Preparing Your Homestead for Winter Power Outages

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Are you ready for winter? Power outages can happen a lot in the winter months due to ice storms, blizzards, and overuse of the power grid system.

If you are still on a power grid, here are some things that you can do to prepare your homestead for winter power outages.

It’s important to be able to keep your family safe and warm in the winter months, and one of the ways you can do that is by preparing for any potential power outages that you might face.

Get more general tips on Winter Preparedness here.

Knowing that you are prepared for emergencies can greatly reduce your stress in the upcoming winter season.

Table of Contents

Off‑Grid Heating: Wood‑Stove Preparedness

If you are able to have a wood stove in your home, you should! Heating with wood is one of the only guaranteed ways to heat your home during a power outage. If you already have a wood stove, here are some things you need to do every year to have it ready for winter.

Schedule or do an annual chimney cleaning and checking flues for creosote buildup. This will keep your family safe from chimney fires and fume/smoke buildup inside the home.

Stockpile seasoned firewood and kindling. You can’t use fresh live trees that you are cutting down right now for wood, they will be too wet to burn until next year, so make sure that you have a good stock of dried wood. Keep your larger stockpiles of cut wood a little ways away from the house for safety.

Also, don’t forget these fire safety reminders: install carbon‑monoxide detectors in several places in your home and never run fuel‑burning generators indoors. RedCross.org has more tips on this.

If you cannot have a wood burning stove in your home, consider buying a Mr. Buddy Heater. We have a small one of these for camping and for backup heat. These actually work very well for heating a room. Don’t forget that you need to get 1lb propane tanks to go with this heater. You can also get a special cord to hook the Mr. Buddy into a large propane tank.

Alternative Lighting: Lanterns, Headlamps & DIY Candles

There are multiple different ways that you can light up your home during a power outage in the winter!

Oil Lamps and Kerosene Lanterns – While these look really cool and seem like they give off a nice “old fashioned vibe” they aren’t my first choice for lighting my home. We do keep them on hand though just in case. Here’s the exact lantern that I have. You will also need lantern wick to go with it. We use this “Clean Fuel” Lantern Oil with it as well.

Why aren’t these my top choice? Well, I don’t love the smell. Even the “odorless” fuel has some smell to it. I also don’t think they provide much light for home much it costs to run them. It’s good to keep your options open though and have backups for your backups.

LED Battery Lights and Rechargeable Headlamps – These should be your alternative lighting go-tos. They are easy to store, either rechargeable or can take batteries (also easy to store) and they provide a good amount of light.

I recommend looking for a “solar lantern” or several of them to have on hand. Basic flashlights and headlamps that you can pick up almost anywhere are good to stock up on as well.

Candles – While candles don’t provide a huge amount of light, they can still be a simple addition to your off-grid lighting plan. If you do use candles, opt for beeswax or tallow candles made in jars for easy burning. I have a tutorial on how to make Beeswax Candles here.

If you want to buy good emergency candles, I’d recommend these Beeswax Candles that fit in a UCO Lantern. These provide clean, safe lighting and the lantern helps them put off more light than a plain candle.

Build an Emergency Pantry

Food – Even the Red Cross and the government recommends keeping at least a two‑week supply of non‑perishable, easy‑to‑prepare food at home. This would look like easy to make items such as jerky, soups, and other shelf stable foods. I have an entire blog post all about What to Eat When the Power Goes Out that will help you build your power outage pantry.

Water – You will want to store one gallon per person per day and you may want to include purification methods. I recommend storing at least 3 days of water per person if you don’t have another source of water. See my post on Stockpiling Water for more details on this topic.

Fridge and Freezer Food – Your best bet during a power outage is to keep the fridge and freezer closed. In the winter, you can usually keep things good in them for a long time without power. If you must, use coolers and ice or snow to keep food cold during outages. You can also store a frozen bottles of water in the freezer to check and see if your food has thawed too much by the time the power comes back on.

Off‑Grid Cooking Without Electricity

There are several different ways to cook a hot meal during a power outage.

You can cook on a wood stove (using cast‑iron skillets and Dutch ovens). You can use Rocket stoves, camp stoves and solar ovens (if there is sun) as back‑ups.

You can run a generator to be able to run an oven if you need to as well if you have it plugged into your home.

I have lots of tips about how to Make Meals Without Power here.

Taking Care of Animals Without Power

This section of advice will really depend on what type of animals you have on your homestead. Be sure to have a plan for them in advance, especially if you have something like baby chicks that need a heat lamp to survive.

For the most part, homestead animals will survive a power outage just fine. Make sure they have fresh food and water that is not frozen. Prepare in advance by insulating your animal shelters the best that you can.

We just bring the cat and dogs in the house and mudroom when the weather is too bad to be outside. Since more domesticated animals tend to be more stressed during unknown conditions, this helps them to be comforted if they are nearby.

Assembling a Power‑Outage Kit

You should have a place in your home to keep a small kit of things that you might need during a power outage. Some items to include in your kit are: flashlights, battery‑powered or hand‑crank radio, extra batteries, first‑aid kit, seven‑day supply of medications, multi‑tool, sanitation and hygiene items and copies of important documents. I have a post on how to put together a Winter Emergency Kit here.

Bonus ideas: Keep a non‑cordless phone to make emergency calls and maintain a full gas tank in your vehicle at all times in the winter.

Some other items to consider having on hand at your homestead are: spare blankets and towels (good for people and animals!), wool clothing, matches, and a manual grain mill.

Comfort, Hygiene & Entertainment

Don’t forget to plan for warmth: sleeping bags rated for winter, layered clothing, wool socks and hats. Even if you have a wood stove for backup, you still may need these items to keep warm if you rely on other power typically.

You’ll also need to manage sanitation. Keeping extra water for washing is a good idea as well as having some baby wipes or wet wipes on hand for cleaning yourself. Unless you have a composting toilet or an outhouse, you won’t be able to flush the toilet during a power outage. There are lots of Portable Toilet options on Amazon. You will also need compostable toilet bags and biodegradable toilet gel to put inside. We use this exact system when we are camping and it works great!

You’ll also want to try and keep morale high with board games, books and crafts. I also keep special treats on hand for stressful times as well. Hot chocolate with marshmallows can make a blizzard feel like a special occasion! Here’s some of my kids’ favorite games.

The Time to Get Ready is Now

The time to prepare for a power outage on your homestead isn’t after it happens, it’s now. You may not think it will happen to you or any time soon, but it’s better to be prepared and at peace than to be stuck inside in the middle of a blizzard at your rural home or homestead with no meals in the pantry and no way to keep your animals warm.