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…

I think a few weeks. I've read you can use bleach to purify water and we have water butts and a lake nearby.

My main issue would be things like remembering how much bleach to use. Also although I do keep emergency cat food through the winter I tend to use up my stores in the spring.

Bleach to make water safe: 2 drops per litre.

Though remember if you're collecting standing water it may have other pollutants like fuel oil, pesticides etc.

I'll take the contaminants short term. Two drops is tiny! Does that mean that in our recent mini noro outbreak I was using waaaaay too much?

For toileting purposes, it's OK to dig a big hole in the back garden and chuck in a shovelful of soil after every use, isn't it? That's the Sleep plan B.... The soil bacteria take care of it all, right?

I've just checked and its quarter of a teaspoon of bleach to a gallon of water but double that if its very cloudy. You can get value bleach for about 30p so that's an easy one to stock up on.

Prue bring the puds and we'll be laughing (through too much wine!)

I've got sloe gin and marrow rum on the go - anyone want to trade?

I think we could last maybe a month.

We've got a fairly good stock of loo rolls and bottled water, plus a couple of days worth in the car. We have two freezers full of food, they would go first. Then we have a floor to ceiling cupboard full of dry and canned food and cat food which would be at least two weeks I think. Two water butts in the garden, we would need to find a way of purifying. We've been practically without heating until six weeks ago so we're used to that. We have a wood burner, a gas BBQ and a coal BBQ. We have a lot of fireplaces with boards over them, so could rip those off and give those a clean. Plenty of wood, coal and Calor gas. At the absolute end of it all, the cats could eat us.

I'd be really worried about looting, to be honest. No swords or shotguns knocking about the house. I think there is a cricket bat in the attic.

Oh, and a fully stocked wine rack and a full bottle of gin.

We have backup to last for three months, if we ate ttwo fairly decent meals twice a day, we also have pigs/chickens so in summer we'd be fine. Have wood burner, a small wood and huge veg patch, plenty of fruit trees and bikes/bike trailer. Have stockpiled candles/matches/first aid stuff for a while now , so as long as none of us was badly injured or needed antibiotics we'd be ok. But if i get the water purifier i want that would sort us for over a year. We only have a two week supply of water purifying tabs though. What we need is a jerry can water purifier!

Oh and we have a couple of guns for protection. Dh shoots.

We have about a billion and one plastic storage containers, so would get all of those filled up with water, plus I know how to distill water from urine using sunlight... so we'd be using a few containers for pee.

I wouldn't worry about food for myself, am overweight and could survive a long time on just water and our lo-salt (sodium/potassium). DH and DCs would have to ration our food between them. Not sure what I would do about baby though. Probably try and make him some kind of rice milk (we have lots of rice).

Donkey made a good point - we have a couple of good first aid kits and a hefty bandage supply left over from when DMs pressure sores had to be treated thrice daily. At the minute we have a good supply of antibiotics too, as I have a viral infection. Willing to share with MNers in need, of course. They look like M&Ms.

Oooh Drania, swap you some anti bi's for some of our emergency chocolate stash (12 huuuge bars. 6 milk, 3 dark, 3white. Take your pick!) :)

Not long considering Slimming World insist on fresh food all the time.

This situation would be where their plan would completely fall apart for everyone that was doing it!

I have enough petrol in my car to get to a college I worked in where we were looking at equality and diversity and as the group were all white British we actually looked at skills for the Zombie apocalypse.

We could last about three weeks or so on the food we have, after that we'd have to forage or loot or something.We have two large rainbarrels, so we could probably last with a reasonable level of rainfall. Well-insulated house and provision for a real fire inside and could cook in the garden as well.
Brought up with a survival approach to life, have firestarters, sterilising capacity and lots of medieval skills so two of us would manage OK and we'd just have to explain to DH what to do. DD would be catatonic by day three of no tech.
Medical emergencies would be the real fear.

We might actually discover that some of the children have the ability to talk about something other than minecraft.

On a serious note, my mission today is to get a water butt. We have a large property and no water butt which is just silly really since we have chickens who will quite happily drink rainwater (and we need them alive and healthy if the power's going off!)

Re meds DH would be unable to walk after about a fortnight without arthritis meds so he's going to be a fat load of good. We might eat him.

Within an hour of the interweb going down, the thin veneer of civility would be ripped away and it would all get a bit Lord of the Flies here. The younger members of the household would survive for a while, feasting of the corpses of the rest of us.

Not long, about 2 hours - the baby would need formula and we wouldn't be able to sterilise or make up the bottles with no clean water or heat. We have a small courtyard garden - so not much to burn. We eat low carb and just have a few tins of toms. no fruit juice or bottled water - in fact there are no drinks in the house other than tap water. Everything else is fresh veg, dairy and meat - so would all be gone within days.

On the other hand DH is a bit of a weirdo survivalist - he's in the army and loves all that shit. He's also massive and with no conscience or moral code whatsoever. So i reckon he would go out and return with quite a lot of stuff and i wouldn't ask any questions!

We'd be ok for a while, possibly indefinitely. We have lots of food stored, a productive garden, a groundwater well on the property and either a hearth or a wood burner in most rooms. The pantry still has the marble slab on a north facing external wall for keeping things cold. We'd need to dig an outside privy and build a brick oven for baking but other than that our house would flip from digital back to analog pretty easily.

with what I have in the house? not long. a couple of weeks. (I have quite a large emergency tin stock) I'd have to make a fire to cook stuff since the cooker etc wouldn't be working, but that wouldn't be a problem.

After that, I'd just take a big bat with some nails in it and head down to tesco.

About a day.

We have gas heating and a gas oven so we'd be sitting pretty.

Until my husband started clamouring to find out the football results in various leagues around the world. So.. about four hours, tops.

Quite a few months tbh

Have 2 wood burning stoves, gravity fed spring water tap in the kitchen, and a yard full of cows, sheep, chickens and pigs - would have to draw the line at the gander as he's ancient!

Huge veggie garden and orchard so will be fine during summer and autumn - would just need to bottle and preserve as much as possible to see us through the winter. Neighbours have bees so can get our sweet fix from there.

Village is quite isolated with only 2 roads in so they can be easily defended in the event of people rioting....... For once I'm happy about living in the middle of nowhere!