3 Hour Blackouts

[pyjamafashionista]

If they happen, they are saying they'll be planned between 4-7pm. Surely this is the most ridiculous time, when most people will still be at work/ travelling home/making tea etc.
Any genius thoughts to get through a 3 hour blackout besides blankets and 🕯
I feel really sad for vulnerable people on their own if it happens 😪

Or they make some up ian advance ?
4 hrs at room temperature should be ok
Longer in the fridge
Flask of hot water

most houses won't lose a lot of heat in 3 hours. You'll get advanced warning so if you turn the heating up ahead of time so as it cools its around the temperature you'd want, most people should be fine.

Hot water - you can manage without a cup of tea for 3 hours, or fill a flask.

We're relatively dependent on the internet but a lot more of our stuff is battery powered so your phone will still work fine and also gives you internet/radio/music/tv etc. A powerbank should be a staple in most houses something like a 5000 or 10000mah one for your phone/tablet is always useful.

And either USB rechargable lanterns or USB powered (plugged into the powerbank) are good alternatives to candles or torches. LEDs are so much more energy efficient they have made these lanterns very practical for long periods of time (5-6 hours easily) on a small battery

Make the bottles and keep in a thermos? It's longer than an hour then

I didn't know anything about it! Great,more worries!

Check it will still run if no electricity, the modern ones wont work in a power cut, its a safety feature.

disagree - our energy usage domestically has fallen in recent years as we are much more efficient - your entire house may be lit with the same energy that one bulb used to take for example, and fridges and other white goods are massively more efficent then they used to be.

on the flip side, the reliance on electric devices and the energy efficiency of smart devices and LED lights means it is much easier to manage relatively comforatbaly in a short power cut as I mentioned above.

Check it will still run if no electricity, the modern ones wont work in a power cut, its a safety feature.

How does it not working in a power cut make it safer?

Ours automatically cuts the gas if the flames go out, but it still works with the electricity off.

If only there was a way of encouraging people to shift as much usage as possible to off peak times 🤔

I wonder how they could do such a thing? By offering people cheaper unit rates at off peak times perhaps? They could refer to them as "off peak rates" and allow people say 7 or 10 hours of cheap or off peak power a day.

They could call it something nice and obvious like say Economy 7 or Economy 10.......

What a shame so many such tariffs have been withdrawn, restricted or made unattractive because our energy companies don't want the hassle when they could prevent so much of this.

Smart meters would allow these tariffs to be even more flexible and useful but our useless energy market aren't actually working for us just for their shareholders.

Evenings I can cope with, but according to that grid I've if ours would be midweek 6:30-9:30am goes are we meant to get ready for work/school?! No hot water or light

Wood burner will be lit so food and boiling water for tea/coffee not an issue, we quite often heat pans of veg/baked beans on there rather than use electric on the hob anyway, also have a gas BBQ outside to cook on.

WiFi down will cause problems with work but I can plan round that if necessary.

Plenty of rechargeable torch's and a generator if need be for lighting.

I feel for the people who don't have an open fire the most, it's a lifesaver out here in the country.

Have a look at the link in the thread. Everyone's black out times are different

@babynoname22 if you boil some water and store it in a flask then that should be fine to make as and when you need it so you can keep using your specialised formula. Also it might be an idea to get a small camping stove that uses the tiny gas canisters that can act as a hob to warm bottles if you do end up needing to use premade formula. It's so sad that we are having to come up with ways to get by like this 🤦‍♀️ I'm due my 2nd baby in December and just dreading the potential extra things I'm gonna have to sort out with a new baby and my DD. Nightmare!* *

I live in Devon in a rural area and we usually get at least 1 power cut every winter so we are used to it and always have torch batteries, candles etc, and I also have a gas stove for heating soup etc if I need to, but we usually survive on sandwiches and cereal. Food is food whether hot or cold.

I wouldn't have any heating at all, as the oil boiler needs electricity to run, but I do have an Oodie and plenty of blankets.

I have Sho bottles that keep water hot all day, so if we have planned cuts I will be filling them with coffee. Anyone with babies could use them to make bottles up. They really do stay hot for hours.

My main problem will be that as I work from home, I could have 3 hour stretches with no power, meaning that I literally can't do anything, and there are always deadlines with month ends and quarter ends etc.

