Cutting industry or commerce can easily make problems worse. If electric power generation loses, everything else collapses. This leaves home heating, but if people get too cold or damp, many will get sick and quite a few will die.

My understanding, and what has been reported on TOD before, is that homes are the last to see their gas shut off in an emergency. This is due to the issue of pilot lights going out and the resulting explosions when the gas service is resumes. Industry and other big users will see the first shut offs when a gas crisis emerges.

edit:
Heading out wrote
In a shortage, businesses lose gas before homes
http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2005/10/6/231245/555

So what does this mean, that "If electric power generation loses, everything else collapses."?

I can only speak for myself, but I can get sick just by breathing cold air for long periods, even if the rest of my body is warm. It happened last year during a vacation in Munich. I was thrilled to be in such a beautiful place, and did a lot of walking, spending most of the day outdoors. I ended up with the mother of all sinus infections and it lingered for a month. So "heat one room" is a good idea (also AC one room in the summer). And people who won't put on a sweater and drop the thermostat below 70 aren't even trying! But depending heavily on clothing may not work for some people (my clothing during the trip was quite warm).

A 10 pint/day dehumidifier could probably be run on less than 80 watts, using less than 1 kWh/day for the time it's actually in use.

Is this truly possible? I have an Energy Star dehumidifier that runs almost constantly seven months of the year (the only time it shuts off is when the bucket is full). My power monitor tells me it consumes anywhere from 10 to 13 kWh per day, making it the second largest consumer of electricity in my home. I'm very careful to minimize the amount of humidity generated through cooking, showering, laundry and other normal household activities, but if you take a look at http://www.weatheroffice.gc.ca/trends_table/pages/yhz_metric_e.html, you can see what I'm up against. In addition, if I don't keep my basement at 20C, I run the risk of mould and mildew damage (I discovered this the hard way).

Cheers,
Paul

Electric clothing for motorcyclists and snowmobilers is expensive because it's marketed as specialized sports equipment. If produced for the mass market, it shouldn't be much more expensive than an electric blanket, $30-50 for a twin size.

Really good "Out of the Box" thinking.

Correct, EP.

If we dropped the indoor temperature from 68 degrees F(20 deg C) to 50 degrees(10 degrees C) we would reduce heating energy(natural gas) by about 50%.

Of course with Passive House construction we would eliminate +90% of space heating input with no decrease in indoor temperature but the extreme effort involved is liable to bankrupt the entire cosmos (snark off). Lazy people can throw on a sweater.

There are a few other easy solutions for retrofitting existing structures in cold climates:

The "kotatsu" idea can be used with all sorts of existing furniture. Just put a comforter on top and an electric heater below. Put some plywood on top of the comforter to make a table surface. I like to use a 400w/800w radiant electric heater (looks like a big red lightbulb). This can be used with any desk or table.

The "kotatsu desk" can be used at indoor temperatures below freezing (don't ask me how I know this), but it might be especially useful when you have the central heat turned down to 50F or so, and use the "kotatsu" as a supplement to stay toasty at the desk or table.

Kerosene one-room heaters are very effective. The best are by Toyo, such as the L-73. This has a heat exchanger/exhaust which is passed through the wall, and can be installed by a DIY-er. No dedicated chimney necessary. Here's a good source and description:

http://www.alsheating.com/ToyoHeater.htm

The Toyos are 80%+ efficient and heat only one room, which by itself is far more efficient than heating a whole house. If you pick one room and paint it with thermal paint (looks like normal paint), and add a Toyo one-room heater, that would keep one room toasty for maybe 25% of the fuel cost of typical inefficient central heating. The Rinnai heaters are similar and can be used with natural gas or propane. At about $1000 each, it could pay for itself in one winter.

If you have a big house with lots of extra rooms (kids are gone etc.), I would consider making a "winter living room" out of a bedroom or similar. If you heated a 12'x15' room with a Toyo-type single room heater, it wouldn't take much at all to keep warm.

