Power Outage Preparedness

• I live in Atlantic Canada, and in the past year significant, long lasting power outages have become extremely common. We can't afford a generator. What other things would may family and I most benefit from, and what is the best/most reliable ways to power devices? I have a limited budget so we're talking bang for your buck. Due to the Ice Storm over Christmas (resulting in some people losing power for 2+ weeks) and the Hurricane this summer (again, long and irritating power outages) it is now a running joke that power outages are just part of life. Frankly I think our infrastructure is pretty effed up and weakened at this point. We are increasingly having power outages during good weather (sunny, no wind), and when any sort of bad weather hits... well, it is raining today - not windy, just raining - and the power went off while I was in the shower, hair full of shampoo. I've about hit my breaking point, as you can imagine, but I am also dreading this winter. A power outage or two that lasts at most a day is pretty normal for the wintertime, but based upon what we've been dealing with lately I'm thinking it is going to be a lot worse. We have electric heaters but pretty much only use our wood stove for heat. We don't need to worry about heating our home in the wintertime without power. We have a well and when the power goes out we can't run the faucets. In the winter we can melt snow on our wood stove to use for cleaning/toilet flushing. We cannot afford a generator, nor can we afford to have a separate panel wired up, which we would need to do in order to use our water pump. (It is hardwired in.) The thought is that there is no point in getting a generator unless it can power our waterpump. Things I already have/am going to get: - a couple carboys of water in the laundry room for emergencies (ie. toilet flushing) and whack of bottled water for drinking. - Some mediocre flashlights, tons of AA batteries (which are the size the flashlights use). - 3 hand-crank LED lanterns (they give off a surprisingly good amount of light too!) - 1 LED emergency light bulb. Works as a normal light bulb but also has a battery that charges while it is on. Gives off awesome light during outages. - some emergency food (almond milk, protein powder, "Easy Mac" type stuff that can be made without a microwave, meal replacement bars, some canned goods etc). - a BBQ with a side burner, and always at least 1 spare propane tank at the ready. - paper plates/bowls/cups/cutlery (since we can't do dishes with no power) - a pack of super strong army-grade glow sticks, just because - board games etc. to entertain us. So the main issue I am trying to solve is charging/recharging things, and some comfort and quality of life things. Having normal-ish light is important to my peace of mind (especially since I am scared of the dark). And being about to use the tablets (even without internet) would give a lot in terms of things feeling sort of normal. For basic charging/recharding (our phones, our tablets, my kid's tablet, etc) I was thinking of something like http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00E3OL5U8/metafilter-20/ref=nosim/, but I am concerned it isn't going to work anywhere near as well as I would hope. I have also considered something like http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00D5T3QK4/metafilter-20/ref=nosim/ but if the power outage goes on for too too long that may run out (hence my interest in the solar one). What is my best bet in this regard?

• Answer:

  LED bulbs are fantastic. They're very low energy use and last for literally years. However, they can be a very focused, direct beam, and they're not always the brightest. They can be, but it's not immediately obvious whether they are or not (hint: most consumer grade stuff isn't, but CREE is a well regarded brand). As an adjunct, look into http://www.ebay.com/itm/DC-12V-15W-Compact-Fluorescent-Light-Bulb-40W-incan-300lm-BRIGHT-n-WHITE-CFL-/260945931425. They're not the cheapest or the most commonly found, but where they excel is at spreading light over a large area, like a normal incandescent bulb. An LED will give you light, but only generally in a narrow beam. A 12v CFL will use a little more electricity but give you a much bigger spread of energy. In an absolute pinch, you can take the battery out of your car and run a 12v CFL from it. That's very much not an ideal thing to do though, so don't so it unless you're literally desperate. If your car won't start, you can't charge that battery up again. And you need that battery to start your car. Don't use electricity for heating unless absolutely necessary. Electrical heating is resistive. The heat comes from the electrons not being able to travel along the wire properly. It's quite inefficient. It's clean at point of use, and can be controlled very easily (think of how an electric kettle will turn itself off when it boils - you can't do that with a gas kettle), which makes it popular, but using gas to create electricity to boil water introduces wastage of energy. All of which isn't really relevant unless you're drawing your electricity from a battery. The first thing I think you should do the next time you go somewhere with a dollar store (or Canadian equivalent) is get hold of some solar lights. Put them in your garden and let the sun charge them up, then they'll turn on when the sun goes down. When buying them, look for those that have the little solar panel on the top at an angle, so you can angle them towards the sun. http://www.amazon.co.uk/BARGAINS-GALORE%C2%AE-GARDEN-RECHARGEABLE-OUTDOOR-SECURITY/dp/B00BUQU9H2/, for example, have the solar panel flat on the top and will do the job, but http://www.wilko.com/garden-lights/wilko-stick-light-solar-clear-single/invt/0250129 will do the job better. Solar panels work best when the sun is at a 90 degree angle to them. If the sun is low on the horizon (like it is in the Winter at northern latitudes), a horizontal panel won't work nearly as well. Garden solar lights are cheap and they charge themselves up. You can put them outside and forget about