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