How would you cope with a powercut?

Question

we lost our electricity supply along our street on weds eve, it was off by the time i got home from work and didn't come back on til midday on thurs!! I had such a nighmare in trying to cope with it (good job i wasn't born before electricity and our now general day to day appliances came along!!!!!!).

how do you cope in this sort of situation??

Answer 1

electricity is going to more crises in future, so we would have to bearable about it, Else for wed etc Generator and in home Inverter are the best option to overcome all such tiny probs.

Answer 2

dont forget the looting... much looting.... seriously try driving through a city without working traffic lights its like mad max all over again....

Answer 3

candels, log fire, gass cooker- cooking stuff comes out and away we go.

Answer 4

I would make sure I had a candle heater -- then at least I would have light and a little heat. The candle heater is a steel and ceramic radiator that gets its power from a jar candle. It converts the thermal energy of a candle into dry radiant space heat and still supplies light. I wouldn't want to live with out one.

Answer 5

I'd throw a party!  

All you people that think you can't live without electricity for one single day are nuts!  It's a little adventure!  Light some candles at night, eat all the food you can from your freezer, it's fun!

Answer 6

1] get what you may need from the freezer; don't open it again until the power is back

2] we have oil lamps and candles - they get started

3] play cards!!

4] in case of such emergencies, we have one of those Italian coffee making devices (a moka?)

5] cheer that my son is off the computer

Answer 7

Get a torch!?

Answer 8

We still have an open fire place so we can keep warm.  Cooking is no problem as we have a gas hob.  For lighting, we have a camping (butane) lantern which is pretty good plus a few torches and candles.  We keep a battery radio and a battery powered guitar amplifier .... no reason to stop annoying the neighbours just because the power is off (only joking, honestly!).  Power cuts while using the computer caused problems once or twice so I bought a couple of uninterruptable power supplies.  Unfortunately, they are even less reliable than the electricty supply.  The freezer is fine for a while as long as we don't open the door.  The really bad aspect of power cuts is the realisation of the extent to which we have become dependent on electrical appliances, though perhaps it is good to be reminded every so often.

Answer 9

Generator would automatically cut in.

Answer 10

By singing not so polite dities about our wonderful and glorious government owned monopoly power provider. Blackouts and brown outs (very low voltage not enough to turn electric motors but enought to burn them out) are a regular feature of life in this place.

In the office we scream shout abuse the the power company and go outside to start up the standby gen set.

At home we do more swearing and shouting and reach for the candles, kerosene lamps (The pressure ones are great), torches (LED ones are good as you don't have to buy batteries as often.) (Rechargeables are good too.) If you can get hold of a gas LPG mantle lamp they are great, trouble is here in the tropics it gets bloody hot with all these heat driven light sources. Make sure that we have a gas stove, kero or firewood would do.

Keep the fridge and freezer firmly closed to keep food cool as long as possible.

A BBQ using gas or firewood is a great idea for cooking.

Go to bed early.

These are things we do often, sometimes 3 times a a day, sometimes 3-4 days at a time. (Its only 3:40pm and already had 2 blackouts today!)

In your situation another much more fum optioon would be to get dressed and collect the family (if you have one) pick up the credit card and go off to the nicest resturant, or pub whatever takes your fancy, have a nice meal and bottle of wine/or other flavour and when you get home you will be in a good mood and sufficiently jolly not to let it stress you.

Answer 11

It's always nice to have some camping gear, pack stove, lanterns, candles, flashlights.  Couple ice chests so you can save the perishables in your frig.  when that last hurricane (non katrina)went thru by the time the electric came on most everybody in this neck of the woods had scraped up an electric generator of some kind if only big enough to run the frig and a fan.

Answer 12

very easily just have a chance to get to know your family more or the people you live with

Answer 13

Every town with in a 20 mile radius of my home lost power  due to an ice storm.  My granddaughter was only 3 days old and living with me. You can imagine my fear of not being able to keep her warm. I found a company that supplies construction companies with equipment.  From them, I purchased a gas Dewalt generator with a Honda engine.  It is mounted on a two wheel cart so it can be easily moved where ever you need it. The cost was $1,800.  It is worth every penny.  It can run my subpump, all appliances, and even the dryer.  It is easily stored in my building when not in use.  The generator runs about 8 hours on 5 gallons of gas.

Answer 14

get a candle, a book and a duvet - after i've taken the freezer food to the nieghbours

Answer 15

Dealing with electricity outages means you need to be prepared.  In rural areas, it is common to have trees on wires and loss of electric.

Keep fresh batteries in all flashlights, keep some bottled water available, if possible, have a wood stove for heat if during colder months, have a gas stove top so you can cook, buy some lanterns and keep in a handy spot.  Also, with portable tel. phones, they do not work with out electric so always keep a traditional phone plugged into a jack.  Know the tel. no. of your electricial supplier so you can report outage immediately and be on top of the list.

