So if the power went off (indefinitely) how long would you last on the basis of what you have in the house?

[atticusclaw]

So the power's gone off. Everything is suddenly dead, shops can't sell you anything since the electronic tills don't work, petrol pumps don't work, lifts don't work, traffic lights don't work, tap water won't last for long since the pumps won't work, mobile phones won't work, gas/electric heating won't work (and most oil and solar systems also need mains electricity to make them work unless they're off grid systems) - MN won't work!!

How long could you last with what you have?

There are no zombies, this isn'"t necessarily a "top yourself now - who would want to live?" scenario since the power could be restored at any time….or it could last months…

How easy is it to de-salinate water to drink? We are in the Med so would need to rely on sea water. also, which countries do people think would be best in this situation. DH and I were doing our Zombie due diligence and couldn't decide....Rural Scotland / Island Malta / Mountainous (easily defended?) Switzerland??? If you had say three days of safe travels Should you make a run for it or hunker down? These things could make all the difference...

Have got distracted looking at the government websites to see if there is anything interesting

www.gov.uk/national-recovery-guidance-infrastructure-issues

Well hopefully they finish this report in time - <a class="break-all" href="http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20140714084352/www.hpa.org.uk/ProductsServices/ResearchAndTesting/BiosafetyUnit/RecoveryHandbookForBiologicalIncidents" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20140714084352/www.hpa.org.uk/ProductsServices/ResearchAndTesting/BiosafetyUnit/RecoveryHandbookForBiologicalIncidents

The more I think about this, the more the thing that worries me is how we would deal with not being able to google "How to survive in a post apocalyptic world" - we have the basic resources but, without t'internet, not a lot of the knowledge - DH and DS can both make and fire arrows pretty well and I can skin a rabbit, but when it came to water purification and the like we might struggle with zero-power solutions.

The uk is quite dense though and so I could see there being much more social problems than survival problems.

Cant you desalinate water by multiple boiling of the water and collecting the steam each time? It would seem a very heat and furl intensive exercise though?

Have visited the Centre for Alternative Technology www.cat.org.uk/index.html which is pretty self sufficient but then lots of people might head there!

Ah great, thanks for some input into my personal situation. I have always wanted a solar panel but dh thinks they are a waste of money and spoil the appearance of the house! But yeah, solar panel, good thinking.

Now about the stream... dead sheep, not a problem. However, we are on the edge of town and the stream comes through the town before reaching us. So I am thinking quite a lot of people upstream will contaminate the water before it gets to us. Might have to stockpile some sterilization tablets.

Ds3 and dd are obsessed with Alex Scarrow and post-apocalypse/dystopian future type novels. I will have to see if they have picked up any handy hints for survival.

I genuinely don't think the cities would be very safe places to be. There are too few people who have any sort of back up supply of food and water and as a result lots of desperate people would get violent pretty quickly. If your child is starving in front of your eyes you will break into your neighbours house and steal their stuff. Anyone with a known fuel supply or stash of food would be looted before long because there are people who don't have any sort of food store.

Having said that I also don't think everyone should be traipsing up to scotland. Scotland is not full of empty homes just waiting for the rest of the country to wander on up. It would soon become the busiest place in the UK!

Best thing would be for everyone to be slightly less complacent and less dependent on technology (but that's unlikely to happen). If we start to get rolling blackouts then hopefully people will start to be a bit more prepared.

Ive watched blackout and american blackout on youtube. Scary stuff.

I have a serious to do list - cash, spare jerrycan of petrol, water filter straw thingy and a better stock of matches and candles. I'm also getting an oil lamp. The oil fired heating wouldn't work but its handy to have 2000 litres of oil in the tank to use for lamps. I'm aware that the power might never go out but they are all handy things to have in numerous different disaster situations.

Don't you have to evaporate sea water? I think you put something above it to collect the evaporated water and the salt is left behind.

I have a small library of survival/self sufficiency books, so won't need Google.

I'm on the edge of a tiny market town, it would be a village anywhere else. It's a pretty rural, farming area here, and close to the coast. It's the sort of place that comes together in bad weather, we were snowed in a few years ago, and the community spirit really showed. I wouldn't want to be in a city when the shit hits the fan.

Live in the suburbs of a city. But within walking distance of the harbor where people do fish to eat.

Have wood burning stove (for heat), gas BBQ (to cook), rain water barrel (for toilet flushing and washing water), and reasonable containers for fresh water (as soon as power/water goes, I fill these - we've had issues in the past). I also keep a couple of bottles of still water (Tesco basics) for emergencies after the winter of 2009/10 disasters. We all have bicycles, maintained and ready to use (DH and DD use theirs more than me, but even I will cycle). Our car has a decent range when full, and we could avoid using much as we have plenty of useful stuff available very close to our house not needing the car (walk/cycle). We also live close enough to walk/cycle to a woods for fuel - might be frowned on but in an Armageddon situation, I'll take my chances.