them until you need them. They're also very cheap. Or, you could spend a little more and buy something like http://www.amazon.co.uk/Custodian-Commercial-Equivalent-superbright-construction/dp/B003MYD2Y2/. I bought that particular model several months ago and it has lit up every single night since then, irrespective of how sunny it was or wasn't during the day. It's lovely and bright and covers a decent area. Again, put it outside and forget about it until you need it. You can also get strings of solar fairy lights. I have a http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00EXVOZ0I/ that cost less than the lamp at the previous link. They don't offer spot lighting, but they do look very effective in a darkened room, and you could use something like that to light the way from the kitchen, up the stairs, across the landing and into the bathroom, all from one battery. If you do get some solar lights, get those that take AA batteries and you can use them as battery chargers. Or, you can just put normal AA's in if they're not charged up enough. As others have said, headlamps are amazing. Petzl seems to be the go-to brand, but I'm too cheap to shell out the money for one. So I bought http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0044219T6 instead. It runs on three AAA batteries, which you likely have in the remote control for your TV, in a pinch, and has three light settings. It leaves your hands free to shovel snow or grab something from the car or do whatever, and the light is always focused at what you're looking at. Plus, kids (and some grown men) seem to love wearing them for some reason On this subject, get a torch for every family member, plus one. Someone is guaranteed to put their torch down somewhere and lose it. http://www.amazon.co.uk/YKS-Dynamo-Flashlight-Torch-Camping/dp/B00D8WXG12/ has a spring loaded handle that you squeeze to generate electricity. Even if the batteries inside it are dead, you can squeeze the handle to make it light up. I own http://www.amazon.co.uk/Rolson-61702-Dyno-Torch-Black/dp/B003KGB992/, which does the same thing but you need two hands to generate the electricity. With both models, the energy gets stored in internal batteries, so you don't have to wind/squeeze when you want light unless you've let the batteries run down. A bonus is that you don't need electricity to charge them. There's also http://www.amazon.co.uk/Rolson-Tools-60753-Shaky-Flashlight/dp/B000WDTIEO/, which you just shake to generate electricity, which might be fun for kids to use. I haven't used one myself, so this isn't a recommendation. I can, however, recommend http://www.amazon.co.uk/Rolson-61770-LED-Camping-Light/dp/B002JM0JIA/. They have magnets and a hook on the back and are plenty bright. A tip: look for actual details of how much light a device throws out. If it doesn't say, it's likely to not be enough. Lanterns are great at throwing light around, but there are a lot out there that won't do a very good job, especially cheap ones. There's only so much that a plastic diffuser can do to spread the light out, especially if the LEDs aren't that bright to begin with. Spend a little more on these, in my experience. Is your shower electrically powered too? You might consider http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B001ULCILM. Pumping the handle gives you pressure which makes the water flow. Using http://www.onlineconversion.com/mixing_water.htm calculator, you need 1 litre of boiling water to 7 litres of 20°C water to give you a water temperature of 30°C. It's no power shower but it will help keep you clean, which is a big boost to morale. You can get http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/278-4535472-5528005?ie=UTF8&field-keywords=dry%20shower&index=blended&link_code=qs&sourceid=Mozilla-search&tag=firefox-uk-21 that enable you to keep clean without water too. Or use baby wipes, which last forever. Even if they dry out, you can splash a little water on them to make them useful again. Depending on your water pipe set up, you might be able to have an inline tank. Water would be pumped from the well into the tank, which would be pressurised, but you could also get water from it via a tap if the need arose. I have no idea if this is feasible or a good idea, so speak to an expert. It would give you a buffer of water, though. If it was set up high in the house, you could potentially use gravity to feed water to the taps. Do you have a car? If you do, you can use it to charge your small electrical devices. Adapters are dirt cheap from ebay or Amazon. Don't just plug them in and turn the ignition on, though, unless you want to come back to a flat battery. It's unlikely, but possible, that that could happen, and if it does, it's guaranteed to be at the worst possible time. If you're snowed in, you're unlikely to be going anywhere, and running a car causes it to give off fumes like carbon monoxide. Usually you're driving away from these fumes, so it's safe, but if the car is by the house, it's not really an ideal thing to be doing. If you know bad weather is coming, fill the tank on your vehicle. If the roads are iced up, delivery trucks won't be able to reach the gas stations. Re keeping fuel, be very careful if you do this. Petrol will explode merely from the fumes it gives off. (OTOH, I've heard that you can drop a lit match into diesel and it will go out. I've no idea if this is true or not, and I'm not going to test it to find out!). Someone having a cigarette outside could make a bad situation very much worse. Personally, I wouldn't risk it. There are safer ways to store energy. You mention a wood burning stove. Can you cook on this? Also, consider an http://www.ecofan.co.uk/ if you don't have one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stirling_engine and will blow warm air around the room. I figure you already know this, but have a store of warm dry wood inside so you don't have to traipse through snow to get at it. The Biolite stove mentioned upthread will work better if you keep the cooking pan full of cold water. