Hours of Safety in Cold Weather

The document proposes the 'hours of safety' metric to measure building resilience during power outages in extreme cold weather, comparing various housing standards from 1950s builds to Passive House standards.

• The 'hours of safety' concept is defined as the amount of time a home can maintain safe indoor temperatures following a power failure.
• Enhancing building envelopes through improved windows, insulation, and airtightness is identified as a critical strategy for adapting to the increasing severity of winter storms driven by climate change.
• The framework evaluates resilience across a spectrum of building types, including homes from the 1950s and 1980s, those meeting the 2009 IECC Code, net-zero energy ready homes, and Passive House standard homes.

APA

RMI (2020). Hours of Safety in Cold Weather. https://rmi.org/resources/hours-of-safety-in-cold-weather/

Chicago

RMI. Hours of Safety in Cold Weather. 2020. https://rmi.org/resources/hours-of-safety-in-cold-weather/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=RMI |title=Hours of Safety in Cold Weather |date=4 February 2020 |url=https://rmi.org/resources/hours-of-safety-in-cold-weather/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{rmi2020hours, author = {{RMI}}, title = {{Hours of Safety in Cold Weather}}, institution = {RMI}, year = {2020}, month = feb, url = {https://rmi.org/resources/hours-of-safety-in-cold-weather/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }