General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Propane preparedness [View all]CentralMass
(15,265 posts)you do what you have to to survive. It comes down to using propane powered devices safely and how long the appliance can operate on the amount of propane in the tank. You (follow the mfg's usage) can use a propane campstove indoors for cooking under the right conditions. Like under a hood vent or in a well ventilated area with an open window.
Unless it is direct venting type I think that use propane heaters indoors can be deadly. A good size portable emergency propane powered generator would be a 5kW generator. A 20lb propane tank will power a 5k generator running at 50% load for about 8.8 hours. That would drop to 5.5 hours for a 7.5k generator running at 50%. (Generators have to be outside, inside is deadly)..
So if it's all you have or can get during and emergency it can make a huge difference.
Being able to cook a hot meal or make hot drinks is huge. In New England where we could lose power for 2 weeks or so in the dead of winter. I was lucky enough to be able to borrow a kind neighbors back up generator that ran on gasoline. I have some electrical back ground a d was able to connect it up to be able to selectively run things like the oiled fired forced hot water furnace and the refrigerator and some lights. Running the furnace for a few hours would warm the entire house and running the refrigerator to keep food from going bad. Since it was probably not going to get above freezing we could also put food in containers on the back deck. So I would run the ed furnace at night to warm the place up and after everyone showered etc and was ready for bed I would shut it down and wake up periodically to check on the kids and start the generator as needed. We also had a large coal stove on our raised hearth fireplace down stairs that producedl a lot of heat but with sub zero night time temps the rooms upstairs would get cold on that alone. In an emergency we could all sleep in the living room.
Oh and a very critical item that I forgot was running the well for water and be able to flush toilets..