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The Emergency and Disaster preparedness thread

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Jr. Member
Oct 17, 2013
186 posts
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Ontario
I live on a small farm in central Ontario, and we need to be prepared for lengthy power outages or snow/ice storms that prevent us from getting out. Much of the common sense suggestions we already follow, but I need to defend wood burning as backup heat. We use a woodstove as our "back-up" heat source, but really, it's burning daily. It's been installed legally, inspected and the extra $100 in insurance for our house is worth it. We buy 2 cords of hardwood for $600 and that's more than enough to keep us cozy all through the heating season. People need to learn to burn properly and cleanly. Wood must be dry and you need to provide enough oxygen and not allow it to smolder, which causes soot and dirty, smelly smoke.

Otherwise, we have a small generator to keep the fridge and freezers running, propane stove, a 1000lb propane tank we fill in November to get us through until June, and a natural spring for water. We're ready.
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Feb 8, 2014
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earthygoat wrote: I live on a small farm in central Ontario, and we need to be prepared for lengthy power outages or snow/ice storms that prevent us from getting out. Much of the common sense suggestions we already follow, but I need to defend wood burning as backup heat. We use a woodstove as our "back-up" heat source, but really, it's burning daily. It's been installed legally, inspected and the extra $100 in insurance for our house is worth it. We buy 2 cords of hardwood for $600 and that's more than enough to keep us cozy all through the heating season. People need to learn to burn properly and cleanly. Wood must be dry and you need to provide enough oxygen and not allow it to smolder, which causes soot and dirty, smelly smoke.

Otherwise, we have a small generator to keep the fridge and freezers running, propane stove, a 1000lb propane tank we fill in November to get us through until June, and a natural spring for water. We're ready.
Wood is a legitimate heat source but it has quirks
The insurance issue of course but also the type of stove, ones that use internal air can lead to warming the room its in while cooling the rest of the house drastically. Also the efficiency is often rather low, unlike other fuels you can't say 100,000 BTU of wood will give you even close to 100K BTU of heat inside the home. I believe there are high efficiency units out there and ones that use outdoor air for combustion, but this involves careful research and purchasing decisions.
I have been intrigued by some of the pellet stoves though i have not taken a strong look at wood burning appliances in general which perhaps i should someday.
Also worth bearing in mind that there is not enough wood to heat every home in the world, but for a percentage it can be a viable heat source, especially for short term use. And it stores long term quite well.
In fact in Rand McNally they wear hats on their feet and hamburgers eat people
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Dec 19, 2009
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You can get fuel oil heaters that require no electricity to operate.
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Jan 16, 2015
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Cochrane, AB
pootza wrote: You can get fuel oil heaters that require no electricity to operate.
How much would that cost to buy and get installed? And what is the shelf life of heating oil?

I've been browsing geothermal and it seems like that is a very sensible and low maintenance heating source that doesn't have any of the pollution, CO, explosion, and fire hazard draw backs. Only thing is the very high cost to get installed, $30,000 plus around $5000 for a geothermal furnace:

https://www.furnaceprices.ca/posts/geot ... stem-cost/
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Dec 19, 2009
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JoeStale wrote: How much would that cost to buy and get installed? And what is the shelf life of heating oil?

I've been browsing geothermal and it seems like that is a very sensible and low maintenance heating source that doesn't have any of the pollution, CO, explosion, and fire hazard draw backs. Only thing is the very high cost to get installed, $30,000 plus around $5000 for a geothermal furnace:

https://www.furnaceprices.ca/posts/geot ... stem-cost/
Not sure of the buy/install price ... maybe someone can help or could possibly google it.

One kind, probably lots of others ...
http://www.stevestoyostove.com/nordicst ... vector.php

Shelf life of heating oil is 18-24 months with the right additives. But do you actually need it or just get it delivered when the shit hits the fan?

Geothermal would require electricity same as an air conditioner ... big generator for that.
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Jan 16, 2015
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pootza wrote: Shelf life of heating oil is 18-24 months with the right additives. But do you actually need it or just get it delivered when the shit hits the fan?