With a little more ambition, you can superinsulate a "winter living room." Leave all your existing walls in place, and add a freestanding framing "shell" within the existing room. The underfloor could be insulated from below if you have basement access. Put 12" of fiberglass insulation (R-38) behind all walls and above the ceiling, and add a layer of 1/8" foam/foil insulation beyond that. This would probably lower the ceiling to 7' or so, which also helps keep things warmer. Paint the new interior walls with thermal paint. If you don't like it, you can easily tear it out and your original room is still intact. I figure you could do a small room for $1000 in materials. This could easily be heated with a 1500W plug-in heater.

Of course, we should already be using tankless water heaters, as are common in Europe and Japan but still a novelty in the U.S. This can reduce water heating use by up to 50% and no running out!

Only one other person has mentioned electric blankets for beds - these are available as both a cover (over the blankets, and in my opinion a waste), or as under-blankets. It took me a couple of months to find a store with a king size under blanket. I have it underneath a mattress protector and heavy cotton sheets - so the heating elements cannot be felt. Each side of the bed has its own heating control with a scale of 1 to 20. There is also a pre-heat button and it turns itself off after 12 hours.

I bought it last fall (October'ish) and at first (on high) it seemed to be able to heat the bed really well, far more than was needed. In February I turned the gas heating off and have survived so far on just electric blankets on the bed and an electric throw blanket for sitting in chairs.

When the temperature fell below 50 it was a real challenge and not something to invite visitors to experience.

I also wore fingerless gloves and a warm cap regularly. The head is where we lose a substantial amount of heat - why no mention of a warm cap in the article?

One other poster mentioned 'several layers' - these are more important than 'sweaters'.

The main points of the article - heat the person, or heat a substantially smaller volume of air cannot be emphasized enough. There is scope for massive, undeniable savings, without excessive loss of comfort or increased risks to health.

I've thought a lot about reducing the air volume above the bed and enclosing it - I've camped in sub-zero winter conditions and know that the smaller the tent, the more comfortable it can be - because our breath can warm the air volume somewhat. Compact high-efficiency heat exchangers (not necessarily heat pumps) / dehumidifiers are no doubt part of a good solution and much needed.

Also the article did not mention water heating - in the UK a considerable amount of gas is used to heat water for bathing, washing clothes, dishes, etc.

My biggest gripe about 90% of water heaters is that they keep hot water available 24 hours a day. A timer-switch is only a minor improvement. Much better is point-of-use instant water heating (electric or gas).

In the case of electric instant water heaters (in the USA) these are rated accorded to average annual ground temperature water - a heater suited to the south will not likely be adequate in the north.

I have thought at great length about water heating and some things are obvious - instant water heating is the way to go, this should be combined with heat recovery from the waste water. Also, I see no reason why water should be heated from the base ground-temperature - why not allow water to stand in a tank in a high part of the home (in the loft and inside the buildings insulation envelope), this would allow the water to acquire average (ceiling) room temperature without specific active heating. A loft would also allow additional warming in the summer.

Also, the way of replenishing water, as it is used, is too primitive - if you have allowed a tank to sit overnight and get to average room temperature - using half the tank of water and immediately introducing a half a tank of colder ground-temp-water immediately reduces the temperature of the remaining water.

Much better would be to use all of the water as needed and not start to replace it until finished (finished using, not finished the water). This requires a more sophisticated system and more User involvement, but the savings could be considerable.

My 2 cents.

I'm going to experiment with ready made organza curtains on tracks as room dividers. Maybe flame proofed as they are really polyester. The idea is to burn less wood in the fireplace. I see on eBay there is a carbon monoxide alarm that beeps at two threshold levels.

