get to 108? We are all adapted to our environments
We get up to 40C and as low as -45C in my city in Canada.
@@AgentXRifle A few "warm" days out of the year. And people in the southern parts of the world, deal with a few "cold" days out of the year.
It was over 40c or 104f for over 2 months straight in the DFW metroplex where we both live and so I'm not surprised that he isn't adapted to it either.
Small propane heater that runs off a 1lb cylinder will far outperform the candles and be cleaner. Or a larger one that runs from a 20# grill tank. If you're monitoring your air quality both will work in a pinch.
I still don't like the idea of heating a home directly with heaters that don't send combustion gases outside. This is where a gasoline, natural gas or diesel generator running outside and providing power to a small electric heater is a safer idea.
@@WJCTechyman Its a stupidly inefficient setup.
I don't know about 'cleaner', I tried to heat a small trailer by turning on the propane stove-top and oven, and nearly gassed myself.
@WJCTechyman there are diesel van heaters that have a separate air intake, air exhaust, and combustion exhaust. They don't generate power, they just sip diesel/kerosene, burn it, and transfer the heat via a heat exchanger. You can have the heater draw warmer air from inside, heat more, blow the heater air into the house, and vent all combustion products outside. They're cheap (I paid more for my Mr. Heater unit) and most can generate at least 9k BTU worth of heat. That's not a ton, but the fact that they'll keep heating the air from inside the house without any carbon monoxide issues is well worth it imo. I love the diesel heater I have for my unheated outdoor shop.
Love these type of videos!
Imagine that… you can cook eggs in a pan over heat. Shocking.
You would be fully screwed if you didn’t have a company GIVE you a complete electrical backup system.
65 degrees… how does one deal with such suffering?
I would invest in a diesel-powered water heating solution for the entire house (very popular and common in Europe), because they require a tiny amount of electricity just to power its water pump through the pipes. The fuel is gravity fed. You can also reduce the fuel cost to half, by mixing it with throw-away cooking oil from restaurants and hotels and there are tons of videos on how to make biodiesel at home.
Even better, invest in a diesel generator because it does more than just heating. Many houses throughout North America have diesel (fuel oil) furnaces and radiant heating. The downside is they need maybe 100-500 W to run the electric systems including controllers, the burner and the pumps or circulation fan. We also have natural gas distribution, not as safe as fuel oil/diesel but somewhat more convenient. I see more and more homes in my town with a standby generator installed beside the home to help in the event our power fails. I would use my portable gasoline generator to at least run the furnace, water heater, sump pump, fridge and freezer but when we don't need to run those we can divert the power to run a microwave oven, a small hot plate or portable electric stove and/or a toaster oven.
@@WJCTechyman David is probably against the whole idea of fossil fuels. Part of his thing with putting in the solar panels in the 1st place, if I remember correctly, was to get away from grid power and reliance on fossil fuels.
Highest efficiency mini-split heat pump that is 500 watt would probably work.
@@matthewjbauer1990 Biofuel probably saves more fossil fuel than this contraption...
@@gluttonousmaximus9048 He got it for free on sponsorship. If you watched the video, they just shipped the stuff to him, with the premise that he make a sponsor spot video, which this clearly is.
Thermal insulation in US buildings is catastrophically bad. When the heating completely is shut off in my house when it's -10 °C outside, the temperature only drops by 1 °C per day.
Thank you for another extremely interesting experiment video, David! And a special thanks for an Apollo 13 reference 👌
Thank you for an update on this! Your solar series is one of my favorites. I love being able to experience these tests through you lol! These are stuff I dream of doing.
One of my favorite parts about your channel is that you allow us to come along on whatever cool journey you are traveling on, which makes your channel unique and one of my favorites! Thank you for doing what you do!
I can’t imagine dealing with this in your location. To some, this might seem like a regular old winter Monday but when your infrastructure isn’t adapted, everything becomes relative. I come from Russia, we usually had as low as -13°F (-25°C) in the winter back in my home town, although I no longer live there. In panel houses, we have centralized heating and water which works without power, and in suburban/standalone houses, we have gas heating. Without power it may not be able to ignite itself, but the heating system usually would have a manual override where you would be able to light the gas manually and just keep it on. Same with warm water in those houses, since it uses a gas boiler. Gas is cheap, so people can afford to use it like that.
