How often do you get power cuts where you live?

[Powercutsaibu]

Out of interest how many power cuts does your area have? I am in a northern village on the outskirts of a large city, I would describe my setting as semi rural, as in we have village vibes, loads of farm land nearby, country pubs and narrow b roads but 20 minutes by car you are in the city centre.

We get a power cut of more than 15 minutes monthly, and a blip where it goes off for a second our so every couple of weeks. It’s not my property it’s whole street or postcode area. Is this the norm now?

I have lived in the same area 15 years and moved three times (within the same start of post code) and it’s only the last couple of years it’s gotten this bad. A couple months ago we was out of power for hours at a time across multiple days.

My recent move, I am just have electric and after yet another 2 hour power cut this morning I am panicking a bit heating in the winter!

Hardly ever. I’ve lived in my current house 12 years and can’t remember ever having one here (or if there was it would have lasted seconds, we’ve never had to get torches/camping lamps/candles out). I live in a large town on the Sussex coast.

I can think of two in the decade we’ve lived here, not including the odd occasion where the lights flicker for a second. We’re in a small rural town in Cumbria.

But a village less than 10 miles away regularly suffers from power cuts and lack of water.

Quite regularly but not for long. Anything from a few minutes to about 2 hours. We had a 3 day one a number of years ago but that was due to a storm taking some pylons out I think, that is extremely rare for us.

We’ll see what happens this winter as there is a lot of doom mongering going on, I have prepared a bit more, bought lamps and a small camping stove etc. south east England.

I’ve lived in my house for 20 years and can remember losing power twice.

Last house once in 10 years. Where we are now at least once month . Sometimes a whole day out.

Never although I live in London. When I was a kid I lived in a rural village and the power used to go out all the time. We all had torches next to our beds.

When I lived rurally, power cuts were not unusual. Now I live in the suburbs, maybe 2 or 3 brief ones in over 20 years.

Holmes chapel by any chance ?

Weekly sometimes more than that, both blips and longer ones

We get blips about once a month, I know because the time on the oven has to be reset every time. It’s usually overnight. We’re in a smallish village.

I am in Yorkshire. I don’t know if it’s the age of the infrastructure and it all just needs replacing or upgrading - there hasn’t been any big housing developments here since the 80/90s so it’s not a new thing caused by moats of people moving here.

I am worried about winter and adverse weather, and then being without power for hours when I only have electric radiators though.

I'm in the rural SW. Most big storms we get a few flickers of the lights and probably one actual blip of a few seconds. We haven't had a longer outage for a several years though.

Once a year, if that?

The most recent one coincided with a massive outdoor concert nearby. It could be a coincidence... but no one thought so . Only lasted a few minutes each time (several tines over the evening)

I live in a small village - regular power cuts in the autumn & winter, most a minute or so but being out for several hours isn't unusual

Never! I live in a London suburb.

My family who live ‘semi rural’ in the north like you seem to lose power in stormy weather.

1-20 second power cuts maybe 5 times a month. Enough to lose wifi connections and have to reset all the clocks.

Up to an hour, maybe once a month.

More than an hour, every time there is a storm. We were off for four days a couple of years ago.

We have a log burner and plenty of logs, hurricane lamps, books, games, and a solar charger for my phone. I can heat food on a log burner, cook jacket potatoes, make drop scones, porridge & toast. We're used to it.

We're four miles from the nearest town and 60 miles from a city.

I all so live on a small village but not far from main city 20 mins . We go thought stages were we have zero . But this week we had 3 that lasted 1sec each and one that was 30 mins

New Forest here and we get about 1 a month more in winter. Enough for us to have a emergency change over switch to run from solar and battery while it’s off.

I used to live in a similar place to you - village on the outskirts of London. In the 2000s, it was exactly as you describe and we did even have all day power cuts regularly. In the 2010s it improved, so we had the momentary ones perhaps once every couple of months and the longer ones perhaps once a year. During the pandemic, the power went off on Christmas Day as were putting lunch in tbe oven and it remained off for the rest of the day.

Three years ago, I moved into outer London. I would say we have had a couple of momentary outages and that is all.

Never. I can’t remember ever having one. I’m in a city.

I am in a flat so solar and log burners are not an option for me. I do have lots of rechargeable batteries (that are charged),throws, winter tog duvets, plus candles.

I don’t have a torch though, so will invest in a couple of those as I am petrified of the dark and live alone 50% of the time..

Not unusual where we live due to ice storms and heavy snowfall. In 1998 the blackout due to a severe ice storm lasted three weeks.

We haven’t had once since moving into this house in 2020. Local folklore says that as we’re on the same part of the grid as two big hospitals, we’re always prioritised.

Hi OP, I’ve lived in a rural area which sounds similar to yours for over 20 years, although we are a few miles out of a town rather than a city. We seem to go through phases in terms of how many power cuts we get, I wouldn’t say it has got worse. It’s probably two or three times a year. It is usually but not always weather related (high winds). Sometimes the power goes power back on within 10 minutes (I think they reroute the system or something), sometimes it’s several hours or a whole day.

We used to get a lot of brownouts (where the lights dim for a second then go back on) but not so many now. We had one last week but I can’t remember the last time before that.

When we moved here there was an electric hob and I immediately had it changed to gas. So we’ve got a log burner, a gas hob which works without needing electric ignition, some battery powered lights, and a couple of power banks. I wouldn't want to rely solely on electricity for heat or cooking.

Semi rural Midlands, I’d say blips are weekly based on how often I reset the clock on the cooker!
Only one significant power cut of longer than 5 minutes in the 5 years we have been here though and that was workers going through a cable