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 live in an area that has regular power cuts - every storm seems to bring down trees and power cables, which is sadly becoming more frequent. Here’s my list:

Big power bank for charging, phones, laptops and powering the router.
Petrol generator
Camping stove and spare gas canisters
Flasks
Hot water bottles
Open fire and fire wood
Battery fairy lights, torches, rechargeable camping lamp, spare batteries.
Candles and matches

I grew up in a very power-cut-prone location.
Open fire
Gas to cook on
Candles and matches (even now, I'm discombobulated if I realise I don't have both in stock)
Paraffin for the Tilley lamp:
https://tilleylamp.co.uk/index.php?route=product/category&path=59

We had a 4 day power cut a few years ago after a storm. Fortunately we had an open fire (now replaced with a log burner) which meant we could keep one room warm. We have a gas hob so could cook, but also have a camping stove which we lent to a neighbour who had nothing. NDN fired up their BBQ to cook food wrapped in foil and boiled hot water on top of their log burner for drinks.
We have lots of torches - head torches are extremely useful as are those pull up lantern torches you can get in Home Bargains.
We had hot/warm water in the tank for a couple of days so we could have a wash (no combi boiler here)

It wasn't a particularly pleasant experience but we managed the 4 days.

I'd get a calor gas heater to bring out when needed if you don't have an open fire and have a corner where you can park it. Often for sale with Ted gas bottle included on FB marketplace.

When our all electric cooker packed up we replaced it with one with a gas hob so we could always boil water and cook something in a power cut. We hardly ever have them these days thankfully, whatever it was they must have fixed it.

Generators are slightly complicated, a typical kettle needs 2000w of power to boil (it will say on there somewhere), so that's the minimum power you need it to have, otherwise you'll be very limited on what you can do with it/use it for.
I have little camping stoves like this where I keep my horse and they are very good.

https://www.blacks.co.uk/16233482/campingaz-camp-bistro-elite-cooking-stove-16233482/3677602/?istCompanyId=d92b362f-ac8a-4a8a-87ca-c56eafad7955&istFeedId=2f99410f-1124-43d5-8232-86c184f09479&istItemId=rtiwwttxp&istBid=t&gadsource=1&gbraid=0AAAAADpakddGR1aWLgZsBBu0Q2u3jdXt1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI8Y7nvs2WiwMVqKNQBh3IpiObEAQYASABEgKfKPDBwE easy to get the gas canisters and none of it takes up much room when stored.

We will do. It was just far too cold for the baby and there was very little information. The estimated reconnection time online just kept jumping back and for the first day, the mast was down and there was no mobile data on top of no WiFi. So the phone number was all we had. So frustrating to wait and get cut off so many times.

Just adding this link to the thread, for info and links

www.redcross.org.uk/get-help/prepare-for-emergencies/power-cut

Don't forget to think about local cafes/restaurants for a hot meal (and a warm up, possible chance to charge phone, possibly ask if they can fill a flask with hot water as you leave).

And also that you can charge your phone or a power bank from usb connections (or a usb charger in the cigarette socket in older cars) from your car when the engine is running.

These are all fabulous

So sorry to hear others are going through similar

We got back our power last night

Toasty warm house today

Xxxxx

Ironically ours went off again last night after being off about 8 hours on Sunday.
However it was 9pm and the house was warm, I had recharged everything following Sunday's cuts and I went to bed with my kindle. All back on today.
Someone mentioned solar. You need special kit to actually use it in a power cut as they switch off to protect engineers on the line. Unfortunately ours doesn't have the kit.

Hope you got back up and running quickly