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Comment by Tepix | Hacker News Reader

For me, planning for a five day power outage in the winter seems like it's something that takes only a limited amount of effort and resources and could come in very handy indeed. Make sure you have enough water (and a way to make it potable), heat, food, light, 1st aid and communications.

Going all in and getting a year of supplies seems excessive.

As always, YMMV :-)

PS: In Germany, the BMI (interior ministry) publishes a free guide for preparedness at https://www.bmi.bund.de/DE/themen/bevoelkerungsschutz/zivil-... They recommend a 10 day food and water supply.

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For heat in northern climates, unfortunately there's only so much you can do (outside of a backup generator with a big propane tank). A wood stove/fireplace can keep you comfortable but you'll still probably end up with frozen/broken pipes.

But I agree with your basic point. Early on in the pandemic there were people stocking up on 6 months of rice/pasta/etc. In cities. You basically plan for relatively short outages or you plan for civilizational collapse which probably involves getting out of cities and preparing for people trying to take stuff from you.

If you keep the pipes running, they might not freeze. It's also usually not too difficult to drain the majority of the pipes depending on the plumbing design.

If you have forced hot water heating, it's more difficult.

Isn't there a way to have some antifreeze additives in pipes where a pipe freeze is actually a realistic scenario?

You can absolutely winterize a house. My dad did it in Maine for a number of years when he was leaving the house for the winter. But as I recall it was something of an operation to both winterize it and dewinterize it--which he called a plumber in for.

One of the problems with winter power outages is that even if you're prepared to winterize everything by yourself, you probably don't know that it's going to be an extended outage (which is generally rare) so it doesn't make sense to immediately take drastic steps.

Isolated pipes, preferably in door, and your good to go. Isolations also helps to limit heat loss, so generaly a good idea.

Not really. It's more difficult to refill them and get all the air out than to drain them.

> A wood stove/fireplace can keep you comfortable but you'll still probably end up with frozen/broken pipes.

Primarily a problem with old school copper pipes. Plastic / PEX pipes may be less of an issue:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOeBJ8mDr8Q

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9W466z5Cwk

> the BMI (interior ministry)

Remember that these are the guys who coordinated the Corona and Ahrtal responses, and understand that if they say 10 days is enough, it is prudent to plan for 30 days upwards.

This also reduces the first respond burden.

After that a lot of people would dye sooner than later.

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