Backup Power for New England Nor'easters: The Oil Heat Problem

The October 2011 snowstorm dropped heavy wet snow on trees that still had their leaves. Limbs came down across the whole region, and parts of Connecticut and Massachusetts were dark for more than a week. verify

New England outages are winter outages, and winter in New England means the question is not food. It is heat.

Why New England is its own problem

A very large share of the region heats with oil or propane. This is unusual — most of the country is gas or electric. And it changes everything, because an oil or propane furnace makes its own heat but cannot run without electricity. The burner, the fuel pump, the circulator, the blower and the controls all need power. verify

Lose the grid in January and a house full of heating oil goes cold. That is the failure mode, and it is entirely fixable with a modest battery.

Long rural lines through forest. Northern New England has some of the longest, most tree-lined distribution lines in the country. Every heavy snow and every ice storm brings something down on them, and Eversource, National Grid and CMP restore the dense areas first.

Wet snow on leafed trees. The autumn nor'easter that arrives before the leaves drop is the classic New England outage. The weight is enormous and the damage is everywhere at once.

The one thing to get right

If you heat with oil or propane, power the furnace.

The load is small. A typical oil burner, pump and blower together draw somewhere in the low hundreds of watts, cycling rather than continuous. verify A boiler with a circulator pump often draws even less. A 1,000Wh unit carries that for hours and heats the whole house — not one room, the whole thing.

This is the best return on backup power available anywhere in the country, and it is specific to how this region heats. The full arithmetic and the wiring reality.

The furnace blower row is the one that matters. Everything else on that list is cheap by comparison.

If you have a heat pump

Be honest early. A heat pump is the heat — electricity in, warmth out, thousands of watts. No portable battery runs one for a night.

If you have converted and want outage heat, the choices are keeping the old oil system as backup, a wood or pellet stove, or one room and an electric blanket. The blanket is the one that runs on a battery, and it works far better than people expect.

Cold, and what it does to the battery

Lithium packs will not charge below freezing and give less capacity in the cold. A unit stored in an unheated garage or mudroom can be dead weight on the morning you need it.

Keep it indoors, plugged in. That is the whole rule, and it matters more in Maine than in Florida. How to store it properly through a New England winter.

What we'd buy, by situation

Suburban Boston, Hartford, Providence — oil or gas heat

A 1,000Wh unit and a transfer switch. The EcoFlow DELTA 2 or Anker SOLIX C1000 wired to the furnace keeps the house warm, the fridge cold and the phones charged through a two-day outage.

Rural New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine — long lines, week-long restorations

2,000Wh class. The Bluetti AC200L gives margin for the week that rural restoration can take. Pair it with a car charging adapter, because December sky does nothing for a solar panel.

A camp or second home closed for winter

Nothing installed. Drain the pipes and leave it. A battery in an unheated building through a Vermont winter is a battery you will replace.

What not to buy in New England

Solar panels as your winter recharge. Short days, low sun, snow on the glass. A car adapter is the honest answer from November to March.

Electric space heaters. A 1,500W heater empties a 1,000Wh unit in under an hour. Power the furnace instead — it heats the whole house on a fraction of the draw.

A unit that lives in the garage. See above. Indoors or it is not a plan.

The free things, which matter most

Get the furnace wired before the first storm. The electrician is booked solid the week after.

Fill the oil tank in autumn. A furnace on battery power still needs fuel, and delivery trucks do not run on impassable roads.

Know your utility's outage map. Eversource, National Grid, CMP and Green Mountain Power all publish restoration estimates, and they tell you whether to stay or go to a relative.

Keep a wood stove serviced if you have one. It is the only heat that needs nothing at all.