Power out - unprepared

[Indoctro]

So we have had no power since Friday lunch time due to the storm , been told maybe tonight by 6pm but could be days

Can't believe how cold our house is , myself , 2 kids and a dog have been sharing bed to keep warm

My husband wanted to install a log burner before but I didn't want do due to environmental reasons but after the last 48 hours I really have changed my mind.

No heat, no hot water and no cooking facilities, I feel very under prepared.

Anyone else stuck with no power. How are you guys coping.?

We ate entirely deoendent on electricity as there's no mains gas here. We have an open fire in the living room and we've git a generator tgat is capable of powering the boiler so we have hot water and heating but not appliances. We've got plenty of candles, torches etc and we've got a camping stove to do basic cooking. We get quite a lot of power cuts here but usually fairly short. Our power has been out since Friday night now and still no scheduled time for it to be fixed. I'm going to have to start throwing food out of the fridge soon I think but the freezer is still ok so far. The fact its so blooming cold is probably helping - we had a fair bit of snow last night. We had a pub lunch out today - i felt it was justified under the circumstances and the villages either side of us have got power.

One thing to keep for powercuts is a phone that plugs straight in (not a cordless house phone).

We’ve also got torches, candles, wood burning stove and camping equipment. We get a lot of powercuts.

The worst thing is that our water goes off too (electric pump to get it up the hill) and that IS annoying.

Like Hen2018 Our old house had no water during power cuts due to pumps. luckily we had a river on our land, so could use it for flushing/washing. You soon realise how much water you use in a day when it all comes out of bottles!

@Hen2018 One thing to keep for powercuts is a phone that plugs straight in (not a cordless house phone).
We always did this but can't now as BT have forced us to move to digital and phone sockets no longer work . Even worse wè have no mobile signal.

We have 2 stoves and a gas cooker. We also have all the camping kit, lots of candles, hot water bottles, lots of blankets etc.

We live rurally and no one is in a rush to restore power. Those in the village without gas/ wood burning stoves have been really miserable.
I did buy extra power packs today as we clearly didn't have enough. Our mobile signal is also crap.

[quote Rade]**@Hen2018* One thing to keep for powercuts is a phone that plugs straight in (not a cordless house phone).*
We always did this but can't now as BT have forced us to move to digital and phone sockets no longer work . Even worse wè have no mobile signal.[/quote]
I hope this doesn’t happen to us as we have no mobile signal in the house.

@Hen2018 apparently the whole Uk has to switch by 2025. I argued about it and asked them to defer but they insisted. I have a ups power backup which should last 2 hours but after that we would be stuck.

Our power thankfully stayed on but we have a gas fire and gas hob so the plan would be to bring a mattress/ bed downstairs and basically live in one room

Hmm. The "fault journey" of Electricity North West's website currently tells me that our power should be restored by 18.00 today whilst simultaneously saying it is "under review". It also says that "the team have been in site to assess the damage" but underneath says they are "on their way" - which hasn't changed for the last 26 hours.
I actually wouldn't mind if it just said "we're overwhelmed and you are in a rural area with a comparatively small population so you're not a priority" which I am sure is the reality, but I find the contradictory updates quite annoying. I've cancelled my Tesco delivery for tomorrow anyway, as there's no point in having more food that I can't cook and I'm not confident that we'll have it sorted by then.

Oh that sucks. We lost ours in the storm too, came back around 4pm today but some houses further up the village are still out.

We used to get cuts often here, pretty much any time it was both wet and a bit windy at the same time. Then they did some work somewhere a few years ago and things got better. However, I still have my power cut box that I keep in a cupboard. It contains a bag of tea lights and gu pudding ramekins, an old corded phone (crap signal here plus mobiles run out of battery) a gas lantern (camping gaz one, brilliant and bright, much better than torches) and a gas trangia stove plus canisters.

Layers are good, dressing with base layers. Keep your feet warm. And try to keep one room in the house as warm as you can whether it is with open fire, stove or if you don't have either a calor gas heater is a good emergency back up to have.

Food wise a few tins of soup or ravioli are good to have so you can have an easy hot meal that doesn't use loads of gas.

And keep a store of batteries for torches. Rechargeable everything is great, I have USB rechargeable bike lights and rechargeable batteries but they can't be charged in a power cut so a stash of bog standard throw away ones are vital.

I hope you get power back soon

Tuesday at 12pm is latest updates for power being restored

We booked a hotel in nearest city

Now all I have to worry about is burst pipes

We have a backup generator and an impressive collection of oil lamps should that fail.