Heating when the power goes out

[PNWguy]

My place is rural enough that we lose power for an hour or two, but occasionally for a day or three at a time.

What happens when the boiler is at full heat and the pump dies (other than not circulating hot water)? Is there any potential for damage to any of the systems?

How do you deal with keeping the house warm when the power goes out? I'm not planning on a backup system.

 

[wolfe64]

My place is rural enough that we lose power for an hour or two, but occasionally for a day or three at a time.

What happens when the boiler is at full heat and the pump dies (other than not circulating hot water)? Is there any potential for damage to any of the systems?

How do you deal with keeping the house warm when the power goes out? I'm not planning on a backup system.

We installed a propane standby generator. It has worked very well during several winter power outages.

 

[maple1]

You should have a dump zone that works by convection. Located up above the boiler. Connected by a normally open zone valve. I use my second floor (baseboard) zones for that. Some heat might dump to storage, if storage is right next to the boiler, and the piping is optimized for it. (Should be oversized).

I can heat with no power, by manually opening all my zone valves. And taking it real slow with a fire (my boiler is natural draft) if my storage gets depleted. I also have a UPS I can run the boiler circ (loading unit) through for a full burn, and a generator I can drag out & plug in if its a multi day outage.

Not having a backup system is likely not a good idea, but not sure what you meant by that exactly. Insurance companies usually do not like it if wood is the primary heat source, and likely really wouldn't like it if it was the only source.