Last night the pilot light on our furnace decided to take a vacation while it was 18 degrees outside.

I quickly realized that I have very little understanding of how the heating system in my house actually works. After putting together some makeshift plans for keeping the family warm through the night, I headed out to see if I could get things working again. Luckily, I was successful.

(For a more detailed wright-up of the experience, see my blog post, Domestic Adventures )

This episode clearly brought home the reality that if we suffer a power failure during the winter, our home will become un-livable very quickly, possibly within a matter of hours (my wife and I would probably be OK for a while with our cold weather gear, but it's hard to keep a seven-month old warm enough in sub zero temperatures for an extended time). Our furnace is gas fred, but requires electicity to work, and we have no wood stove or fireplace.

So, two questions:

1) How can I lean more about how home heating systems work, so that I might be able to diagnose and repair a problem on my own without putting myself in danger? I believe I got lucky last night when I fixed the problem, and don't want to rely on the same luck in the future. I imagine that this could save me some money over time as well.

2) What strategies do others have for keeping their homes and families warm when their primary heating system is out? Are there better (and less expensive) options than installing a wood stove? How much does a wood stove cost anyhow?

Thanks for any advice the group can provide.

Sounds like you may need a newer furnace if it has a pilot light, they haven't had those in many years. You may save a lot of $ getting a newer one.
They all operate basically the same, somehting has to light the burner(s) and open the gas valve. Most of the electronics are safety and timing, there are safetys that will shut off the gas if the valve opens but the temperateure doesn't come up assuming the flame is out and things like that.
A gas furnace doesn't need a lot of power, the blower mostly, you could easily power with a small generator.

A couple of strategies.
One small kerosene space heater and/or two kerosene (oil)* lamps.
This is enough to heat a small room.
Some extra blankets and sweaters, you can even hang blankets over doorways that don't have doors to close them off a bit.

A baby can be quite happy carried against your body under your bulky sweater, or shawl.
My sister-in-law used a nursing shawl and a baby carrier with all her kids when walking, same idea.

*The mineral spirits sold as paint thinner are better grade kerosene than kerosene fuel is, more like odorless lamp oil but at a lower price*

Also the oil table lamps can be stored out in the open, like on a bookshelf as antiques.
You can get very nice looking glass ones in antique stores as well as new ones.
They put out quite a bit of heat when you fill them and light them.
Most of them burn about 12 hours on a filling.

You can also get the "Hurricane" style oil lamps for about $25.00 each.
The Deitz #80 Blizzard burns for at least 24 hours.
Lehman's sells a version of the Deitz that can function as a small campstove too, the metalwork above the chimney on the lamp lets you set a small pot on it.

Sounds like you have a couple of scenarios to consider.

-Power outage
-Furnace broken

For a broken furnace, an electric space heater may prove useful.

If you find yourself in a situation trying to keep a little one warm, bundle them into your jacket with you. Your body heat will defintely keep them warm enough.

If you insulate a room well enough with blankets, you would be surprised at how much heat a candle can provide. Those 7 month olds are pretty robust. My little guy is 10 months now.

I would imagine you would only undress them to change them. Beyond that, keep them in a snowsuit or bundled with you.

Do you have a gas stove? You can turn on a burner and light with a lighter (preferably one of the long ones). I would have the lighter going first tho. That would also provide heat and doesn't require power.

I'm sure there are some simple HVAC (heating, ventilation, air conditioning) books in the local library. Or buy online. Or something like About.com might have material.

Furnaces are pretty simple though the recent push for efficiency has brought computers into the mix (ominous music goes here) and spark-initiated fireup rather than pilot lights.

We changed out our furnace last Spring and the new one is much less fixable than the old.

Something to consider is if you do fail to get the furnace to go and the house will go to ambient you'd best find a way to drain the plumbing (potable water - your hot water heating system should be filled with anti-corrosion/anti-freeze??? treated water) to minimize pipe damage and water damage upon thawing.

i really can't give you much advice but our furnace kicked out this AM also..we got up to a cold house.we have a one of those new gas furnaces with the plastic vent rather than a real chimney.
instructions for re-lighting on on the access plate.turn off power-turn off gas--wait--turn on power-turn on gas-replace plate-turn up thermostat---furnace comes on...YES--YES--!!
i think when everyones furnace kicks on really cold AM's the gas pressure drops and the furnace safety system turns it off
i also eyeball the generators at the Big Box shop to keep the furnace running if there is a major power loss in the city. about the best i could do would be to bring the old cast iron box stove that was out at our cabin many years ago from the shed and jerry rig a chimney thru a basement window and burn what wood we can scrounge from the river flats.