Yes I come from the northern US where it was -10°F just a week or so ago and we have gas central heating. I think its just the southern US like Texas where they aren't used to the cold that electric heating is common.
Texas and in particular where David lives is the first world and heavily populated.
The problem he is having is that his "solution" is not a solution at all. Trying to power a heater from a battery for even a room is less than freezing temperatures is just a bad idea. His kerosene heater, OTOH, is a far better heat source.
Unlike gasoline, you can store kerosene a long time. You could easily have 30 gallons of it in your garage not taking up much space.
Solar is abysmal in the winter
The main problem is that he doesn't have any insulation saem where I live, I come from Sweden and living in Japan they don't have any insulation.
@@mrcrackerist Yeah Japan and places like Seattle have to have drafty, poorly-insulated houses because the humidity is so high that they'll grow mold otherwise. and they can't have gas lines because it's too tectonic.
I've never understood how Russia remained such a poor country when it had so much petroleum, something I never knew til recently. I guess Marx found a way.
Since you've had a few EV's, I think you have the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV available in the US too. Here in Australia atleast it has the Chademo connector in addition to the normal one at least - this allows high current DC in and out. So you can use the car's battery to power your house (or holiday shack). The reason this is interesting, I think, is using the charge button in the cabin you can opt to charge the car's battery completely if you want from petrol (gasoline). So the car essentially becomes a big battery / generator. I'd like one for camping for that reason too. You can power devices from the car's battery but if you run it flat just pour in some petrol and you're not stranded. Far less EV range than a full EV, but you have the advantage of being able to use petrol when it's flat.
I learn a whole bunch from these videos 😁
For non-electric heat sources, I strongly prefer propane. A quality portable propane heater rated for indoor use should result in complete enough combustion that only carbon dioxide and water vapor are produced with virtually zero CO.
Interesting video! 👌
For future testing, perhaps you could consider trying one of those small diesel or gas air heaters. (In such a way that the heater and combustion monoxide remain outside the house, and warm and clean air enters through a window, for example). 👋
Kerosene heaters are good in a pinch but you don't want to keep it in a closed room, treat it like a gas stove that needs a vent.
I loved this video. Please do more like it
Dang, that's pretty good stuff. Looks super convenient. Reasonably priced too.
A tip for dealing with a power outage in winter weather, drip your water faucets to a nice fine stream with both the hot and cold water, this will keep your pipes from freezing. also picking up a few Chinese diesel heaters and installing them in a few locations for long emergencys might be helpful as well.
It's not so much about keeping them from freezing as relieving the pressure if they do freeze.
@@ItsMrAssholeToYou no it keeps them from freezing, had to do this for 22 years with our house not having a heated crawl space, all winter long and even in temps as low as -28°F without the windchill.
@@samthemultimediaman
Okay, and I've _had_ frozen pipes a couple times. It doesn't change the fact that it's to relieve pressure. But feel free the believe what you like.
@@ItsMrAssholeToYou the water coming out of the pipes in the ground is above freezing so when you run the water it keeps the temperature of the water up so it doesn't freeze, if your pipes froze you weren't running the taps enough.
If I had this setup and was preparing for a power outage in extreme cold, I would suggest buying and installing pipe heating cable on top of dripping the faucets. These cables usually only use about 7 watts per foot and don't need to be everywhere if the pipes are well insulated. So, if they were on installed outside walls, you're looking at maybe 500 watts if you went really heavy on these?
Love your power experiments. This is why I feel it's important to diversify your energy sources. Natural gas heating and cooking is a life saver!
That's crazy about your kerosene heater experience. I wish it was better for you. I sat for minutes/hours around a big kerosene heater in the 80s after each sledding trip in my backyard. It warmed my heart to see you firing one up. I miss mine. Uh oh nostalgia strikes again! 🎉
"Imagine the darkest overcast you've even seen!"
I live in the UK. I don't have to imagine anything.