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermoelectric_effect. Solar power is great for keeping things charged up, but it won't work on snowy or dull days very well. What you need is a solar set up that charges a battery, likely 12v, which will store that energy until you need it. A kit is likely to be the best way to achieve this, as it will come with a charge controller and other such gubbins. Other than that, I have seen http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00HCBHZV2?keywords=aa%20phone%20charger&qid=1408133462&ref_=sr_1_1&sr=8-1 that you can put a few AA batteries into which you can then plug your phone into to charge it from. I haven't ever used one, as I have a battery pack of the sort you linked to, which I keep charged up. I would definitely get a solar charger, but get one that comes with its own battery, and the larger the solar collector the better. For preference, go for a monocrystalline panel, rather than a polycrystalline one, as they're more efficient. Anything is better than nothing, though. I can recommend http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B001QTXKB0/ref=wms_ohs_product?ie=UTF8&psc=1. It handles FM, AM & SW radios, operates as a flashlight and can even charge a phone. I've never really had much luck with using a hand crank to charge a phone, despite several devices. YMMV. If I was going to use a hand crank, I think I'd get something like http://www.amazon.co.uk/Soulra-Turbine-Performance-Battery-Charging-Black/dp/B00H3PPVFY/. When buying a battery pack, check the Ah value. This is the size of the tank, figuratively speaking. Bigger is better. If you have a phone with a 2000 Ah battery, then you can charge it about 4 times from a 10,000 Ah battery pack (allow 20-30% energy loss). To make the battery on your phone last longer, disable 3G data, wifi, bluetooth, GPS and NFC, then turn the brightness down low and disable any apps that are running in the background. Look into backup batteries specifically for your devices, and keep them charged up. Maybe get an ereader too, if one of you likes to read a lot. They don't use much battery and can help you escape from a stressful situation. Do you have any hobbies that you can do without electricity? Last time we had a power outage, my mom continued knitting a jumper by the light of the moon coming in through the window, until I got the solar lights in. She's been knitting for years, and I wouldn't be surprised to find that she could actually do it with her eyes closed. Crochet is fun and simple and has the added benefit of letting you create a shawl which will keep you warm. Card games, board games, reading, audiobooks, ping pong, etc, can all help prevent you from climbing the walls. Find out ahead of time what you enjoy and don't enjoy. Don't leave yourself in the position of finding out in the middle of a storm that you don't actually like playing chess. A joke book can be an invaluable thing. Now, on to the important stuff: food! Anything with a use-by date will not keep. Anything with a best before date might. Things in tins or dried in packets will likely keep for longer than the best before date. Stuff in your freezer is not to be relied on during a powercut. Move your freezer to the coldest room in the house and cover it with blankets to keep the heat out if the power goes down. Obviously do not do this while it's working, unless you make VERY sure to keep the radiator coils clear so that they can throw off all of the heat that they're pulling from inside. A full freezer will stay cold much longer than an empty one. If you have to, put bottles of water in there to increase the mass. If there's snow on the ground outside, compact some of it down and make yourself a "fridge" to keep your perishables in. Throw stuff out of your fridge before it rots, though, or eat it up quickly. If you're replacing the freezer at any point, consider a chest freezer rather than an upright. A chest freezer will hold the cold air inside it, where one with the door on the front will allow the cold air to fall out. You can test this by standing in front of your freezer with no socks on, and opening the door. What can you cook and how can you cook it? If your electricity goes off, are you going to be stuck using the barbecue? Can you maybe cook on your stove somehow? Do you have a way to boil water so you can reconstitute some dried potato or couscous? Something like pasta that you have to keep boiling (keep adding energy to) is less ideal than something like a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pot_noodle that you only need boiling water for (you boil the water then turn the gas off, saving energy). Also, if you have a thermos flask, http://www.thermoscooking.com/, even making http://helengraves.co.uk/2013/05/thermos-scrambled-eggs/. There are loads of vids on Youtube about it. It's great for things like rice, and potatoes too, if you cut them up small enough. Depending on your set up, you might have some success with a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pressure_cooking. It cooks food more quickly using less gas. Get some food in that will keep and that your family enjoys. Dehydrated potato, couscous, dried vegetables, bratwurst, tinned spaghetti, tinned tomatoes, some crispy fried onions, etc. Don't forget herbs and spices too. Then practise cooking with them and serving them to your family, until you can find some recipes that will go down well. Also, think of morale boosting foods like hot chocolate with marshmallows. Perfect in the Winter when you've been running around outside to get some exercise and keep the cabin fever at bay. Maybe get fancy with some flavoured hot chocolate, like mint or orange. Try having a day where you flip the breaker in the fuseboard, and see what flags up as being A Thing That Causes Problems. Do you need a light on the stairs at night? Is it difficult to light the barbecue with a lighter, so you need some matches? Will your gadget battery die at totally the wrong moment? It's best to find these things out now, than in the middle of a blizzard. Right now, you have time to prepare and solve problems before they get out of hand.