Geothermal would require electricity same as an air conditioner ... big generator for that.
Butane and propane have nearly indefinite shelf lives when stored properly so only a 18-24 life span for hearing oil is a major drawback. And if there is an emergency, you are not very likely going to get delivery.

For geothermal, you could combine some solar panels to power the pumps. Gets real expensive with this setup.
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earthygoat wrote: Much of the common sense suggestions we already follow, but I need to defend wood burning as backup heat. We use a woodstove as our "back-up" heat source, but really, it's burning daily. It's been installed legally, inspected and the extra $100 in insurance for our house is worth it. We buy 2 cords of hardwood for $600 and that's more than enough to keep us cozy all through the heating season. People need to learn to burn properly and cleanly. Wood must be dry and you need to provide enough oxygen and not allow it to smolder, which causes soot and dirty, smelly smoke.
Burning wood is actually extremely polluting even with the best certified low emission wood stoves:

https://www.treehugger.com/renewable-en ... green.html

That link states that a low emission wood stove puts out as much particulate pollution into the air in 2-2.5 days as a car does in an entire year.

And also, cities typically have strict laws or bans on wood stoves. Example being Montreal that has banned most types of wood stoves recently in October 2018 and where you have to get expensive upgrades to certain types if you want to keep burning. Even then, you are restricted in burning wood in the stoves if the city deems there is too much smog in the air.
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Jun 26, 2005
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Toronto
Not sure if this has been mentioned..... if you live in the GTA, the probablility of complete power out for days/weeks is very low in comparison to other emergenceis. As everyone pointed out, to keep your entire house/family heated for days without electricity is pretty difficult.

For example, these are the higher probabilities that we should concentrate on:

1) your street is out of power for days
2) Police knocks on your door and tells you and family to leave the house RIGHT NOW, for days (why? neighbour's house is on fire, explosion nearby, etc. remember these happened in 2018 in Toronto?

And that apartment building (650 Parliament) where hundreds are forced to be kicked out due to the electrical hazard?

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ ... -1.4842772
3) _________?

So imo, we should prepare for the higher probability scenarios (1) and (2).

(1) I would drive my family to a neighbour/relative that has power. So problem of heat is solved. However, life has to go on. You have to go to work tomorrow, kids have school (or else who's gonna watch them while you work?), etc.

(2) similar to (1), you have no use of your house for days/weeks.

To solve for both (1) and (2), for my family, I am now preparing a list of items to pack as an emergency suitcase + backpacks.

If when we are ordered to evacuate my house, if we have time and a car, then I would take all suitcases + backpacks.

If we are ordered to go RIGHT NOW, cause my neighbour's house is on fire RIGHT next to mine, then we can only run with our backpacks. Suit cases may be too heavy / slow.

Hence, our backpacks needs things that will sustain us for days/weeks too. Things like money, TTC toikens, cash, underwear, socks, etc... Kinda like the bugout bags, but not as serious (like in USA youtubers), because we aren't hiking through a forest.

Anyhow, that's my opinion. GTA doesn't have disasters really, because we have people that are trained to bring things back up and running. However, your own house can be out of commission for awhile. That is the more likely scenario.
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Jan 16, 2015
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rfdrfd wrote: Not sure if this has been mentioned..... if you live in the GTA, the probablility of complete power out for days/weeks is very low in comparison to other emergenceis. As everyone pointed out, to keep your entire house/family heated for days without electricity is pretty difficult.

For example, these are the higher probabilities that we should concentrate on:

1) your street is out of power for days
2) Police knocks on your door and tells you and family to leave the house RIGHT NOW, for days (why? neighbour's house is on fire, explosion nearby, etc. remember these happened in 2018 in Toronto?
What about a scenario like the Quebec ice storms of 1998 that knocked out power province wide for weeks during the middle of winter? What are you going to do about survival then?

It is foolish to have your Plan A as going to your neighbors or friends a few blocks down.
Jr. Member
Oct 17, 2013
186 posts
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Ontario
JoeStale wrote: Burning wood is actually extremely polluting even with the best certified low emission wood stoves:

https://www.treehugger.com/renewable-en ... green.html

That link states that a low emission wood stove puts out as much particulate pollution into the air in 2-2.5 days as a car does in an entire year.