Living in the country, we have been through days with no electric and have learned to always be ready...just in case.  

If you have the funds, you can buy a small generator for about 500 dollars and it will have plug you can run an extension cord for your refrigerator and a couple of lamps.

Most difficult is water to flush toilets...if you have a well.  If you have an outside water source such as a pond, you can get a pail of water to use for that purpose.

If there is weather forcasted that you expect severe thunderstorms or heave tree icing in winter, fill your bath tub with water.

other wise, just grin and bear it...nothing you can do  !

Answer 16

We have a gas bottle fire in the shed and a coal fire in the house, that keeps enough heat around the house. We also keep a small camping stove with a gas conister on it and a spare one. We've had it years......it's good for heating up water for tea and coffee and can cook simple food like beans in pan etc.

Answer 17

We have a gas cooker so the tea supply does not run out, In North Cornwall power cuts used to be very common and I used to live right out in the sticks where we had one at least every month.

We have torches and basically just get on with life the only thing we worry about is the food in the freezer.

We have a battery powered T.V and radios and if the cut goes on too long we dig out the gererator just to keep the freezer working.

One bit of advice though is try not to use candles.

Answer 18

Light some candles, have a bath. Get drunk, and party.

Answer 19

I live in a very rural area, actually among an Old Order Amish Community.  If the power goes out, I can't look out and see if anybody else has power, or if it's just me...

I have a gas heater (LP) that will heat most of the house without a fan.  

My husband has a generator welder...the Onan generator will carry a 220.  We'd use it intermittently for a short term.

If it were a long term situation, I could easily install a woodstove for heat and cooking.  You would be amazed at the ingenuity my neighbors display.

In the summer, they have a toasty warm solar shower.  It's a small building with a solid roof... they fill large drums with cold water (via a hose, pumped by wind power) which are kept on the roof.  A shower head comes down from the drum with a shut off valve.  The sun heats the water all day and they take a nice toasty shower.  Large family?  Need more drums!

They cut ice from the ponds every winter and store them in extremely well insulated "ice houses."  It lasts all summer, well into the fall with no electricity.

The spring house, constructed from either solid limestone or insulated concrete blocks, has a pool of sorts.  Water is piped in from the wind powered pump, it comes in one side from the bottom  and drains off the top of the opposite side.  The run off is used to water stock and irrigate the garden.

So now here's the big question for a person like me who is converting to as simple a life as possible, inspired by my neighbors.  No, I don't want to give up my curling iron and replace it with foam rollers.  I like my microwave and love the internet.  I'm not likely to give these conveniences up any time soon...but I am not so dependent upon them that my life would be traumatic without them, long or short term.  Would it be a huge change?  Sure.  Would I survive quite happily?  Absolutely.

Answer 20

Take it in your stride, it's exciting, it makes you talk to whoever you live with, and i mean really talk, about everything and anything!

I think it brings people together!

Answer 21

Light a big fire and start cooking on it like what they used to do in the olden days!!  (I had do do it when I moved into my house forst because there was no gas or electricty!)  Hope it comes on soon for you!! :-)

Answer 22

Well the way i would deal with it is get my work to drop off a generator and some fuel

Answer 23

Actually it is a BAD thing you weren't born before electricity, because if you were you would already know how to cope, because it would have just been a normal day to you.

Answer 24

power cuts  can be managed if you keep an emergency light which is not expensive and is very useful in emergencies. if the power cuts are common they the society you are living in can combine together an write an application against such a thing. other ways are  having inverters, generators(if an office or infrastructure).

Answer 25

I like power cuts. It gives me a chance to get back to nature. No bright lights, just candles. It's like camping at home.

Answer 26

buy a torch

Answer 27

Make a romantic evening of it, candles, bottle of wine and take-away.

Answer 28

Hi,its a case of having to.I would be up the creek has I have tropical fish need electric for them.

Answer 29

Break out the candles and the kettle that sits on the gas hob, go to Y!A on my phone (which will recharge in the car) and wonder how I'm going to eat all the food thawing out in the freezer.

Answer 30

We have a lot of power cuts in the area where I live.  The very young think it's exciting, the young adults panic, and the older generation, me included, just get on and cope with it.

I always keep candles, matches and a torch where I can find them easily in the dark.  

There's always something that can be eaten cold, even if it's bread, cheese, tinned fish or cereal, and water to drink.

I now have a camping stove for use in emergencies - I only have electricity for cooking.

If it's daylight, I do something like reading, needlework, gardening, tidying.

If it's dark I take advantage of a bit of peace and quiet, (except for the sound of younger neighbours panicking) and relax, which is even nicer with an aromatherapy candle or burner.

It's handy to have at least one reliable battery or wind up alarm clock.

Do make sure candles are used safely.

Answer 31

go on my laptop, its got a full battery...