Last July which was mostly one big sideways sleet storm I burned so much wood it was obvious that I couldn't maintain the supply if had the flu, a twisted ankle or just got too old. Funny thing about the weather these days it can get cold anytime. Even horticulture is now at risk from summer frosts with corn, tomatoes and pumpkins getting split or looking blowtorched.

If/when gas rationing occurs the allowance should be for one small room such as the one with the main TV. Inspectors ('carbon cops') should call around to check this and help if necessary. One day seniors might need wireless monitors to send an alarm if their core body temperature drops too low.

wood pellet stoves
who is buying the grain ship loads of wood pellets from Canada
people are buying wood pellet stoves then have problem finding wood pellets

global warming is releasing methane from the arctic
alaska Canada, siberia drill more gas wells lay more pipelines
convert your car to run on compressed natural gas

I didn't burn wood but I had it on hand if the gas got cut off

Also consider the nightcap. Not something you drink before bed - the cap you wore to bed. The purpose was to minimize heat loss through the scalp and neck at night.

...Nightcaps were also used to keep warm at night. They were common in northern Europe before central heating was available, when homes were cold at night.

Women's night caps usually consisted of a long piece of cloth wrapped around the head. Men's nightcaps were traditionally pointed, with a long top, usually accompanied by a small ball of some sort, which was used similar to a scarf. It kept the neck warm while not being so long that it could wrap around and choke the person wearing it in their sleep. Most nightcaps currently produced no longer have the pointy addition. They are mainly used by people with hair loss.

The third time I lost power for several days in Atlanta it was because of an ice storm. The temperature went down to 55 degrees downstairs, where I had gas logs in the fireplace to maintain that temp. I moved the mattress in front of the gas logs to keep warm at night.

My former home, built in 1985, was fairly well insulated but had single pane windows. After the ice storm I put in double pane windows (self installed) and that improved the comfort level in winter and lowered my utility bills by about 15%.

I vowed never to be cold again so when I retired I built a massively heavy aerated autoclaved concrete home with double pane windows, and kept the window area to 15% of the floor area. I also have cellular shades on the largest windows. The house and windows are oriented to make proper seasonal use of the sun, but not quite a passive house. I have been extremely pleased with the results, both in terms of comfort and low utility bills.

If I lived in a colder climate one thing I would do differently is to use a geothermal heat pump.

If possible, people could also either build underground, live in caves, or build cob houses with thick walls--and all of these would require but a minimum amount of heat (or cooling).

But you are speaking of people living where they are living today, in more-or-less traditional "square" box homes.

All your ideas are good ones. This winter I dressed warmly, turned off (not down, off) my heat at night and used an electric blanket, and then in the daytime only heated the room I was in (this is using electric heat). My total electric and heating bills were always under $40 a month.

I am wondering why you said they cannot go back to heating with coal. Is this because of being all mined out, or because it would cost too much to import, or what? Kyoto? In other words, is this a physical, economic, or just a logical impossibility? If only logical, because outlawed, the law can always be reversed, can't it?

When I was a kid, we didn't heat all of the rooms in winter. Only the livingroom was well heated, heat to the bedrooms was turned down, the doorway to the kitchen had a huge blanket tacked over it. We taped our windows, and tacked blankets over them. Blocked off rarely used rooms. It became a smaller house, that stayed warm well, with thick blankets, and a cold kitchen.

When my mom was a kid, the heat was the woodstove in the main room, which was the kind they could sleep on top of the ledge around!

The hardest part about being warm, is knowing just how important it is.

When I lived in Aberdeen, Scotland in 79 there was no gas, except that burning off a couple hundred feet above the derrick on the rigs I worked on. Electricity was expensive for the locals, so on shore we kept warm by sleeping under 5-6 wool blankets - very heavy. The sheets were made of polyester - yech, but the stores didn't sell cotton sheets, so I was forced to get use to it.

At first it seemed difficult, but after a while you just accept wearing lots of clothing and curling up to get warm enough to sleep. The cobblestone streets made of granite stones were frozen over in the morning, but if you had good balance you could slide on them downhill on the way to work for Halliburton.

