Things you learn after a power outage..

m_c

One key thing for when you've already prepared by having a generator, is make sure you have petrol for it, and that it actually runs.

Such prior planning avoids an unplanned trip in the tractor through 6 feet deep snow drifts to get petrol, followed by lots of cursing trying to get fresh petrol into the generator so it'll start, and avoid the need for realising just how cold it is in sub zero weather when you've got petrol evaporating of your fingers.

Alnico

ICBM said:

BigMonka said:

Do you have a good way of hooking the genny up to the house? Or is your boiler on a plug that you can run off an extension from the generator?

I have a slightly dodgy but functional method of connecting the generator to the house mains, having first made sure the house is disconnected from the incoming supply so I'm not trying to power the whole village .

A double-ended 13A cable which can be plugged into the generator and into the outside power socket by the back door . Obviously a bit dodgy since if you connect only one end of it to a live system the other end is a 13A plug with exposed pins...

OMG......You're actually human!

Legionreturns

An ex colleague once asked me, during a power cut at work, "How come my mobile still works?" ...they didn't last long. 

ESBlonde

RandallFlagg said:

Power outage? Don't we have power cuts in there UK?

Anyway I think a power cut is a great time to engage in the joy of sex

Depends who you are with, some blokes get quite upset!   ;-)

I have a 3600w genny and run a floodlight across the street so people get some light through thier windows. I have a phonic power conditioner that enables me to run an extension into the house and connect up digital things as well as lights and freezers. A lit gas oven provides a moderate amount of heat in the house.

boogieman

Oh god, this all brings back the horror of the regular power cuts in the 70s. We didn't have gas in our house so there was no chance of any hot food. I was stuck in the living room with my mum and dad, who were heading for divorce at that time so the atmosphere was already pretty crappy, eating fish paste sandwiches and being forced to listen to radio 3. 

Rocker

Phil_aka_Pip said:

You should have invested in a UPS to protect your stereo/computer/digital recorder.

You shouldn't have bought stereo kit with a microprocessor in, designed by a clever chap but who is hard put to service the kit and he's the only one on the planet with the knowledge and skills to fix it. Instead you should have got kit that can be serviced by any competent audio engineer and for which circuit schematics are easily googlable.

You shouldn't have bought a house that depends entirely on lekky for its heating, hot water & cooking. It's why in my last house I had red bottled gas for heating & cooking (the only reliable thing about the lekky supply was the price hikes).

@Phil_aka_Pip you appear to be answering two posts rather than my OP. A UPS is of little use in a power outage and I have no idea what you mean by alluding to a 'microprocessor'.

All houses depend to a greater or lesser extent on electricity. Most central heating systems, whether oil, gas, solid fuel of geo thermal, operate on the principle of circulating heated water from the heat source to radiators in the rooms. Unless you have a circulating pump that operates on hamster power, the vast majority use electricity to work.

I take your point about using bottled gas for cooking. But our electric hob works fine, if it fails it will be replaced by a gas hob. In the meantime no sense in recycling a good working electric hob.

My main point as listed in the OP was to suggest how people could prepare for an electricity outage. A little bit of advance planning is all it takes. I was hoping that others would have ideas on this subject, ideas that will help get us through the situation.

A change from endless discussion on Drew leaving/being banned.....

boogieman

Rocker said:

Phil_aka_Pip said:

You should have invested in a UPS to protect your stereo/computer/digital recorder.

You shouldn't have bought stereo kit with a microprocessor in, designed by a clever chap but who is hard put to service the kit and he's the only one on the planet with the knowledge and skills to fix it. Instead you should have got kit that can be serviced by any competent audio engineer and for which circuit schematics are easily googlable.

You shouldn't have bought a house that depends entirely on lekky for its heating, hot water & cooking. It's why in my last house I had red bottled gas for heating & cooking (the only reliable thing about the lekky supply was the price hikes).

@Phil_aka_Pip you appear to be answering two posts rather than my OP. A UPS is of little use in a power outage and I have no idea what you mean by alluding to a 'microprocessor'.

