Portable Propane Heaters For Winter Storms
A dramatic drop in normal temperature is forecast for the Northern region of the US. That hardly seems like news but it does cause concern for what you can do to stay tepid or to keep the pipes from freezing when the power goes down. An ice storm can hack down power lines and block roads for days at a time. Unfortunately oil and gas heaters need air circulation fans to pump the heat around a house. Most also need electrical power to ignite the fuel. Depending on your own circumstances and what region you live in a Winter power outage can be anything from discomfort to disaster.
Portable propane heaters are a handy and economical way to keep a Winter power outage from turning into a disaster scenario. Portable gas heaters come in several different sizes of heat output capacity, so how do you pin down how many heaters you may need, and what sizes to get?
Here’s a back of the envelope method for answering the question about what size portable heater you may want. Portable heaters are rated in BTU. To determine how many BTU you need to warm an enclosed space to a reasonably warm temperature you must first calculate the volume of the room in cubic feet. The formula for volume is L x W x H. That’s the Length of the room x the Width x the Height to the ceiling. As an example, an 8×10 room with an 8 foot ceiling has a volume of 640 cubic feet (10x8x8).After you get volume multiply the volume calculation of the room by what we’ll call an arbitrary ‘insulation factor.’ A well insulated room has an insulation factor of 2. A poorly insulated room has an insulation factor of 4. So for our 8×10 room you would need a propane heater that was rated between 1,280 BTU and 2,560 BTU depending on how well you thought the room was insulated and how warm you wanted to heat it. If you just want to keep room temperature above freezing then you could probably go with a factor of 1.
You can get propane in 1 lb. cylinders which are available almost everywhere and are easy to store. You can use the same propane cylinder to fuel a Coleman camping stove. If gasoline storage is not a problem a portable inverter gnerator would provide AC electricity for lights, TV and radio.
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