It's amazing what people can adapt to and once the adaptation has taken place you don't even think about it - you just do what you need to do. People are spoiled by cheap energy, but they will adapt to harsher conditions.

Yes, good points. Localization is key -- heat as locally as possible, clothing and internally being the most effective.

BTW, this is also true of light. One can read with a low power LED book light. I bring one to (dark) restaurants to read with, and will start doing so at home when electricity gets expensive or unreliable.

I also was advocating the residents in the condo where I live use electric room heaters to keep a single room comfy rather than ask the condo to turn up the heat for the building (central heat for whole building). But the drop in gas prices has put the kibosh on that -- for now.

Similar points can be made in regard to water if need be. One can wash with a tiny fraction of the amount we normally use -- as I found in the one or two time I've experience water outages -- by simply localizing the application of water. Still, the thing I'll miss most about the oil age is the long hot shower. Oh well.

A few years ago, such thinking would get one labeled as a nut case. Now more and more people are beginning to realize such thinking is not quite so nutty.

I've lived the last four years in a small converted farm shack (1930's) with my young daughter. No heat, single panes, little insulation, and below the poverty line.
Mild climate here (California), and we have been ok with thermals and polertec in winter. Warm hats on the couch as well as in bed. Can normally see my breath indoors.
But the thing is, this isn't ok when you get sick, or when you come in from the bike commute soaking wet with no way to dry off.
From the perspective of affluence (likely most readers here) one losses sight of both what is acceptable and what creates real hardship. Most days we can all just dress appropriately, but when the crisis times, such as illness, there needs to be a backup.
To that end I installed a Morso wood stove this spring. With two quarter logs and some kindling I can thoroughly heat my living area, drive out the damp, dry the rain-soaked clothing, and get that physical relaxation one needs at times. This has made all the difference for us.
I bought the stove on clearance, 50% off. I heat with scrap wood and tree trimmings.

No need for high-tech, big money retrofits here. Those things are coming to an end soon, anyhow.

UK, drizzly, grey, yada yada. Elsewhere winters can be sunny, and there are many options for heating interior space with the sun, eg. Sun Lizard

I do not know much in detail about the climate in the U.K., but I recently experienced one of the most educational periods of my life, as well as one of the more traumatic.

About 5 months ago in the U.S., in the state of Kentucky, we experienced the worst ice storm in our history. It was almost mythic in its destruction, destroying trees, power lines and even structures in an hour after hour ice pile-up which moved over the state like a glacier descending from the sky.

I was made homeless, with the power to my home destroyed, the electric meter sheared from the wiring of the house, and the water frozen and bursted on the north side of the home. The house still sits dark and cold. I was forced to relocate to an apartment some 22 miles away. I left the house at 2AM, using a garbage bag and a flashlight to round up some emergency supplies. When I left the house was 22 degrees Fehrenheit (-9.4 Celsius)inside with water frozen in the kitchen sink and the pipes bursted under the home.

The most important lesson I learned was this: If you are not prepared before the event, you cannot prepare for it during the event. The damage of cold and ice occurs very fast. By the time I realized I could not endure in the extreme cold, saving the house from damage was hopeless. I had stayed under mountains of blankets and wearing a parka and ski sweater and jackets, going to my car every 6 hours or so in an attempt to warm up, but I could not cook food, had no heat and no light, so could not bath or even shave (except for "dry shaving" with a disposable razor, with no way to wash my face afterward) By the time I left the home I was dehydrated, hungry, grungy and cold to the point of it being dangerous.

I know one man who stayed with his wife in his home until his feet began to turn black. He almost lost the feet, and the doctor told him once he made it to the emergency room that he had almost lost his life.

