How to Stay Warm Without Electricity
In a winter outage, pick one room, seal drafts you can, wear dry layers, and use only heat sources rated and vented for indoor use. Never heat with a kitchen oven, charcoal grill, patio grill, or generator. CDC describes hypothermia as a body temperature below 95°F and treats severe hypothermia as an emergency. Ready.gov tells people to check with local officials about warming locations.
Cold kills in houses that still look ordinary from the street. The Minnesota edition of 90 Days Without Power repeats CDC hypothermia signs on purpose, including a note about infants. Any household that might see freezing indoor temperatures needs the same page, not only northern states.
One warm room beats a whole cold house
Gather people, pets, and sleeping gear in one interior room. Close doors to unused rooms. Put towels at the bottoms of doors if you have them.
Dry layers matter more than a single heavy coat you sweat in and then freeze in. Hats and dry socks are not fashion; they are heat retention. A heat-reflective blanket can line a window or wrap a person but tears if you treat it like a quilt.
If you use any fuel-burning indoor heater, it must be rated for indoor use and used exactly as designed, with working carbon monoxide alarms. Most improvised ideas - a camp stove on the coffee table, a charcoal grill in the fireplace without a proper flue - are how people die. See generator and CO safety.
Pipes, medicines, and leaving
A mild freeze still bursts pipes in poorly insulated homes. A house that cannot be kept safe is a reason to go to a warming center or to someone whose building still has heat.
Write your indoor-temperature trigger before the storm, the same way a hot-climate household writes a heat trigger. Take medicines, important papers, and pets if you leave. Do not sleep in a running car in a closed garage.
The book's cold-weather chapter includes a hypothermia sign chart and a warm-room layout. Pair this page with the 90-day preparation guide so heat is not your only plan in January.
How hypothermia shows up, including in infants
CDC describes hypothermia as a drop in body temperature below 95°F. Warning signs in adults include shivering, exhaustion, confusion, fumbling hands, memory loss, slurred speech, and drowsiness. Infants may show bright red, cold skin and very low energy. Severe hypothermia is an emergency.
Call 911 for severe signs. Move the person to a warmer place, remove wet clothing, and warm the center of the body first with dry layers and blankets. CDC’s winter-weather pages describe these first-aid ideas; they are not a reason to delay professional care. Give warm beverages only if the person is fully conscious.
A house can be dangerous before pipes freeze. Older adults who keep indoor temperatures very low, people who cannot move well, and anyone in wet clothes after going outside are at higher risk. Alcohol makes people feel warm while increasing heat loss; it is not a heat strategy.
Layer clothing and keep it dry. Cotton that gets wet from sweat or snow will chill you. Hats, dry socks, and blankets matter more than a single dramatic coat. A heat-reflective emergency blanket can reduce radiant loss or cover a window; it tears easily if you treat it like bedding.
Never heat with a kitchen oven, a charcoal grill, a patio grill, or a generator brought indoors. Those sentences are repeated on this site because they are repeated on Ready.gov and CDC pages. Battery carbon monoxide alarms belong in the same box as the extra blankets. Details are on generator carbon monoxide safety.
Pipes, one-room living, and when to leave for a warming center
Pick one interior room, close off the rest, put towels at door gaps, and sleep everyone who can together so shared body heat helps. If you cannot keep the house safe, go to an official warming location or to someone whose building still has heat.
Ready.gov tells people to check with local officials about warming locations. 2-1-1 is often how those sites are listed during a regional event; the book’s state editions include each pilot state’s 211 note. If you leave, take medicines, important papers, chargers, and pets if the site allows them.
Pipes burst when water inside them freezes and expands. Letting a thin stream run at a faucet is a common utility winter tip during ordinary cold snaps; whether you should do that in a long outage depends on whether you have a safe water supply to waste and whether your local utility is asking for conservation. Insulate exposed pipes before winter if you can. Know where the main shutoff is so a burst pipe does not flood the only warm room.
A fuel-burning indoor heater is only appropriate if it is rated for indoor use, used exactly as designed, and paired with working CO and smoke alarms. Most camp equipment is not that heater. If you do not already own a safe indoor heater, do not invent one from hardware-store parts during a storm.
The Minnesota edition of 90 Days Without Power treats cold as a first-line chapter topic. Households in other northern and mountain states should read this page the same way. See Minnesota and the state index. Pair warmth with the 90-day preparation stages so January is not the first time you think about a leave trigger.
What to stage before the first freeze
Put extra blankets, dry socks, hats, a battery CO alarm, a flashlight, and a written warming-center plan in the room you would actually use, not in a bin you cannot find in the dark.
Practice closing that room off once so you know which doors get towels and which windows leak. If you use any safe indoor-rated heater, read the manual while you are calm. Store fuel only as local fire rules allow.
Tell the out-of-area contact what your leave trigger is (for example, indoor air that you can no longer keep safe for the most vulnerable person). That sentence belongs on the same card as phone numbers. See the family communication plan.
Frozen pipes, dead phone batteries, and carbon monoxide are the three problems that turn a cold outage into a disaster even when the roof is still intact. The book repeats them because official pages repeat them. No article can promise that one sealed room will be enough in every building; manufactured homes, older houses with little insulation, and high-rise apartments each have different limits. Know your building.
Questions people ask
Can I heat my house with the kitchen oven?
No. Ready.gov says never to use a gas stovetop or oven to heat your home because of carbon monoxide and fire risk.
What indoor temperature is hypothermia?
CDC describes hypothermia as a body temperature below 95°F. It is a medical emergency when signs are severe.