Powercut

Well 4 hours into a power cut and apparently 3.5 hours to go. What would you spend the time doing :thinking:?
So far we’ve had 2 lots of elderly neighbours in (90+) to get them a warm by the log fire and hot drinks…

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Oh gosh, that’s such a long time to be without power! Hopefully any food in your fridge/freezer will stay cold enough.

I’d probably nap, to be honest :joy: or scroll on my phone, as I always have a portable powerbank full to keep my phone charged in the event a client contacts me.

Pretty sure the last time we had a power outage, my roommates and I just cracked open a bottle of wine and played uno by candlelight

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Growing up in the 70’s with regular power cuts and “reduced power” we played board games or read books by candle/torchlight. Luckily we had a gas fire and gas oven, and a gas boiler. So our all electric neighbours came round to bathe the children, cook their tea and a warm by our fire. As a kid i saw it as an adventure rather than the inconvenience it actually was! In those days if you missed your favourite tv show cos of a power cut, you missed it, cos there was no catch up tv etc!

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Back in the 90s when the power could be out for days several of the houses on our street had wood stoves , the rest of the people were not having fun . We would invite the neighbors with kids over to warm up and we would cook on the wood stove . We had a portable 13" color tv and I charged up a deep cycle battery from my boat and brought it into the garage and ran power in the house for the tv . I handed the small herd of young kids the TV guide to figure out what show they wanted to watch . It had been two or three days since they had watched any TV . I think at the peak we had about 20 people over and had a slumber party with about 8 kids , it was fun .
Later I installed a generator transfer switch and got my first house generator . Now I have that one and a smaller fuel efficient backup . We also have a simpler gas water heater that does not require electricity , so all the hot water you want . The longest we ever went without power was 7 days . Moved all the food into big coolers and filled with snow and frozen stuff in another , filled with snow and some salt and did not lose any food . We are having the best snow of the winter today .

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Think my wife thought i was nuts putting an emergency light at the top of the stairs( like the ones in shops/offices £15) still think it’s a good idea, especially as there are no windows

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Years ago I installed tiny LED lights in the ceilings of our bathroom ( no windows) and hallway , also just inside the garage and another over the breaker box and generator transfer switch . They are powered off of twin small batteries charged with a 45 watt solar panel array . It is amazing how with the tiny fixture the light makes a cone of light to the floor about 2-3’ across for a night light . And the other three are handy when the power goes out and I need to get to the transfer switch ( without having to find a flashlight or pull out my phone . I originally did it because grandma had night lights all over for grandkids , seemed like the bulbs lasted a few months , along with parasitic power drain .

Yep, gas boilers rely on electricity these days :roll_eyes::pensive: but the cooker works :+1::+1:
Always good to help the neighbours

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Yeah, if my electronic knowledge is correct I think the Piezoelectric effect ignited ours!

Yes , that is the type we have , many neighbors got suckered into the alleged super high efficient water heaters that cost about three times as much to install and must have household power to operate . KISS , keep it simple stupid . That applies to so many things .

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Similar here - we’ve kept our gas fire as it just uses a standard battery to light it. If the worst came to the worst we could always make some badly-burned toast :slightly_smiling_face:

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