Be Prepared When the Power Goes Out !
Living in Canada, we’ve all experienced a bad winter storm. Freezing temperatures, piles of snow and, every so often, the power goes out. This begs the question: Is your home ready for a power outage?
It’s important to be prepared for power outages. Besides the obvious (food), will your home be kept warm during winter? Are you prepared for your furnace to be turned off for an extended period of time?
Solar Power
Friendly Fires offers great solar packages, either for complete off-grid applications or simply as back up. Browse some of our offerings here.
No Power? No Problem!
Luckily, there are many products available that don’t run on electricity. Wood and gas / propane fireplaces are a great addition to the home, especially when the power is out. Friendly Fires gas hearth appliances are actually designed to operate during a power failure. Some even generate their own electricity! It’s important to know which system you have for circumstances such as this. Wood fireplaces, stoves and inserts are also a great alternative heat source. The warm wood radiant heat these units produce can warm your living spaces for days when necessary, despite not having an operating fan.
What About Food?
When necessity demands some wood or gas burning stoves can also be used for heating food on top of the stove. Some wood and gas models even have a second top layer. To improve the heat conductivity on these stoves, place your cook pot directly on the inner top. If your model is equipped with a trivet, remove it to access the inner top and maximize the heat conducted from the stove top. Ovens or Dutch ovens can also be purchased separately to allow for even cooking on a stove.
If your wood stove or fireplace is not equipped with a stove top, you can also let the fire die down to a bed of coals and cook foods in a small Dutch oven or a foil packet directly on the hot bed of coals. Practice cooking on your wood stove before a power outage occurs to give yourself a better idea of how your wood stove will heat and cook foods!
Real BBQ Cooking?
If cooking is a main concern, consider one of our North American gas (or charcoal) grills. These are great appliances to use during a power outage! If purchased right, a good quality BBQ will work no problem during the winter. In fact, most Friendly Fires BBQ customers continue to grill all year long.
Be Prepared
All heating wood and gas (propane) fireplaces recommended by Friendly Fires operate during power outages. Although the main purpose of a fireplace is for heat, you may want to practice using (and cooking?) with your appliance prior to a power outage in order to prepare yourself.
Stay warm!
