Power out
3:45pm. I’m writing this using battery power – our electricity blacked out just after I got back from my afternoon dog walk a few minutes ago.
When I lived in my old house in Leeds, we only had one extended blackout in the area – perhaps a couple of momentary power outs but nothing for more than a few seconds, except for a few hours one evening in early 2001 (it was that noteable that I remember it a decade later!). Since we moved here in September 2009 though, we’ve had a few ones of five or ten minute durations and what I would consider a lot (for inside a city) on momentary glitches – almost once a month or more. I suspect due to (not excess but noteable) building expansion in the area over the last few decades, we need more power than the circuits allow and it just can’t cope very well – and who invests in infrastructure these days?
Still, while it’s light outside, it’s not a big problem and it’s a useful reminder to check our own resiliency in these situations.
- Light
It’ll be light enough to see by for the next half an hour or so – at least in the main rooms of the house which all have big windows. The stairs from the office up into the house are dark though as is the underground storeroom – I had to use the light from my phone to go in there and check it wasn’t an obvious problem with the fuse box.We do have torches but I only know where one of them is – on top of a kitchen cupboard near the garden door – and the batteries in that died a couple of months ago.
If the power out continues through the evening, we have candles – but only tealights – in the storage cupboards in the porch. (And I’m going out anyway.)
- Heating
Our boiler is gas-powered but needs electricity too. It’s mild today – we’ve not had any heating on all day – but if it gets cold later, John could light one of our two wood-burning stoves to provide heat in either the living room or office. - Food
Our oven, grill & microwave all need electricity, but our hob is gas and doesn’t need electricity to spark so we could still cook on that. Our kettle is electric too so water will have to be boiled on the hob. (If needs be, we could also use the top of the woodburner as a hob replacement.)We have a fridge & freezer which will only keep food cool for so long. We’re not due to eat any time soon so can leave them closed which will lengthen the coldness window somewhat. If this continues all night, we’ll have make some alternative arrangements – making meal plans to use things up ASAP and possibly driving some over to a friend’s/John’s mum & dad’s for temporary storage.
- Hot waters for baths & showers
Our shower is electric so that’s out of the question. The bath is fed from the gas-powered boiler – but as I said, that won’t work without electricity. Annoyingly, I’d planned to wash my hair about now ahead of going out tonight but unless the power comes back on soon, that’s not going to happen. I can boil some water to have a body-wash but my hair will have to wait. - Entertainment
We spend a lot of time on our laptops or playing computer games – my battery is going and John’s won’t last forever either so they’re out. We also like reading and I like doing crafty stuff but it’s 4:15pm now and the light is starting to go – and I fear for our eyes if we do those by tealight light! If it continues and I was around this evening, we’ve got some board games which we might be able to manage in candlelight (hurrah for contrast on Scrabble tiles ;) ) but I don’t know what John will do on his own – he might end up going out too I guess. Right now, I’m tempted to go for a nap – that doesn’t need any light!
I guess we’re not in too bad of a state – lighting is the main problem as not only will it be difficult to move around the house soon (dogs and cats with better eyesight but less brains constantly under our feet) but it also limits our entertainment options. We should get more torches (and replace the batteries in the ones we have got) and I should find out where they live! (And keeping one next to the fuse box would be very useful too.) I think I’ve also learnt that I shouldn’t leave washing my hair until the last minute when I could have done it this morning ;)
6:00pm
The power came back on at around 5:30pm so was out for about two hours. John called around 5, stuck in traffic, saying the street lights and all the power were out through the whole area – not just our little block but back to the Leeds ring road.
The power came back on *just* as I finally found and lit the tealights. In hindsight, I should have used the dwindling daylight to find the tealights as they weren’t were I thought they were!
I had a very quick shower as soon as the power came back on – in case it went off again – serenaded by the neighbourhood’s burglary alarms. ;)
About Me
I'm Louisa and I live a Really Good Life. I grow, I craft, I cook and I make the most of what I've got instead of forever craving more.
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I was stuck in a traffic jam contemplating what I was going to do this evening. Was rather looking forward to being forced to sit and read quietly in front of the stove. Power is back on now and I’m listening to load music and programming. Rather a different experience.
I keep saying I’m going to buy one of those flashlights that you just shake,or wind a crank to work, but I never do…
But I was at the craft store a few weeks ago, and bought a little bottle of glow in the dark paint on a whim. I’m planning to daub some on the flashlight handles.
We lost power a year or two ago for a WEEK-a week in the summer, and a week in the dead of winter! the summer loss was due to hurricane force winds and downed trees (Which never happens as far inland as we are, ever!), and the winter loss due to an ice storm, and downed trees. (See the pattern here? Why oh why won’t the utilities bite the bullet and bury power lines?)
