Heating dilemma...

[Jamastiene]

I have a dilemma involving heating. There is an ice storm or something like that moving through my area. I use electric heat and have no fireplace. The power usually gets knocked out here for quite a while during these types of storms. Usually it's long enough that the temperature starts dropping inside.

The local news stations all said my county would be pretty much immune to the ice, but guess what? It looks like icicle heaven outside right now. My Kerosene heater is at my stepdad's house and right now they are not talking to me much at all.

I am not used to driving on ice and my driveway leads out onto the streen at a 45 degree angle. I can just see myself sliding down into some car that is driving by trying to get out to go get some sort of heat.

I guess what I am trying to ask is: Should I turn the thermostat up to heat it up a little more in case the power goes out and just pay the bill knowing I did it to myself, or should I leave it as is and hope the power doesn't go out at all?

[southlandshari]

1. Better safe than sorry, methinks.

I'd crank up the heat a bit and keep everything locked up tight. I feel for you, darlin' - ice storms are the pits, especially in the south where most of us, present company included, don't know how to drive properly in those conditions.

Good luck!

:hug:

[Jamastiene]

2. It's horrendous.

We don't have enough of the pretty fluffy snow to play in, but we get the ice that is horrible to drive on. I can't deal with driving around the bridge or the curves between my place and town.

The bridge is surrounded by curves. If I did make it out of the driveway safely, I'd have to go around a 45 degree curve to the left onto the bridge and a 45 degree turn to the right once I crossed the bridge.

Forget the other route into town. It has those curves like the ones pictured on the road signs in the Pee Wee Herman movies or the joke Florida voting ballot going around back then. Some of those curves are so sharp, I have actually (out of reflex) turned the turn signal on when turning into them. And they do the same thing, first they turn really sharply one way and just as you get into the center of them, damned if there isn't another curve going the other way.

My aunt had a saying when going through this area:
Winding around and winding about
Leaves my mind in serious doubt
As to whether the lout who built this route
Was going to hell or coming out.

I always enjoyed hearing her say that when we would go through the hilly area of town.

[pokerfan]

3. I think that would only buy you a couple of hours at most

and probably not worth the extra heating cost, whether the power goes out or not.

I suffered through an ice storm nine years ago and was without electricity for a week. At least I still had natural gas hot water so at least I could take a hot shower or bath whenever I felt like it. But it got damned cold in the house.

On the third day, I borrowed a generator and wired it to my gas furnace, so it could turn the fan - house was back to normal in a couple of hours.

A small generator might run a small space heater for you and keep you from freezing solid.