Freezing in your home without power? in California?

 Last night I opened two down sleeping bags to be warm enough to sleep. It's now like camping in your home for thousands and thousands of people in their homes now, including us. So, unless you have a wood stove (because a fireplace just doesn't cut it for a larger house) your inside house temperatures are probably like ours around 59 or 58 degrees by now. (This is even with the fireplace running) by the way.

So, if you are used to a minimum temperature in your house of say 65 degrees and usually 67 or above that then if you are older like I am it's beginning to become a problem.

It's true we could go get a hotel room somewhere but since a lot of people have money in the area that I live in a decent hotel within 20 miles from here likely is somewhat sold old because of the 80,000 people without power so far.

But, it's also true you can get into your car and turn the engine on to get warm if you are freezing or on a sunny day like today you can go outside in the presently 55 degree weather and warm up (if it's not windy there) in the sun. Luckily, our home is very well designed indeed so we have a place on the deck that we can warm up if it's sunny and 55 degrees or more here on the ocean.

A Caregiver who is here to help my wife recover from an operation wanted to leave the Natural Gas burners on in the kitchen to warm the house. I told her that since these aren't vented it could cause breathing problems in all of us over time. And since the power which runs lights, refrigerator and heating is out I cannot even turn on the vent that vents the stove gas towards under the house instead of vertically.

So, staying warm with your gas burners on your stove (even if you have one like we do that you can light with a match in an emergency (which are few and far between now by the way) using them to stay warm other than warming your hands while cooking something is a really bad idea, especially if anyone in the house has asthma or other breathing problems because soon you are going to be taking that person to the hospital because natural gas fumes (burning or not) are not good to breathe at all.

On top of everything else my wife refuses to go to a hotel because of the danger of infection regarding the type of operation she just had if she leaves the house. So, for now, we are freezing while running our generator 24 hours a day but luckily it is a fairly quiet one.