Preparing For Outages

KobayashiMaru86

KobayashiMaru86

Totally Hooked
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Location
Swansea, Wales
I've been without power over 48hrs now, surviving on power banks. It's made me start thinking of contingencies for when this inevitably happens again. Any good kit I should look at? Ordered some bigger powerbanks which should be here today but only really for USB devices and laptops but wouldn't mind a way of powering a few appliances like an air fryer so I could at least cook.
 
I am prepped here for future conflicts but also helped with a lot of power outages that I encountered last year. I live rurally, but In short:

Many power banks that I keep topped up and check monthly.
A few small portable solar panels for slowly charging the above power banks if I do lose power. just so I can charge phones.
Stash of Tea Light candles, These can be used to cook on and a source of light at night.
Matches/Fire lighters
Stash of Firewood that will last a few months for heating home, water and cooking.
Camping cooker and gas for cooking
cheap USB/battery powered camp lights from decathlon.
Bottled water
Dried/Tinned food
I have a kamodo barbecue/grill which is dead versatile for cooking when the power is out too.
 
Take a look at https://uk.jackery.com/ Basically a big battery pack with built-in 240v inverter.
We have one that will give enough for 1000w (so an airfryer or coffee machine). Bought for use off-grid in the motorhome (if needed), also have a couple of big foldable solar panels to go with it - even at this time of the year you'd be able to harvest a *bit* of sun.
 
Our 'stables' are completely off-grid, so in the dark Winter nights we use a Champion 'Mighty Atom' Generator to power 8 LED flood lights that I've installed in and around the property. The generator can also be used to run mains powered items (it has 2x 13a outlets) up to its specified limits - We've used it to boil a kettle and to run mains powered horse clippers when needed. Always handy to have a petrol generator for emergencies and the Zombie Apocalypse ... 🧟‍♂️
 
Sonic said:
Our 'stables' are completely off-grid, so in the dark Winter nights we use a Champion 'Mighty Atom' Generator to power 8 LED flood lights that I've installed in and around the property. The generator can also be used to run mains powered items (it has 2x 13a outlets) up to its specified limits - We've used it to boil a kettle and to run mains powered horse clippers when needed. Always handy to have a petrol generator for emergencies and the Zombie Apocalypse ...
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This will be next on my list.
 
How much money and effort are you looking to invest into it? You have a few options, a 1kW-2kW suitcase generator would be the simplest and portable solution (Honda, Kipor, Hyundai). You could go fixed install by generator or battery backup/UPS system, more involved but you can have direct back feed to all or some of your circuits in your house. Generators will have ongoing maintenance compared to batteries.
 
The dream would be solar on the garage roof, batteries on the garage walls and enough to store enough power to run the house for a day or so, depending on load. Bought a few more powerbanks today. Like the idea of that generator but I'd have to maintain it. It's biggest benefit though is I can fuel it. I'll have to think if I got one, where I could store it, then get my sparky to rig something up so if the mains fails I can failover to the generator. In my last place the rack had a true failover system to a generator. If it detected mains dropped, the UPS would still keep it up more than long enough for the diesel generator to auto fire. That was mega money though but was way over specced. You could've run all the offices on it if we needed too but they and the factory had their own.
 
We managed to survive the power cut in our village over the weekend but my colleague is in Longford/Neath and she is one of the 10,000 homes that have had no power for three days. She phoned me to say her power was back on at the precise moment that mine went off, it was only for a few minutes though.

Our neighbours have got a 26 panel PV array and battery, they didn’t notice the power cut! I’ve recently installed 20 panels in my garden but no battery, I think it would be really worthwhile as a UPS for these occasions.
 
Steve said:
We managed to survive the power cut in our village over the weekend but my colleague is in Longford/Neath and she is one of the 10,000 homes that have had no power for three days. She phoned me to say her power was back on at the precise moment that mine went off, it was only for a few minutes though.

Our neighbours have got a 26 panel PV array and battery, they didn’t notice the power cut! I’ve recently installed 20 panels in my garden but no battery, I think it would be really worthwhile as a UPS for these occasions.
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I'm in Gorseinon and it was my road and the rest of the estate which was about 130 houses. Went off at about 6:30am Saturday. That day I was due out with my friends for a day in Swansea so went as normal. Came back around 10pm still in darkness. Sorted dog out and went to bed. Came back on at 11:30pm so started recharging power banks, only for 10 mins later seeing several green flashes and you could hear the power hum down the road and a big bang. The map later showed over 400 homes out of power over a bigger area. Nothing Sunday, came back 10am Monday. Lost the fridge contents but freezers seemed OK.
 
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