And also, cities typically have strict laws or bans on wood stoves. Example being Montreal that has banned most types of wood stoves recently in October 2018 and where you have to get expensive upgrades to certain types if you want to keep burning. Even then, you are restricted in burning wood in the stoves if the city deems there is too much smog in the air.
I never said wood stoves are a non-polluting solution, I did say there are cleaner ways and dirtier ways of burning wood. Your article also states that wood stoves are not suitable to densely populated areas. I agree. However, I live in a very rural area where the majority of people burn wood for heat, and it's definitely not densely populated. We just don't have access to fuel like natural gas. Plus, the 20,000 trees we planted 6 years ago on our property, in addition to another 50 acres of forest, will definitely help in clearing the pollution that drifts our way from the urban centres for generations to come.

Also, if I lived in an urban centre, and I was suddenly with no heat, I would honestly not care about particulate matter if I had to run a wood stove for a few days so that I could keep my family warm. We are talking about emergencies, right? Urban and rural emergency preparedness are two very different situations.
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Jun 26, 2005
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JoeStale wrote: What about a scenario like the Quebec ice storms of 1998 that knocked out power province wide for weeks during the middle of winter? What are you going to do about survival then?

It is foolish to have your Plan A as going to your neighbors or friends a few blocks down.
As you mentioned, 1998.
That's 20 years ago.

So I would say the probability of that happening is extremely low. My suggestions were not for a complete city wide failure. But for partial failure, which is much more likely to happen in GTA.

If complete failure,then go drive down to another city and live in a hotel for the meantime. Just need $$$

For now what everyone of us should do is pack an emergency evacuation backpack and suitcase because police can knock on your door tonight to say there is a fire down the street and you must evacuate in 5 minutes

that can happen, very realistic.
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Feb 8, 2014
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rfdrfd wrote: As you mentioned, 1998.
That's 20 years ago.

So I would say the probability of that happening is extremely low. My suggestions were not for a complete city wide failure. But for partial failure, which is much more likely to happen in GTA.

If complete failure,then go drive down to another city and live in a hotel for the meantime. Just need $$$

For now what everyone of us should do is pack an emergency evacuation backpack and suitcase because police can knock on your door tonight to say there is a fire down the street and you must evacuate in 5 minutes

that can happen, very realistic.
I stopped replying to him because it was a waste of my time and energy but natural disasters will likely become more frequent. Heating houses for long periods during emergencies is not easily accomplished without blowing huge amounts of money unnecessarily and misdirected options will mean huge amounts of cash wasted leading to failure. In most cases our homes were not designed to be independent without huge amounts of freely available energy. A century ago no one had the engineering expertise to design this way (the will may have been there, the technology was not) and today people prefer ideology over rational design.
It may make more sense to have community solutions but people can't agree to make that happen either.
It is possible to have heating resilience but the costs and techniques are not easy when it comes to heat, a house with a 10K 99% peak load will be more then 10x easier to maintain then a 100K 99% peak load home. And in an emergency will 99% peak load resilience be enough?
In fact in Rand McNally they wear hats on their feet and hamburgers eat people
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Feb 9, 2006
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Brampton
rfdrfd wrote: As you mentioned, 1998.
That's 20 years ago.

So I would say the probability of that happening is extremely low. My suggestions were not for a complete city wide failure. But for partial failure, which is much more likely to happen in GTA.

If complete failure,then go drive down to another city and live in a hotel for the meantime. Just need $$$

For now what everyone of us should do is pack an emergency evacuation backpack and suitcase because police can knock on your door tonight to say there is a fire down the street and you must evacuate in 5 minutes

that can happen, very realistic.
Well one school of thought says damages occurring from inclement weather will be more than the past and the chances of more severe inclement weather are increasing all due to climate change.
Another says we have taken lessons learned and applied them to our infrastructure upgrades so in the future it will have less impact or be more robust.

I know that in the latter case this is true to some extent. I'd say split the difference. One should be more prepared but reasonably so.

Using propane burning camping stoves and trying to heat your home on butane portable stoves would rank towards the extreme. As is planning for total infrastructure/society collapse.

Your approach is reasonable and it's what most government emergency preparedness courses/guides say.

