In an emergency......

[Annpan]

We are the same with our woodburner and lots of candles, and a wind up lantern. I had forgot about it but we do have camping equipment somewhere too.
No Gas here, and we frequently get powercuts for a few hours (I think 5 has been our max) As we get the rest of the house done up we plan on relying less and less on electricity

[snapdragon]

No piped gas here, we have bottled gas for water/central heating - envious of a way to fire it up without electricity johnheadstong
Open fire with a trivet (for the younger people its an iron hob that hooks on the front of the fire grate) but unfortunately no back boiler
Camping gas burners and bottles big, small and titchy, camping gas lanterns, wind up radio and torch, spare duvets and blankets, candles, paraffin storm lantern, household paraffin heater which doubles as a cooker (very old chimney type), oil table lamp, laptop (very short battery life so would have to use very sparingly)

Having said this - I'd need daylight to search for many of the things listed above

[pumpy]

Dear Big Al,

Although we're on conventional gas & electric we do have back-up from candles, an Esse "crofters range" (designed to run on peat but we use our stock of driftwood) and a box of tricks consisting of a car radio, reversing light and car battery that I charge up once a month. (The components of the box of tricks came from a wreck that no caressing with spanners would get through mot, so I had to scrap it!)

So, we're alright for light, heat, cooking and entertainment. The bit that really would worry me is if the electric pumps at the waterworks clapped out leaving us without fresh water. Somehow I don't really fancy a cup of coffee from the rainwater butt!

Anyone got any thoughts on water supply cuts? Hi jim, howabout looking at getting a wellpoint installed,(miniature bore-hole), provided that your watertable is no more than 6M below ground-level.

Love and Peace
Jim

[pumpy]

Oooops! see the above paragraph!!

[george]

Anyone got any thoughts on water supply cuts?

Why not just store a few days supply of water?

Here in NZ we are encouraged to be prepared for an emergency situation and to have an emergency kit. Here is what is supposed to be included in the kit and I think we have all or most of it.

http://www.getthru.govt.nz/web/GetThru. ... enDocument

For the water, we just fill up old juice bottles with tap water and store it somewhere dark (in the garage). As long as you check it on a regular basis it is fine. We also have some bleach handy which can be added to the water should we need to drink it and find it has floaters! We also have a hot tub which could be used as water for washing.

We have bottled gas hot water and cooking, an additional gas bottle on the bbq as well as a couple of camp stoves. We have plenty of torches which are easy to find (we keep a torch by the side of each bed in case of nighttime earthquakes). The only problem would be heating but we do have good quality camping gear and thermals so we would just have to stay warm with clothes rather than heating.

It is good to see that so many of us would be prepared but I suspect it is a trait of ishers to be able to cope better in an emergency situation just because of the way we live which is less of a convenience based lifestyle than many non-ishers.

[invisiblepiper]

We also have some bleach handy which can be added to the water should we need to drink it and find it has floaters! .

But probablly the same as our chlorine tabs right enough!

[george]

We also have some bleach handy which can be added to the water should we need to drink it and find it has floaters! .

But probablly the same as our chlorine tabs right enough!

Yes, you just need something to kill the germs and they will do it just as well. I am not sure how you bring yourself to drink it but I guess in an emergency you have no choice!

[shell]

i forgot to add a windup radio belonging to my dh,just in case the triffids are comin our way

[red]

Anyone got any thoughts on water supply cuts?

we have ex-juice container water storage plus 2 IBCs we have yet to plumb in - as well as greenhouse water butts. so long as it rained as much as usual, we would nto run out. ulitmately we wwant to use rainwater to flush the loos, but not set that up yet

[Odsox]

We should be OK for water as our main supply is gravity fed from a mountain spring.
That does dry up occasionally when we get a rare drought in the summer then we have to use our deep borehole which would mean firing up the generator.
The only problem that we would have is keeping the freezers frozen and keeping the tropical fish tank warm.

[midgemagnet]

For Lighting we have candles, wind up lanterns, electric lanterns (5-9 hour life) and a gas lantern with a few spare canisters...we also have some battery powered emergency lights stuck around the walls of the house for that initial phase of "where's my torch?" - a few snaplights too...