The U.K., like the U.S. has an aging demographic, many with health issues such as high blood pressure, bad circulation, diabetes and heart conditions. A collapse in natural gas/electric production that destroys the ability to heat homes scares me FAR more than any gasoline shortage ever could. The great Kentucky ice storm only proved to me what I had already known, but had not prepared for.

The fact is, the U.S. and U.K. would see great suffering and casualities in an emergency involving major loss of home heating and it would occur VERY quickly, almost before the emergency contingency plans could even be put into play.

If we do not prepare now, we cannot prepare when it happens, it will simply be too late.

RC

A microwave generator in the corner of the room...mmmm...toasty warm.

I can't believe that there has been no mention yet of programmable thermostats! That should be basic, one of the first things that people do.

It used to be in the older days that homes were pretty much continuously inhabited by someone in the family. These days, the adults are all at work and the kids are all at school, so the house sits empty for most of the day. It makes all the sense in the world in that situation to set the thermostat WAY BACK during the daytime. A programmale thermostat makes sure that it actually gets done every day.

Temps can be lower at night because people are in bed; the bedding keeps people warm, the rest of the house can be cooler. Once again, a programmable thermostat makes sure it gets done.

Of course, this only works as long as one is relying on an automated system. Heat with wood, and the programmable thermostat is the one placed between your ears.

Some of this flies directly in the face of my own experience with winter. In both Michigan (Planet Earth) and Planet Georgia, for example, the problem isn't getting rid of the humidity — it's adding enough. Perhaps the UK is different?

For the last two winters, we've heated FAR Manor primarily with an old Earth Stove fireplace insert, and keep an old percolator pot of water on the cooking surface to put a little moisture back in the air. Given the mild winters on Planet Georgia, this simple wood-heating retrofit works fairly well. We still use the gas furnace, but only as a sort of baseline.

In my serial peak-oil novel, FAR Future (on my blog), there's a fair amount of verbiage dedicated to people staying warm, or trying to, through the winter. People would move in together and heat only one house, strip abandoned houses and burn the furniture & hang the carpeting on walls for extra insulation, and so forth.

Regarding hot water heating, I'm not a fan of "on demand" water heating in general, and most especially not when the heating provided by electrical resistance heating. Each joule of heat delivered through resistance heating requires ~three joules of fuel consumption.

Gas-fired on-demand heaters are not terrible, but the very high rate of heat transfer required to keep up with the flow of water means that the heat exchange is incomplete. A lot of energy is lost in the flue gas.

The most efficient option is a heat pump, delivering to a well-insulated hot water tank with well-insulated hot-water pipes. Second best is a compromise with on-demand water heating; multiple smallish hot water tanks with rapid recovery rates, located near the points of consumption. In practice, that most often means one tank for a pair of bathrooms located back-to-back, and a separate tank for the kitchen. Proximity means short runs of pipe, easy to insulate, with quick response and minimal waste while hot water finds its way through cold pipes.

Another good way to get by with less energy is with more efficient cooking appliances. Even if one must boil water inefficiently in a pot on the stove to start, pouring boiling water and ingredients into a wide-mouth thermos bottle can be an efficient way to prepare soups and stews.

A lot of people have mentioned insulation, but only a very few have mentioned windows, which are often more important.

We have thermopane windows. We added another triple layer of laminated glass (glass-plastic-glass) to most of our windows (1/2" thick for the fixed windows, 3/8" for movable windows). It wasn't terribly expensive, just a custom order for the glass, and a carpenter's installation. We also use cellular shades, which work quite nicely as window treatments, are cheaper than drapes, and have some insulating value.

Now, we can maintain a 70F temperature in the house down to 32F outside, with no use of HVAC at all - that's roughly a 40 degree difference. I suspect we could maintain a 25 degree difference with no electricity (and therefore no lights, PC's, etc).

Um, how about some insulation? I live in Northern Canada and rarely turn on my heat till 4C. Most of the UK doesn't get temps like that. They need to retro fit their homes with good insulation. Not furnaces