Summer wasn’t bad-we ate canned food, peanut butter, fruit, crackers. What helped was that I owned a few battery operated booklights, we could each sit and read once it got dark. They’re fairly cheap, and have led bulbs and long lasting batteries, a worthwhile investment. Oh, we also were fortunate enough to have a battery powered lantern, for after dark bathroom excursions!
Winter-well, coincidentally it was right when my husband had a prolonged hospital stay, and I bunked with him, since he was fortunate enough to have a private room. Kiddo was sent the next county over to a siblings. It was well below freezing, I don’t know how we would have coped if we had to stay put.
So yes-have a stash of food that doesn’t have to be cooked to be edible, and a light source of some kind.
It’s always when something stops that you really think about how prepared you are, isn’t it?
We are in a relatively rural area and were forever getting power cuts, although the surrounding power lines have been upgraded, so it has been better recently. Even so, more than half an hour and we have the ritual of hunting for torches that you thought were in one place but mysteriously aren’t anymore, and wondering what to do.
Food and heat we can easily solve; like you it’s lighting and entertainment that we find tricky. Providing enough light for the children to read or play a game or craft is hard. No wonder they used to talk about the long winter evenings in the old days. It must have been virtually impossible to do anything past 6pm.
Our water went off the other day, and I do actually have a reasonable amount of stored water (though there was much muttering from the rest of the family because they know it has a small % bleach in to aid storage they’d have used it if we had to). But we’d had a marathon baking session, the kitchen was full of dirty pans, and the laundry needed doing. And all the water butts were frozen solid….
Hi Hazel, for some reason your comment didn’t show up until now – sorry about that!
I think I’d spend a whole lot more time asleep if we lived somewhere/somewhen without lighting in the evening – napping was the only thing I could think to do on Friday night before the power came back on ;)
Our water had to be switched off last month – when our pipe burst. For a year, we’ve had some stored water – not a lot but enough for us to survive on for a day – but John had just decided it was time to replace it, took our store at his other office to use the week before — and didn’t replace it! Thankfully at least he brought the bottles home and it was only our water that had to be turned off so we filled up a bottle at the neighbours’ house — but what timing, eh?! Needless to say, we’ve restocked our store and he’s had a lecture on replacing things before using them up!
We used to get a lot of blackouts a few years ago-now they’ve done some major repairs it only happens in really stormy weather. We learnt to keep a freezer log so that any insurance claims could be dealt with speedily. Its also useful to keep track of what you’ve got and need to use up -especially at the end of the month when we are waiting for payday. Our local environmental group uses a haybox cooker for demos- made out of a packing case and hay-it is good for long slow cooking once you have brought a casserole to the boil, sure there will be examples on line somewhere!
Where do you live? yeah i think we cannot live anymore without electricity, we’re most part of our time spending it on computer or television, that’s sucks! haha but yeah, at least it’s awesome because without it i probably wouldn’t be able to be writing to you, not even speaking another language.
Loved your blog! you write quite well. Hugs from Brasil.
Hi guys,
bookstorebabe – great idea about glow-in-the-dark painting flashlight/torch handles!
Jan – thanks for giving me another reason to get a freezer log going. One of my goals for 2011 is to cook a meal (using only stuff from the garden) off-grid – a hay box may very well be part of that.
Diego – I’m in UK, in Bradford (a city in the north of England) to be precise. *waves from the UK to Brasil!*
I’m glad it came back on Louisa. We had one on New Years Eve and it was off for about 14 hours. Obviously I couldn’t find the torch {daughter had it with her tent!! grrr} but we did have matches for the candles. I ended up defrosting all my raw meat and cooking it to freeze again!
I made a note to myself to be more prepared.
I have lived in my house for 16 years now and have never had a power cut lasting longer than a few minutes (though about 2 years ago odd houses on the street, though not us, were out for a few hours). However, the house I grew up in was not only on overhead power lines, but we were the end of said line, so the power ‘went’ fairly frequently, sometimes for days, so it has always been something that I like to be prepared for.
We have candles in virtually every room in the house, out on display but available for use, the matches are at the side of the fireplace! I also have 2 solar lanterns, bought very cheaply at the end of the season a couple of years ago, which sit by the front door (because the front of the house is south facing , therefore more light). They don’t give out masses of light, but enough to go to the loo by! Sat in the front window is a solar/wind up radio, which is in use nearly every day. The wind up/ crank powered torch lives on a hook on the back door. We could make hot drinks on the fire and if the power was off for any length of time, I would have to heat food on the camping stove, though actual cooking would be out.
My mother was able cook meals for 7 of us on an open fire, I am still amazed 30 years later!