Heating....we have an open fire in the lounge and an open plan house so that will take the chill off...we also have a calor heater - the two combined make the house bearable when its cold out. Enough coal for a few days, also keep some wood around too

I also have a 5kw diesel generator and enough diesel for a few days (manual start and connection so this is for intermittent use only)

Cooking - have some gas stoves, can use a microwave when the generator is on and the fire if necessary - we have a stock of tinned foods and a big freezer.

Water...well it comes out of the taps and I can see the loch where it comes from...should not be a problem. A spring within 10 minutes walk too.

Not terribly environmentally friendly for heating and cooking but not sure there is a viable alternative. Coppicing and woodburner may be an answer when my trees grow!

We get powercuts in the winter and we can get snowed in sometimes so it helps to be prepared...kids got a bit scared when they were little when we had storms and power cuts - I remember the early 1970's so was fine with it.

[MuddyWitch]

When my girls (now 23 & 17) were little we regularly had candle lit meals. They were so disapointed when we WEREN'T plunged into darkness like some of their friends.

I, too, lived through the 3-day weeks in the 70's but we thought they were great! Our power often went off, being in a remote village, but the power-cuts were PREDICTABLE!!!

I've always had a torch by the bed, (though thank-fully not as an earthquake precaution, George!) and I'm a candle-aholic, but I hadn't thought about water 'till last Summer, when Severn-Trent gave us 15 minutes warning of a pipe shut-off that was to last 2 days!!! Now, we rotate the stored 25litres.

Our hope is that our next place will be as off-grid as possible.

MW

[Odsox]

Yes, I went through the 3 day week, but as you say ... the power cuts were more or less predictable. Actually I made money over the 3 day week ... one of our designated days was a Saturday at work and so we worked the 3 powerless days getting ready for the 3 power days and Saturday of course was time and a half.
The other two occasions that spring to mind though we not predictable at all.
The first was the "hurricane" of 1987 in Kent when we were without power for 2 weeks and telephone for even longer.
The second was after we moved here and was Christmas Eve 1996 when we had a massive storm in S.W. Ireland and we were without power for 3 days ... including all of Christmas Day. We were OK though as we had just bought a 5kw generator, the only problem was finding a petrol station able to pump as we only had a gallon or so in reserve.

[sheena]

In an emergency we should be alright in general because we have a woodburner which will provide our heating and hot water and a supply of fuel.
We have a back up supply of large kelly kettles(the most underated pieces of equipment that I have ever used, as you can fuel them with just about any piece of garden twig,wood etc).
We have multifuel camping stoves and lighting (led's and huge supply of candles_ my husband is currently working on table and standard lamps using leds that can be powered off the phone line - he tells me there is a you tube link for this, but I am unsure of this at the mo)
For cooking we could use the woodburner and can use the hob.
We also have a collection of cheap lighters and firesteels.

We have a small back up generator for electricity which is switched by a special switch my OH installed,this diverts from mains to generator.
if needed and my OH has adapted our wind up torches and radio with leads to power our mobile phones if needed, but we also have a solar charger for these.
For local use we have a twin set of walkie talkies which we use instead of the mobiles, which has a coverage of 8km.

We have a back up supply of bottled water for short term use and we harvest rainwater which we can pass through Millbank bags to filter out heavier particles and we have a stock of water purification tabs.
My OH keeps dropping hints that he would like an RO filter for his birthday, but i pretend not to hear him.

For clothes washing we have a sink top Washboy and an old tin bath

We are still experimenting on the best way to harness the wind, as OH is going through his mad professor stage and keeps muttering VAWTS this...... Vawts that(vertical axis wind turbines).

[invisiblepiper]

I guess you all feel the same way I do - that too much fuss is made over losing power for a day or two ?
Apart from little ones and the elderly - we should all be able to manage.
What SCARES me is the dreadful dependency culture which has evolved since I was a child (50 this year) Mollycoddled kids and adults who need permission to think!
Could that be the uniting factor for this forum of many different people - we can all think for ourselves?