Domestic Civil Defence -
No Power !

The writer has experienced hours and days of loss of electric power from line faults, lines damaged by storms, lightning damage and industrial action (Winter of Discontent). Most recently, 11,000 homes in the area were disconnected because of a fire in a hydro-electric power station. In 1979 and 2003, millions were affected by power failures in North Eastern America; whilst that is unlikely in Britain, such 'cascade failures' could occur in extreme heat, cold or flood conditions.

When the electricity gets cut off and it isn't because you've forgotten coins in the meter or to pay the bill, the effects on any house can get progressively worse :-

• Lighting : The lights won't work - disastrous in an age when we don't rise with the sun and go to bed soon after sunset.
• Heating : Night-storage heaters will be cold within 12 hours. Central heating relying on pumps will cut out and be cold within 3 hours.
• Cooking / Washing : Those with gas-cookers and hobs are OK, but all-electric cookers may be useless within seconds. So will dishwashers, clothes-washers and other powered equipment.
• Internet/TV/Radio : Even lap-tops will fail within 3 hours, unless with access to a car-battery. TV and radio services will be useless unless battery-powered.
• Freezers : Will start to defrost with 7 hours and food may be unsafe to eat within 12 hours, unless cooked by then.
• Telephones : Line and Mobile : Both of these services will work unless there is a general power failure. After 7 to 12 hours, the exchanges may be programmed to reject calls made from domestic phones. This would be to save battery and generator power in the exchanges for essential emergency calls.

Dealing with Power Failures :

• Lighting : If the power fails at night, you must know where in your home to find - blindfold -
  • a torch,
  • candles and
  • matches.
  Try that NOW.
  The writer has experienced power failures at strange times, but has always kept the means for emergency light to hand.
  The obvious solutions for longer term power failures are fluorescent battery-powered lanterns. Some kinds (designed for summer gardens) are now recharged by standing them out in the sun. A cheaper solution is the candle lantern. Night-lights and slow-burning candles are cheap to buy - except in a crisis. A few very enthusiastic people fit their houses with 12-volt fluorescent lights powered from batteries topped up by a battery charger. The most enthusiastic acquire a small Honda petrol-fuelled generator or a small wind-turbine or a small solar panel array. There are good improvisations for lighting.
• Heating : For those with a fireplace or a gas-fire, some solutions are obvious. Free-standing gas heaters have two problems - they produce a lot of water vapour (steam, which becomes condensation) and (unless properly maintained) may also produce that silent killer, carbon monoxide. Paraffin heaters smell, can produce a lot of soot, but some kinds can also act as cookers. Gas and paraffin pressure-lanterns produce both light and heat.
• Cooking : Gas cookers are useful, but they need either to be fed from the mains or from a stand of tanks. Camp stoves that run on gas, petrol, paraffin or meths, are good one-hob or two-hob burners, occasionally with fitted grill under the hobs. Gas is clean but expensive, paraffin and meths cheaper but less common, unleaded petrol is widely available. The writer has owned and maintained an excellent two-burner Coleman petrol pressure stove for the past sixteen years and inherited a working paraffin Primus. The very best solution is a caravan with hobs, grill and oven. There are also good improvisations for cooking.
• Washing Water : If you can cook, you can also sterilise water by boiling it and heat water for washing utensils, your clothes and your body. A very little Milton solution in water will help to sanitise clothes. Ideally, if you have a fire then always be heating water beside it. For large amounts of water, consider using scrap wood and some kind of outside improvised cooker, or use Milton solution to chlorinate 5-gallon (22 litre) containers of clear fresh water, filtered as best as you can.
• Communications : If you have 12-volt electricity, you can run a CB radio. From a car cigarette-lighter socket, you can re-charge a mobile phone or run a lap-top. With a car, you have a radio receiver. Even a simple battery radio receiver or a car stereo can be a source of official information and entertainment. Go to No Phone ! for more advice.
• Freezers and Larders : Regard the food in the freezer as the first to be used when power fails. Hot food will both help morale and keep you warm. Meat cooked through will keep far longer than if left raw. The same is true of most vegetables. It may be worth trading food with neighbours or holding a 'stone soup party' to eat the food together in exchange for fuel, candles, etc. Keep your freezer insurance up to date, to claim for any food that you cannot eat. Larders of food, some which is chosen for good keeping (e.g. tinned food, bottled drinks, UHT milk, dried foods) are reserves for when perishables have run out or become unsafe to eat. Again, a caravan's gas powered fridge is a last resort for storing perishables. Use it also to chill down freezer packs in the ice compartment, to keep more perishables safe in a coolbox. See the Food section for further advice.

Improvised Equipment and Emergency Information :-

Lighting : Lighting : [Rechargeable Lanterns] [Inspection Light] [Candle Pot] [Jamjar Lamp] [Recycling Nightlights]
Cooking : [Bucket Stove] [Trench Cookers] [Dutch Oven] [Haybox & Thermos Cooking]

Make your own Power : [Otherpower.com] [Cheap Bike-Based Generator]