My storecupboards are reasonably well stocked - tins, dried food, pasta, rice, couscous etc. I know about keeping fridge/freezer doors closed to maintain cold as long as possible, so stocks there should last 3-4 days and then cooking them should give another few. But stores - while it would get boring and we'd have some interesting combinations, I could feed the 3 of us for probably at least 4-6 weeks.

I do grow some veg in the garden - but mainly summer. I only have a dozen leeks at this time of year.

We have plenty of torches, batteries, windup lanterns, nightlights and candles, matches, and battery operated radio. And board games, cards, colouring in and craft stuff, books, guitars etc to keep us occupied.

I used to keep a small stash of emergency cash - but ended up letting that slide a while back for other reasons. It was enough to last a couple of weeks doing food shopping etc without going to machines.

I also have good supplies of first aid and regular medications (OTC remedies). I am not too bad on my asthma stuff but am trying to run down over-stocks, while DD's meds are only available on a monthly basis (but she would be ok - a pain in the neck for us to deal with but not suffering life threatening consequences - if we ran out).

I am an occupational first aider, trained in lifesaving, was a GirlGuide and later a scout leader, and am reasonably into outdoor stuff. DH was also a scout and into outdoors stuff, and can cope well in all sorts of emergency and trauma situations. We'd be reasonably good at bushcraft and looking after ourselves if we had to.

So, anyone any idea how many solar panels I'd need to run a largish chest freezer, tv, and DVD player, plus hot water?

You could run a laptop from one of those fold up solar panels. Not sure about the freezer and hot water. Might be worth looking at caravan set ups.

In fact anyone with a caravan has a head start, power, toilet and water and the ability to leave asap and find somewhere reasonably quiet.

BiddyPop

Dig a toilet in the garden - don't use water for flushing. Clean water will become an incredibly valuable commodity in the event of .....problems..... and the sooner you wean the household off flushing the better.

Also, conserve your fuel. When that's all you can rely on, it's quite astonishing how quickly fuel goes down.

PS - and best limit washing to teeth, intimate parts and feet. Let everything else get dirty as it will.

cheap baby wipes would be very useful for "washing".

I'm going to walk to the beach for a swim instead of using my precious water for washing

thats a big advantage to living by the sea.

plus you could eat seaweed!

Good plan Stratter5

Like you I insist on having skills books as a resource,instead of the internet,for when we go dark.

Skills themselves -actual practised and competent skills will be far more important than stockpiled goods imo.

I've been hankering after the book "The Knowledge - How to Rebuild our World from Scratch". It was on my Christmas list but DH ignored it.

Ooh in my Wish List now, £6.29 on Amazon, that's one I don't have in my library.

Rather than desalinate water by boiling, you can erect large structures, or multiple small structures to allow the water to evaporate naturally via sunlight.

A small example would be something like a paddling pool with tarp over it. You put a small stone or something in the centre so that the tarp is weighed down into a cone shape. Then you put a smaller container inside the paddling pool underneath the tip of the cone.

Put salt water, contaminated water, or even urine into the paddling pool. The sun will evaporate the water. Clean water will condense when it hits the tarp, and will run along the tarp into the centre and down the weighed down cone, where it will drip into the small container inside.

Stratter5, won't you be all sticky after swimming in the sea? I think you need to wash the salt off. Isn't there a river you could swim in instead?

I ran out of heating oil today and thought of this thread. One bag of coal has kept one open fire going for about 11 hours, with a bit of supplementing with logs. I think I need a bigger stockpile.

Probably, but I'd rather be salty than stinky

I read that "Powerless" blog story to the end. Really enjoyed it and was a bit disappointed when their power came back and the story ended.

ThatBloodyWoman My dream is to buy and convert a double decker bus into a home and stick it in a field somewhere and be completely off grid and self sufficient.

Unless Zombies did arrive, I think we'd be perfectly fine in a nationwide power cut. (With my massive locked walk in vault stacked with supplies locked and hidden in the woods we would of course have in walking distance)

After my water butt purchase yesterday I am now the proud owner (when they arrive) of four paraffin lamps! For the grand price of £12 for all four!

As it stands now, we'd probably last a couple weeks at most.

Should really sort out supplies anyway. We get regular power cuts here, we would be stuffed in a tsunami living right next to the beach, we only have one bbq on gas, everything in the house is electric, we don't carry any cash on us.

We have a case of bottles water, candles, torches & batteries from preparing for Cyclone Pam last weekend which were not needed.

Midnight that sounds perfect.
I toy with various versions of off grid living with houseboat or cob house as the no.1 and no.2 fantasies.

atticus I watched American Blackout for the first time last night -very good!