Also, this is now my busiest time of year, and it would be horrendous as an accountant to get power cuts in Dec/Jan.

At least with planned cuts you can prep everything, charge phones/tablets/power banks etc .

They do still have economy 7 tariffs, also ones aimed at electric car drivers to charge their cars overnight.

Some suppliers are also offering smart meter customers payments to reduce their electricity usage during the evening peak.

We're with Octopus and they're doing 'saving sessions'. It says you could earn up to around £100 over winter by shifting your energy usage outside the peak period.

Torch and well insulated flask

And it's most likely they will be the evenings only

Which could make the current plans quite unfair - if your slot is 4 till 7 pm you are much more likely yj get cuts

If you end up with several cuts and other people get none because their schedule slot is off peak that is it right

Totally agree! It's weird, posters just stamping their feet saying it won't happen just because they can't comprehend it

The problem with E7 tariffs, which are very much still available, is that the day rate is higher than normal tariff so it only makes sense if you have storage heaters and/or an EV. We just came off an E7 tariff and even running washing machine, tumble dryer and dishwasher during the cheap periods, we still spent more than we would on a standard tariff due to the higher daytime costs. E7 is only worth it really if you have one or more of the big consumers: electric immersion, storage heating, electric vehicle. For houses with none of those things, it doesn't work out financially in its current iteration.

A lot of people if they have a fireplace will just be buying a cheap grate from Amazon, I bet the fire service are dreading this.

I think that gas hobs generally work in a power cut but not ovens, probably best to check beforehand.

those of your worrying about losing wifi for work - surely if you wfh you already have contingency plans in place in case your wifi goes down? That happens to me more often than we get a power cut.

I'm not quite sure what you're suggesting about lockdown suicide rates as the evidence is that there was not a huge increase in suicide rate; in most places if anything it was slightly below the expected rate including in the UK. That's from a variety of sources including the BMJ and the Samaritans, plus international studies as well.

I suspect one of the biggest risks will be carbon monoxide poisoning or fire from people bringing in camping stoves or similar.

Now I'd say that rolling blackouts would be similar to the Winter of Discontent. Yes, we were set up differently in 1970s, but I would say that we're far better prepared. Houses are better insulated, things like torches last far better (I remember one I got for Christmas in the early 80s with a huge battery-it was no use for reading under the covers with for any length of time!), it's easier to get better things like flasks and we also have things you can charge in advance.

So anyway, I've gone to look up the Winter of Discontent's excess deaths. There was a slight increase-but that was actually more than matched by the amount under excess deaths in the following winter.
But also it was exceptionally cold that year. You'll find it mentioned in the worst UK winters, and you always get more excess deaths in a cold winter. So were many deaths due to the blackouts? I suspect there were a few, but relatively little.

Of course if they made the day rate the same as the standard rate then everyone would want to be on that tariff as there would be no negatives!

If I've understood the timetable for powercuts correctly, it looks like our area is looking at no power from 9.30am to 12.30pm and 6.30pm to 9.30pm on consecutive days.

I do wonder about the impact on businesses etc. I'm currently at home with a 6 month old and a lot of our baby groups are held during that morning slot so I'd be interesting to see if those still go ahead (I hope they do 'cause they're a bloody lifeline for me).

The evening is irksome, and would mean rejigging DS's routine slightly.

yes, when you live rurally it's a part of life and we can cope with it, or dare I say enjoy it?!?!

I thought it was only me. They can be quite fun… but only if you are properly prepared for them and have the means to become properly prepared for them.

Our lights won’t go off and the boiler will keep running. We will still have the internet as long as the telephone exchange and/or mobile mast has power.

@midgetastic how are three of us going to shower with a flask full of water? I have severe PCOS and if I don't engage in some heavy duty hair removal in the morning I will have a full beard by lunchtime. Even laser didn't work as a long term solution.
Getting a three year old ready with a torch, we don't live in a developing country. It's absolutely ridiculous. A succession of poor governmental choices have taken us back fifty years. It's an outrage and people should be angrier, rather than just pottering about gathering up flasks and torches

If you're self employed it's a bit different, even if you manage to set up your own contingency there's not guarantee your clients will. If you can't reschedule, you lose the money. With cost of living soaring, clients will be less flexible and take the opportunity to have a session less to pay on their invoice if its me that's had to cancel. And I can hardly charge them if they've had a blackout.