Not all new furnaces have electronic ignition, and the modules can be a bear

I still have a pilot light - in fact, it WAS electronic, and was back converted when the electronics failed

There is a thermocouple that sits in the pilot light - or in the starter flame of gas furnaces - These tend to fail every few years. Around here, you have 2 choices - hope the 24 hr home depot has one in stock, or do like I do - keep a spare on the wall in the boiler room - they cost less than $20, and it can be a big help to just have it.

I keep an assortment of valves, fittings, pipe, copper pipe, nipples, etc around. Dad was in the business, and 1)Taught me, and 2)Gave me enough stuff to fix most things (NO, I won't do a boiler replacement by myself). Now that Dad has passed on, I now have HIS collection of plumbing/HVAC supplies and duplicate tools to sell offf - aaarrrgggh

Our old house has a pilot light but it wasn't always lit. The thermostat would turn on a small valve to the small polit light and a spark ignitor would keep ticking away. Then that small flame would heat up the thermocouple and open the main valve for the main flame. One morning the thermocouple failed. It was a small box that plugged into the valve and then had a stiff wire coming out that the small polit like flame hit. I took the nuts off the bolt for the small box and found that it basically pressed a button that opened the valve so I was able to sit there holding the button down for a while until the house got back up to a decent temperature and then go buy a new thermocouple which for that old furnace was $79.
The blower fan motor sized up a couple times in the 13 yeras I was there, a little oil dripped in the shaft got it going until the third time I had to buy a new motor for $120.

1) I made an effort to get to know the guy who sold and installed my gas-fired furnace.

It paid off a couple of years later during a blizzard. The furnace would light and then kick out. I gave him a call, and because he knew I was handy he talked me through the simple fix: a slight layer of ash/corrosion on the flame sensor thermocouple. Ten minutes and a bit of steel wool later, everything was operational. This is now part of my annual maintenance list. He was very glad he didn't have to make a service call on the most miserable day of the winter.

2) I have a high-quality wood stove for secondary heat. Since I'm in the country, it's no problem to have two years' wood stored.

A good wood stove, properly installed, is not cheap. I would say at least $1500 to go for stove and insulated pipe. If you buy junk, you'll get junk and you'll hate it. Though there are some good deals in the used market if you know what to look for.

Keep in mind you will probably need permits, insurance inspections, and so on. You will also pay an extra insurance fee for solid fuel appliances in your house.

Improvised stove setups are tricky, and potentially hazardous. If you burn down your house, insurance will laugh in your face. I do keep an old coal/wood stove around, with lots of piping and adjustable elbows, should I need to do an improvised setup. I keep a three foot section of insulated pipe (7" ID, with 2" insulation) that I can mount in a window, so I can run a 5-6" single-wall pipe to the outdoors with some degree of safety. I also keep some large sheet metal pieces around to improvise heat shields. You can't be too careful.

I am contemplating a small, insulated shed with a stove and blower (120VAC/12VDC) inside it, and some insulated supply/return air pipes. That way the actual fire is outside the house. If it was on skids, I could move it anywhere in my yard quite easily.

Another thought - the fact that you successfully relit the pilot light doesn't mean that the flame won't go out again.

The fact that it went out suggests that the real cause is something else- such as the thermocouple which holds the gas valve slightly open to keep the pilot flame light is failing.

Changing the thermocouple is very simple. Having a spare on hand as previously mentioned is a great idea.

But you have not done full troubleshooting just by relighting. That's like getting your stalled car out of traffic by push starting it :-)

About 20 years ago we had a furnace problem where gas supply went away. Neighbors had no issues. It was a failed meter which wouldn't flow gas. Utility company came out fairly quickly and replaced the meter. That was a flavor of failure I couldn't fix myself.