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…

Well in an act of probable cruelty to children I have just bought a fray bentos pie to serve them for dinner tonight. This is a scientific experiment to see whether they will actually eat long life food. I suspect it will be shoved around the plate but they had roast beef and yorkshire pudding with all the trimmings for lunch and so it's not as though they'll starve

Perhaps I'm taking this too far now. Roasting a hedgehog in clay is one thing but serving fray bentos pie….

"Mummy apart from the bit I really hate, I'd say this pie is a success."

That's not bad for an apocalypse meal. Right we can stock up on fray bentos (can be cooked in a dutch oven on a camp fire or on a wood burner)

You have a coal mine about to open, cheddar? Where do you live? (fascinated).

I have nightmares about this very scenario- although we live in a small village surrounded by fields of cauliflowers and potatoes and daffodils, everything in my house runs on electricity, which has always made me feel very insecure.

Not long. We would have no heating at all and so it wouldn't take long for my youngest to become dangerously ill. We would be able to cook stuff on the hob but only for a week with what is in the cupboards and there is only enough petrol in the car to last about 3 days.
I suspect the lack of an online social life would be insurmountable but on the plus side DS would have a good excuse for not doing exam revision

We've got a spring down the road (Ty Nant is bottled near us and it's a subsidiary of theirs ) and an open fire. There are piles of wood out back and the freezer and cupboards are rammed. We might have some odd meals, but I reckon that we could easily do a couple of weeks and probably a month with a bit of foraging effort put in. I might even lose some weight

We grow vegetables and fruit, eggs from chickens and my hoarding qualities mean that we'd be alright for a bit. We have a huge sack of bread flour - could make simple breads over a fire. Actually planning on building an outside pizza/bread oven at Easter, so that would be handy.

I've got reasonable foraging skills, and we live near large woods, which are full of wild garlic, mushrooms and nuts.

I make Elderflower Champagne, and can make wine if desperate (we would be).

We grow loads of soft fruit so could make fruit leathers, jams etc.

Water would the the biggest issue. We keep a few bottles in, but we'd have to use spring water from the woods.

We'd need nappies and contact lenses ideally, but I guess we'd manage.

Ah of all of MN come to mine we can share food and alcohol and then i won't have to listen to DH... problem solved.

unlucky I also spent a fair amount of time today googling off grid energy and the best food to have stashed away

I'd say a month, we have enough emergency canned food and water to last 10 days should the need arise.

We live in an active earthquake zone, so you are encouraged to have a weeks worth of supplies on hand to last on your own with no immediate support for 72 hours.

[http://www.getprepared.gc.ca/index-eng.aspx]

My first thought about no electricity wasn't food but the sorry state of my hair. I hadn't considered the rest of the problems I'd encounter until I started reading on.

Couple of questions for those stockpiling food.

Where are you storing the food? ( I only have 1 tin cupboard and nowhere else to store, id love a food bunker)
I've noticed the expiry dates on tins/cereals are not as long as they used to be so what things are you storing which will last a very long time ?

Someone said bleach can purify water by adding 2 small drops, wouldn't this be harmful to drink with bleach in it? Am I missing something here?

Two drops per litre of water is perfectly safe to drink. It kills off any bad stuff in the water though.

When I was googling long term food the general advice seemed to be buy what you would be happy to eat anyway but more of it. Then you rotate the stock so when you buy another tin of beans you put that one to the back of the shelf and take the oldest one from the front. That way you shouldn't end up with out of date stuff.

White rice (brown goes rancid),pasta, flour and sugar all last for a very long time if stored properly.

Honey lasts forever apparently. They have found honey in Egyptian tombs which is still edible. Most tins are apparently ok many years past their sell by date too.

A friend wrote a blog about the possibility: elsteadwritersgroup.wordpress.com/author/suesteph/page/3/

Scroll down to the posts titled, 'Powerless: the year the lights went out.' Being a blog, they're all in reverse order, so you'll have to do a lot of scrolling in order to read it properly, but it is worth the effort.

Ha! This thread has just caused an argument with DH who reckons we'd be able to last about 3 weeks "depending on whether or not we'd eat the rabbits". My liddle pet rabbits!!!

We were without power for 2 weeks post Hurricane Sandy. It's actually fine once you get into the swing of things, although we had an emergency generator to power the fridge and our iphones You spend a lot of time going to be early and we had the younger kids in our beds a lot as they were cold and a bit scared. We were also lucky as our water supply wasn't contaminated, so the toilets worked and we just had cold showers, which was pretty miserable when it was snowing outside.

The worst part was so many petrol stations were closed, thus petrol was very limited. There were long lines even at 3/4am to get gas. It was very reminiscent of the 2000 (I think) fuel protests in the UK in that respect. But then, imagine that with no power in your house as well and you don't just need petrol for your car, but to keep your fridge working as well. We used the gas bbq a lot, which was fine right up until it snowed a week later!

We subsequently invested in an in built generator that is powered by our gas supply, as we had also lost power for a week post Hurricane Irene the year before. Of course, it's Sod's Law that we haven't lost power once since that was put in!

I think the rabbits would have to go reallyneedmoresleep unless you're in a position to breed them. Visiting Pets at Home would be part of my survival plan - those giant house rabbits must make great eating and presumably they breed like rabbits! Guinea pigs would be good too.

Just realised that all the filtration for DH's precious tropical fish (dead within a few hours of no power) would be great for purifying our drinking water. I might now also let him get the generator he's been going on about for the above fish and just not let on I have an ulterior motive.

Our stuff is stockpiled in tubs in the garage

Gas bbqs also come in handy to cook with when there's no power

Improvising with what's in the cupboards/fridge, about five days.
I wouldn't think to save water before the pumps go though :( If I'm honest I'd rely on this being one of the situations you'd come together with friends and family for company and eat their food

Raspberry There was a one of drama about this exact situation a couple of years ago and I spent faaaaarrrrr too long shouting at the tv, "It's not like that! You start connecting with your friends, families and neigbours. Not killing them!!!"

One off. Grrrrrr!!!

I've loved reading through this thread. It's been a recent dream of mine to live off-grid.

I'm absolutely hooked on that story GeorgianMum. It's a pain the the ass to scroll through it all to read in the right order but I'm hanging on in there. I'm on January.

Are you sure there's not just s few cheeky little zombies?

G'wan...please.....

Midnight I'd love to live fully off grid long term.

I actually have a food dehydrator so if I was organised, could put that to good use. You can dehydrate pretty much anything and then it lasts for years. I use it to dry fruit and veg mainly (I'm addicted to dehydrated pineapple so do three a week) but could be adventurous and try making jerky. That'd keep us all going for a while.

There are lots of you tube clips of american preppers dehydrating anything they can lay their hands on.