Have some food and water on hand as well as cash.
Have bug out bags at the ready. Bug out bags (BOB) have gotten a bit extreme with the rise of US survivalist culture. BOBs have always been a thing, except people called them overnight bags or long term emergency kits, but that's not extreme or sexy sounding. "Tacticool" is sexy and sells.
Have clothes, water, radio. energy bars, medication, cash and documentation(not exhausting list) in the bag.

One thing people keep glazing over is the plan in the emergency planning part.
Make a list of the events likely to effect you and plan around that. That could mean staying put, going to a hotel or going to another loved ones place for a bit.

I posted this before but here it is again:
https://www.york.ca/wps/wcm/connect/yor ... OD=AJPERES

You do what's in the guide and you're be prepared for 80% of what is likely to be faced (80/20 rule). The last 20% will be more effort or cost than it's worth.
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rfdrfd wrote: If complete failure,then go drive down to another city and live in a hotel for the meantime. Just need $$$
Facepalm. Have you not read any news or watched any video about real natural disasters? One of the first things to happen is gas stations running out of fuel and massive gridlock with everyone thinking they are so smart to drive on the roads and get to a hotel. Look at all the tornado or hurricanes where people become stranded in the middle of the highway because they think no one else is going to do the same thing.
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Quentin5 wrote: I stopped replying to him because it was a waste of my time and energy but natural disasters will likely become more frequent.
I would be very interested to hear what your back up heating and Plan B's are.
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JoeStale wrote: I would be very interested to hear what your back up heating and Plan B's are.
I would be very interested if you stopped arguing with someone who says what you don't want to hear
I can easily explain why your proposed solutions so far won't work and what you need to do to get to where you want to go but your going to have to listen instead of arguing that you know what your talking about when you clearly don't
Thats not meant to be condescending even if it sounds like it but if you don't want math then i would be wasting my energy.
And you would have to do math on your location and home and situation. I can direct you to resources to calculate your 99% design load, and given your resources, money available and goals there are certainly options but you will have to start listening to others who tell you whats uncomfortable to hear but are happy to back up what they say with cold hard facts and numbers
Last edited by Quentin5 on Dec 4th, 2018 1:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.
In fact in Rand McNally they wear hats on their feet and hamburgers eat people
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Sep 22, 2009
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rfdrfd wrote: As you mentioned, 1998.
That's 20 years ago.

So I would say the probability of that happening is extremely low. My suggestions were not for a complete city wide failure. But for partial failure, which is much more likely to happen in GTA.

If complete failure,then go drive down to another city and live in a hotel for the meantime. Just need $$$

For now what everyone of us should do is pack an emergency evacuation backpack and suitcase because police can knock on your door tonight to say there is a fire down the street and you must evacuate in 5 minutes

that can happen, very realistic.
How do you know where the next city that has power? It can be 50km away. It can be 1000km away.
Gas stations and pumps will be down. Bank machines and credit cards will be down.
Driving into unknown territory with family members and limited supply is extremely risky. There will be desperate "zombies" on the road waiting or next prey.
Your car is not a tank. It can be disabled very easy.
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Quentin5 wrote: I can easily explain why your proposed solutions so far won't work and what you need to do to get to where you want to go but your going to have to listen instead of arguing that you know what your talking about when you clearly don't
Thats not meant to be condescending even if it sounds like it but if you don't want math then i would be wasting my energy.
I'm still waiting to hear what your solution is instead of just saying nothing will work.
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JoeStale wrote: I'm still waiting to hear what your solution is instead of just saying nothing will work.
I didn't say nothing can work, i am saying if you want to talk about things you need to give up your intransigence and behaviour
In fact in Rand McNally they wear hats on their feet and hamburgers eat people
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Dec 15, 2009
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Quentin5 wrote: I didn't say nothing can work, i am saying if you want to talk about things you need to give up your intransigence and behaviour
I have not been snotty but would appreciate your insight Quentin.

Personally we have a woodstove rated to 1600ft (Alderlea T5 which also provides an 8x11 cooking surface) and 5 acres wooded for fuel to stock up on, a Mr buddy, a kerosene heater, propane fireplace, hook up to propane supply for mr heater.

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