Long term loss of gas

[Preppercorn]

I've thought a lot about what life without electricity would look like, but what about gas? At our house, we are dependent on gas for central heating and hot water, and our hobs. We have no fireplace or anywhere to put one, and no hot water tank (newbuild). I'm assuming if we lost gas we'd also have lost electricity (similar to the situation in Ukraine), but all of our gas requires electricity to work so losing electricity would lose us gas anyway, except possibly the hob.

For cooking food, I am considering a chiminea or barbecue for the garden maybe? I don't like gas cartridges and anyway that solution only works short term unless you can get hold of more cartridges whenever you need them, and nowhere around here sells them.

Last time DH and I went camping, we did a test to see whether the fuel burning stove or the barbecue cooked our food fastest, and the barbecue won by a long shot (surprisingly).

For heating, we have a hot water bottle and I was thinking if we got a chiminea we could heat bricks in it to give warmth (wrap in newspaper or towels) which is similar to what we used to do in winter for the outdoor rabbits when we had them.

What are your thoughts? Have you got preps for loss of gas or gas and electricity together?

I have gas central heating but controlled by an electric switch, so if the power fails I lose heat & hot water.

I have a 5kw log burner which can heat half of the house and I can cook basic meals on, and heat small amounts of hot water. I had plenty of practice last year 🤗 I have home grown wood that I cut and stack every year so I won't run out of that.

We'd be warm and fed if it came to it.

If we have power but no gas, I also have an immersion heater, and an oil filled radiator for the bedroom.

I've just looked at oil radiators but the lowest I've found is 0.7kW. I suppose they wouldn't have the heat output below that, but it wouldn't run for long on my power station. I think I'll have to look at more hot water bottles or maybe an electric blanket.

Our whole village lost gas for a week a few years ago. Central heating didn’t work, gas hob didn’t work. A lot of people couldn’t have warm showers, thankfully ours is electric. The Gas people gave everyone free plug in hobs that sit on the worktop. Thankfully it wasn’t cold. If it had been short term we’d get by with the log burner and an oil filled radiator that we have.

The gas cooker would work but would need manually lighting. The clicks things are much easier than matches for lighting ovens and grills.
I wouldn’t use anything with a heating element or compressor on a power pack as it will drain the power really quickly.
BBQ are a good option for cooking on and it’s easy to buy and store charcoal. With a bit of practice you can cook on a wood fire.
A gas stove that uses large bottles would work well and they are fairly economical on gas. A bottle would last a couple of months. Calor gas heaters are useful, if it’s cold though can get through a cylinder a week.
I’ve got solid fuel heating and a little genny to run the heating pump and lights

@CerealPosterHere Any idea what caused it? We've only recently joined the gas pipeline when we moved into this newbuild, we were on oil before, and it was constantly going out (landlord wouldn't fix faulty boiler) so we've two big fan heaters but they'll not be much use in a powercut.

@Autumn1990 Both our gas and electricity are on a combined smart meter. I'm not sure if the gas works without electricity, certainly the heating doesn't, due to a digital thermostat. I think the meter has a battery for short term interruptions but I wouldn't fancy my chances longer term, so a power cut could easily take out our gas (it's a new build -- we had no say in the smart meter). I'd not come across solid fuel as a full heating system, did you retrofit it or did the house come with it? We have no fireplace or wood-burning stove or similar here but I'd like to get one put in if it's an option (I'm just not sure if it is or not as I'm struggling to work out where we could safely site a stove).

I have two De'Longhi 500 watt oil filled radiators which give out a surprising amount of heat for their size and I don't use them on Max settings.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/DeLonghi-TRNS0505M-Oil-Filled-Radiator/dp/B01M0UHYDT/ref=asc_df_B01M0UHYDT?mcid=25f9e9a6e47a3dabbfe6901eb1af00c7&th=1&psc=1&tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=697175636859&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=10712318185664358532&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9046321&hvtargid=pla-391079449181&psc=1&gad_source=1

@Preppercorn some sort of faulty valve/switch on the gas main into the village.

was very odd, I started cooking on the hob and the gas just petered out. So I asked on the village fb group and others started saying they had the same issue.

It was Good Friday, I rang the gas board/transco/whatever they are now and told them the village appeared to have run out of gas. Honestly we were inundated with a hundred workers, maybe more. They bussed people in from hundreds of miles away to work on it.

One of the big things was that every house (2000plus) had to have a visit to turn their gas off at the house. Once it was fixed a few days later everyone needed a visit to have their gas turned on plus the person had to come in and test all the gas appliances so you had to be in and it all took time.

BBQ. Have two disposable BBQ trays and stand in the garage plus a bag of charcoal. I also have a Kelly kettle with the cooking stand. Additionally, I have a shit ton of ash logs drying out.

@BlackeyedSusan Do you find the Kelly Kettle is more useful than a basic camping stove? I've been curious about getting one but we're a family of 4 so I wasn't sure if it would be big enough for all of us or if we'd need more than one.

No. Camping stove would be best I think. I bought it for fun. I am paranoid about camping stoves though. Kelly kettle is tricky. I would use the BBQ first.

@BlackeyedSusan Yes I'm not a fan of "standard" camping stoves either. I've got a little multi-fuel stove that burns solid fuel, but it's a bit underwhelming on the output and I find that a disposable BBQ is better (except not great for the kettle).

We use gas for the job and heating at home. Redundancy for the heating is a wood burning stove in the sitting room and hot water bottles in beds, extra layers and blankets generally.

For cooking, we have 2 electric ovens and I can do a lot with those. And an air fryer. We use the gas bbq in the garden when power is gone. I have a 1 ring plug-in induction plate as an extra ring to cook on. If it was long term, I have 2 tiny camping type charcoal bbqs but I would quickly get a full sized charcoal bbq and a good few bags of charcoal.

For hot water, in summer we already get good hot water from solar panels diverting power. I have a camping solar shower that is pressurisable and does a good job heating water if there's any decent sun. But I could also fill it from a kettle if needed.

I've also got a Kelly kettle and the bits to make it a cook stove as well, which is surprisingly effective for 1-2 people, but less so, apart from hot water, for larger groups.