Hollies

SHTF

No, not the 60s Brit vocal band.  I refer here to that ancient bed warmer known as the hot water bottle.

With the advent of electricity, the humble hot water bottle (known to many from childhood as a “holly-bolly” or the derivations thereof) fell from favor, hanging on mostly as a palliative for things like muscle strains and sports injuries (filled either with hot- or icy water, depending on need), and the world switched to electric blankets and so on.

Well, this is all well and good;  but when the electricity fails, what then?

One of the SHTF necessities I’ve mentioned often before is a butane-powered camping stove, or its smaller (and cheaper) domestic equivalent like this one:

You can of course go with the two-burner Coleman type (which is better if you’re needing to cater to a family, for instance), but I’ve always found the single to be perfectly adequate, plus it’s safer to use indoors for short periods.

Now what does this have to do with the holly?

Well, coupled with a camp kettle:

…this means that when the power goes and you don’t have access to any other heat source like a fireplace or gas heater, all you need to do is heat up some water on the camp stove, fill the holly and huddle under the blanket / duvet / whatever to keep warm.

I know, this sounds so self-evident that it invites ridicule;  but at the same time, back in 2015 when most of Texas was without electricity for nearly three weeks(!), our family was caught short in the personal-heating department because we had no hot water bottles.  (Of course, we had lots of electric blankets and foot warmers, a leftover from our sojourn in Chicago;  but in Chicago they can handle brutal winters.  Texas?  Not so much, thanks for nothing ERCOT.)

New Wife and I have one each, and when this cruel winter is over I’m going to get another two.  (Why?  Because two is one and one is none, that’s why.  And hollies wear out, especially when you fill it with very hot water — that rubber perishes, ask me how I know this.)

Yet another example of how sometimes, the old things just work better when modernity comes up short.

10 comments

  1. I 2nd the portable stove and have used ours several times over the past 5 years. It gets VERY hot and will melt vessels with plastic parts, like handles, lids, etc.

    I’ll also suggest a Mr Heater portable propane heater. It uses the green bottles and you can also connect it to the 20# grill tank. Puts out huge heat.

    https://tinyurl.com/5xb85jww

  2. we picked up a Coleman two burner dual fuel stove when one of their stores was closing. This thing is great and is the size of a small suitcase. I have two cans of Coleman white gas in the garage. We’ve used this in the garage with the garage door open during power outages.

    You’re right about low tech being easier to maintain and being more reliable. I think a USMC general was war gaming as the force opposing US forces. He stopped using technology and relied on messengers, runners, bicyclists etc. He was skunking the US forces because there was little radio traffic to intercept.

    1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002

      It was so bad, they stopped it, ’cause he sunk most of their fleet. After doing a mulligan, they had to script the war and ham-string him to such degree to give a Blue victory.

      Wars don’t follow scripts. Combat plans often end when you contact the enemy – they get a say in the operation too.

      I hope some of the up\coming warfighters took note, and not further embraced the rot and rote mindset of complacency

    2. > we picked up a Coleman two burner dual fuel stove when one of their stores was closing. This thing is great and is the size of a small suitcase. I have two cans of Coleman white gas in the garage.

      Given what Coleman fuel sells for nowadays, the ability to run these stoves on gasoline is nice to have. (Gasoline now costs what Coleman fuel used to cost back in the day, but that’s another matter.) You wouldn’t want to run one of these stoves indoors on either of these fuels due to the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning, but you can run your stove indoors on propane with one of these:

      https://amzn.to/4rgVixZ

      I have one for mine…while it’s cheaper to run on unleaded (preferably ethanol-free), I also keep some 1-lb. propane cylinders on hand to run a lantern and could run the stove on them if needed.

  3. When power goes out the the auto transfer switch switches to the the generator that just started. I was without power for over a week last year keeping my fridge and freezer going with a 3Kw inverter. Never again, I got a generator to run the whole house.

  4. As an overland camper, I have two that I bring with me every trip.

    One is a two-burner Jetboil Genesis camp stove that I use to prepare full meals at camp. It runs on propane—either the small 1 lb cannisters or, with an adapter, 20 lb. BBQ-style bottles. I get typically 10 days of cooking two meals a day out of a one pound gas bottle.

    The other is a Jetboil Flash water boiler. That one runs on butane and can heat up a litre of water in about 90 seconds. It’s compact and is often used by backpackers/hikers due to its small size. Both of these were upgrades from my old two-burner Coleman white gas hob from Ye Olden Days.

    However: Since I’m fortunate enough to live in a house with a deck, and I’m an actual man, I also have a barbecue and sufficient fuel for same to take care of an long-duration power outages. I also have a modest generator and always make sure I get enough fuel for a few days’ use before major weather events. And finally I also have a 1500Wh and a 750Wh power station that can be recharged—slowly— from solar or from my Jeep. Enough to keep a few lights running after dark and maybe the TV for a bit.

    I also have a 12V fridge that I normally run in my Jeep and plenty of USB-rechargeable lights, and even my old Coleman mantle-style white gas lantern that I haul out every summer for a bit of nostalgia.

    For apartment dwellers, I would *strongly* recommend a 1,500 or 2,000 Wh power station to keep a fridge running for a day or so, and one of those butane stoves and a Jetboil Flash would both be wise investments. After losing the contents of our freezer after it failed many years back we decided to invest in as much redundant power options as we could reasonably afford to keep it and the indoor fridge alive No Matter What. Since our area does not have natural gas piped in we did the next best, I think.

  5. Rediscovered this little bit of tech on what turned out to be a very cold-weather camping trip. Daughter was freezing, and a friend suggested she put boiling water into a nalgene bottle and put it in her sleeping bag. Worked like a shot.

    1. Luke from the Outdoor Boys YouTube channel does the same thing during his winter camp outs in Alaska.

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