Tips for surviving power cuts

[hellohellooo]

Ahhhh two days and no electricity

We have no heat no way of heating up food
Etc

What has helped down through the years when you were in this position?
Argos all sold out of camping stoves

Going to order a generator
Anyone know how exactly they work??

Unprepared is an understatement

We lived in an area that regularly had 3 day power cuts. A while ago mind but I don't think the prep ever leaves you.

I now have a burner ring that can be attached to our bbq gas bottle. So we have a decent (flat for storage) single burner ring in the cupboard. This sorts out heating food and boiling water should the need arise.

I have four decent rechargeable usb lights. They are quite small about 7cm x 12 but are bright last ages and I can recharge them using a phone battery recharger. Or we have a solar panel charging a bigger battery as a back up in our shed.

None of this cost me very much to implement and it's peace of mind.

I also chose a big flat topped wood burner as years ago during our three day power outages, this was my only means of heating and feeding my children. My woodburner has riddling which means it can burn coal which you need to get the amount of heat to cook on safely.

All in all we would be comfortable for probably up to a week without electricity.

Do you have a bbq? Could you throw that on and cook some food?

Or, as in our case this weekend, you may sit on hold for 15 mins then get cut off every time you ring 😬

We have children, so had to go to a hotel.

We have a trangia & gas for scouting.
We keep extra gas for power cuts.
We have always powerbanks with power.
And lamps on batteries and torches. And candles.

I wouldn't get a generator. You'll have to run it outside and if people get desperate enough they'll take it off you.

You would be better off with an inverter and a car / leisure battery.

Look at camping gear, you'll get ideas. Just don't run a camping stove inside.

It’s really not that hard. We have two camping stoves, and a camping grill thing. A bunch of battery powered lanterns. Always have tinned food in you can heat, but with two stoves and proper light from good lanterns, you can still cook normally so you can use up whatever you had in your fridge for meals anyway, as long as it wasn’t for the oven.
Lots of batteries.
Hot water bottles.
Charged up battery banks for your phones.

Really, it isn’t that big a deal.

🫤 I have children. We stayed home. What’s the big deal?

Once you get your wood burning stove you can use it to cook on too with cast iron saucepans, kettle etc.

We get regular power cuts and have done in the 35 years we've lived here so I do have some backup.
Ours was off 9 hours yesterday but it two chunks.
It's seldom off more than a few hours though. If it was days I would book into a hotel. I'm no proper so wouldn't go to great lengths to equip us.
One issue is we don't have mobile signal and rely on WiFi calling. I have a UPS battery that the router plugs into. That keeps us going for about 7 hours.
We have no mains gas.
I have a wood burner that also heats the water. It's more expensive than a regular stove but absolutely worth it.
I have a camping stove and cannisters in the garage.
A box of torches and batteries, also some wind up ones and a wind up radio.
I have a beast of a camping lamp that lasted 4 days when tested. It's rechargeable by solar, mains, wind up or car. Cost about £20 years ago.

It was 4 degrees in our house. It was absolutely freezing. To me that is a big enough deal to go elsewhere so my baby is not at risk.

Cold is the worst. We have winter sleeping bags rating -20C so we can do it. But it's easy 5C indoors in winter during a power cut.

You need a gas camping stove with a little gas bomb thing. You can boil a little sauce pan with water so you can have a hot drink and with 2 rings you can warm soup or cook pasta one first ring and heat up a sauce on the second ring. Also torches and candles.

We had a power cut yesterday, in Somerset, luckily the power came on in the wee small hours.

We have blankets and Oodies. Extra blankets for beds. We also have a camping stove and gas bottle and a BBQ.

Power packs for re-charging phones. I keep candles and matches on the kitchen window sill, and in the bathroom. More candles in cupboards, but I don’t need to rummage through the cupboards in the dark.

We do have tinned foods so could have used that last night but we had cheese/ham and crackers.

Trangia camping set which runs off the gel stuff.
Camping Gaz and a load of the gas canisters (as during last power cut we nearly ran out.)
1 large bottle of water. (minimum) - our water is pumped up so if power goes off so does our water.
Dried milk
Power banks charged up, ( must remember to do this!)
Candles and gas lighters
We have a massive flat topped log burner but it would take forever to cook something in it.
Wind up radio
Blankets and throws
Flask
Battery torches ( we have a load of the workshop/hands free types,)
A few tins of food stuff.

We are looking at getting

Tilley lamps - put off by the paraffin though
Superser gas heater ( will prob get for next autumn) - will check our co2 monitors are working.
Diesel generator probably will get one this year as will come in handy elsewhere .

Inverter - won't get one of these as not really worth the bother, for us anyway.

I cooled haggis, neepa and tatties for our burns supper on my camping stoves because we weren’t missing Burn’s night because of a power cut!
You can cook more than soup or pasta. It’s a stove like any stove. With good lanterns for light, you can cook full normal meals.

In Scotland, we can book hotels and buy food from cafes etc and keep the receipts. Then the power company will reimburse.
We also get a payout for no power. Four days during storm Arwen and we got £600

I'm amazed that the power companies reimburse you.

Light: candles, head torches
Heat: log burners and hot water bottles; lots of warm clothes and blankets.
Hot water for washing: gas stove and log burner.
Food/ Drink: gas cooker that works during a power cut; log burner, BBQ, loads if camping kit including gas burners and Meths stoves.
Technology: battery power packs for phones, fully charged. Nothing that could run a laptop, though. I considered a jackery, but would just drive to work somewhere with power if I needed to. A friend has an Airbnb that is powered off grid; I’d probably rent that.

Do you have any kind of BBQ - gas is best but even charcoal works, to heat water in a pot on the grill while the coals go properly ready to cook, and then cook as normal BBQ, but also use tin foil parcels or even camping or proper pots on top of the grill for things with sauce etc.

Do you have any kind of light at night? Camping forces are handy, a headtorch around a large clear or opaque bottle filled with water and turned inwards to shine through the water makes a surprisingly effective lantern.

If you have a way to burn them safely, in a room that you are not leaving and not in a draughty, candles can be good for light and also to add extra heat. Especially if you don't have an open fire or stove. A gas heater (a modern "super ser" ) can also help, or a hot water bottle under a blanket. Certainly try to limit yourselves to 1 or 2 rooms only and close doors to other rooms to keep as much heat in 1 place as you can.

Also wear layers to keep warm, and a hat indoors to keep heat loss to a minimum through your head.

Buy a hot rotisserie chicken for dinner, eat it with salad and crunchy bread.

Do any neighbours have a bbq, gas cooker or similar that they can heat water for a flask for you, or cook some food for 1 meal even if not all 3 meals of the day? If anyone has a gas oven, can they fill it with things for a few people to make the most use of the gas when it's on?

Is your local swimming pool/gym open, that you could have a shower there (for the relevant fee)? Or a hotel room if you have the funds (they may be willing to do a cheap rate for a couple of hours in the daytime to let the family get clean and warm if there are lots of people with no power, turning it over a few times in the day for a few families).

Oh no that's awful! I have less faith in that offer now then! Hope you are doing ok. Try for a refund of the cost?

Really? That's staggering!

We have a camping stove, plenty of gas canisters, power bank, batteries etc so could manage in the house ok.

We are also fortunate to have a large, fully equipped motorhome sitting on the driveway so could move into that for an indefinite period.
If we were without power for a prolonged period and our solar panels failed to keep up with usage we would go out for the day to recharge the batteries.

That is my dream

These are fab thank you