Do you lose power for days on end? I'm in Colorado and it gets COLD here, but I've got my place well enough insulated that we could lose power for a couple days without the temps dropping below about 60 F, even while it's below zero outside. My more sensitive T's wouldn't be happy about it, but they should reasonably be able to survive that. Honestly I've spent a lot more time on ways to better insulate than a backup plan for losing the power, and so far it's proven to be worthwhile.
Hit the send button accidentally.
This seems like a really good idea. Have some of these on hand and if your power is out and heat becomes a problem, you could pack up your collection (if its not too huge) in boxes with hand warmers. How long do unused hand warmers last?
I've had the things hanging around for ten years and still work perfectly. I find them useful to have when I do something less than well thought out, like camp next to a glacier. I haven't tried this plan for T's yet, so I don't promise it's success but it's my last resort plan if I lose heat for a long enough period to be a serious problem.
Rural areas, especially those not as prone to ice storms, are poor and not very prepared where I live. Power company workforce usually concentrate on larger towns/cities where more power can be restored and hit the rural areas last, where fewer people are helped for same effort. Usually if our rural area is impacted by inclement weather, so is a much larger area as well, stretching that limited workforce. Historically (I'm told), my county didn't get a lot of ice/snow/super low temps -- now we do. Until last year, our DOT didn't even keep salt on hand for the roads! Our whole county basically shut down during the last few cold snaps/snows.
Indeed, I have the power go out occasionally where I work and at home...on average twice a year or so, often for an hour or more at a time. Usually weather related, sometimes accident related. I had a scare last winter when the power went out for several hours and the outside temps were about 10 degrees F. I watched the indoor temperature drop on the thermometer, and watched my tropical enclosures fog up accordingly. Everything was fine in the end, but I was quite concerned at the time.
We were without power for five days here while the daily high was -5 F or lower a couple years ago. It was awful.
I agree, 68-72 shouldn't be a problem. One thing you have to be looking out for is making sure the space heater doesnt dry out your T's specially your slings. Space heaters will dry out substrate like there's no tomorrow. I use a digital honeywell from walmart and i set it at 72 and gets the job done. I dont want it running all night trying to reach high temps like summer, would hit my wallet hard if i did. You don't need to have it in the 90's IMO.
A year ago just before Christmas 2013 we had a pretty bad ice storm here in Southern Ontario. My place was without power for 5 days or so - others for up to 2 weeks. The first morning it was 56 Fahrenheit in here. I got lucky and was able to get one of the last gas generators from a Lowes nearby, and so, got the the heat going again.
It'd probably depend on the pattern. No spider would want pretty flowers...