Alternatives in a power cut

[strawberrysea]

Hi all,

I've been on MN for a while now but I'm new to the prepping community. It's going well so far and I'm following the 'sane prepper rules' in terms of buy what we use, use what we buy.

My main concerns in terms of scenarios that will realistically affect me in my country (UK) and location are:

Power outage
Fire (we live on the 10th floor of a building)
Civil unrest (given location of our building)

In terms of a power outage, how would you recommend prepping for this? I have found lots of articles via google but the women on MN are generally very clued up so thought I'd ask for your advice.

So far to prep for power cuts I have:

small camping stove (I mean very small, one of the ones that is about three inches tall)
two gas canisters to enable use of stove
blankets
x2 Oodies (knock off ones from amazon, they are amazing)
hot water bottle
baby wipes
lighters
matches
candles

Can you think of anything else? Thanks in advance :)

When we have local powercuts my mobile phone won't work to call anyone even though it's fully charged, it just won't connect. The router is off so no internet for laptops or the phone. The landline doesn't even work. I presume this is because the local wifi booster masts and BT connection boxes are powered by electricity so are also off. Local friends and family find the same.

How do we get around this?

Are we doing something wrong?

What I'd add from my experience is that a camping compressor fridge is much more resilient to sudden power cuts or varying input voltage from the 12v battery or 240v inverter. A mini fridge is designed for a smooth and consistent power output, and also uses more power I find (just by virtue of needing an inverter to supply 240v). Having said that, it cost us £350 for a 12v compressor fridge, £150 for the solar panel and £450 for the power pack - that's a lot more expensive than a mini fridge, you can buy a hell of a fridge from John Lewis for that kind of price!

Useful info @HappyDad2DS

My camping fridge is only reliable to drop by a certain amount below ambient temperature rather that reliably being at a set temperature

In terms of the camping stove yes absolutely we have a balcony I would never use it indoors!

Have I missed something? Like lost people who have one, I use my gas cooker indoors. It’s a lot bigger than a camping stove.

Anyone looking at buying a solar generator with battery needs to fully understand what wattage the appliance they want to use will draw down, and also what its surge drawdown might be. Eg my microwave is rated at 800w, but in practice what it draws down at any one time goes between 0 and around 1400w. The ones pictured by an earlier poster are pretty small, useful for charging phones, a tablet, running a small tv for a few hours, but you couldn't plug anything large into them.

Look at the storage capacity of the battery, expressed in kWh, the maximum you can draw off it and what it will support for a short time as a surge. Would hate anybody to waste their money.

The larger ones are great, but expensive.

@HopeIsNotAStrategy really good point. The more I look at it the more I am convinced I need to focus on alternatives to electricity. Apart from chilling and freezing, I pretty much have them. And instead of chilling and freezing, I am looking at shelf stable alternatives.
If I required a fridge for medication, that would be a different matter.