All houses depend to a greater or lesser extent on electricity. Most central heating systems, whether oil, gas, solid fuel of geo thermal, operate on the principle of circulating heated water from the heat source to radiators in the rooms. Unless you have a circulating pump that operates on hamster power, the vast majority use electricity to work.

I take your point about using bottled gas for cooking. But our electric hob works fine, if it fails it will be replaced by a gas hob. In the meantime no sense in recycling a good working electric hob.

My main point as listed in the OP was to suggest how people could prepare for an electricity outage. A little bit of advance planning is all it takes. I was hoping that others would have ideas on this subject, ideas that will help get us through the situation.

A change from endless discussion on Drew leaving/being banned.....

Err, that's actually the whole point of a UPS. It stands for Uninterruptible Power Supply. It's designed to carry on supplying power to a mains powered device when the mains goes out. A bit overkill for a stereo system maybe, but I suspect Phil might have been saying it tongue in cheek. 

Rocker

Err again. A UPS will only help for a few minutes after the power outage. Stereo is the last thing on your mind if the leccy goes...

amarok1971

Will a ups power a kettle?

Phil_aka_Pip

It's not the power cut that is the problem, its the surge when the lekky comes back on, which a UPS will filter out for you. In my case it destroyed the LH channel of my stereo, because the cut lasted only 3 sec and I had not got to the power switch to turn things off before the power came back.

A UPS will prevent a head-crash on the hard disk of your digital recorder, it will give you time to save your work and shut down properly. Similarly your PC.

When I were a kid, we lived in a thatch'n'beams place out in the sticks with no lekky. We had a Rayburn with a back boiler and the hot water made it to the tank in the corner of us kids' bedroom by convection. We were never short of hot water, warmth, or hot food.

My preparation was the installation of red bottled gas in my last house. I did have UPSs in use there but was not using one here when the power cut happened.

Phil_aka_Pip

amarok1971 said:

Will a ups power a kettle?

not for very long, unless it has a huge VA rating. My kettle sits on a gas ring and requires no lekky

Bridgehouse

Well, actually, yes and no re the UPS.

Really spend the £££s and get a 6000kva with 6x battery modules and it will give you more than a few minutes (depending on your power draw), but certainly enough to boil a kettle. 

Course, that's not it's intended purpose - and good luck installing the UPS management software on your kettle.

Phil_aka_Pip

Bridgehouse said:

good luck installing the UPS management software on your kettle.

we hope it wouldn't be incompatible with the client software you get with the IoT

Danny1969

I used to have a huge 3.4KW UPS which I used to run the band off at certain noise limiter mains tripping wedding venues ... it was great but weighed a ton, couldn't actually carry it on my own and it fell off a sack cart while I was transporting it and destroyed it's self on the tarmack  ......... still use a much smaller one for the digital desk 

hywelg

Reminds me to get some paraffin...... 

Phil_aka_Pip

Danny1969 said:

I used to have a huge 3.4KW UPS which I used to run the band off at certain noise limiter mains tripping wedding venues ... it was great but weighed a ton, couldn't actually carry it on my own and it fell off a sack cart while I was transporting it and destroyed it's self on the tarmack  ......... still use a much smaller one for the digital desk 

Would it work if each band member had a smaller one behind his amplifier and  you had one in the bottom of your pa rack?

Bridgehouse

Phil_aka_Pip said:

Danny1969 said:

I used to have a huge 3.4KW UPS which I used to run the band off at certain noise limiter mains tripping wedding venues ... it was great but weighed a ton, couldn't actually carry it on my own and it fell off a sack cart while I was transporting it and destroyed it's self on the tarmack  ......... still use a much smaller one for the digital desk 

Would it work if each band member had a smaller one behind his amplifier and  you had one in the bottom of your pa rack?

Probably, but you are looking at 120kg a pop for something that would cope with that load. That's a lot of Kgs...

Phil_aka_Pip

Bridgehouse said:

Phil_aka_Pip said:

Danny1969 said:

I used to have a huge 3.4KW UPS which I used to run the band off at certain noise limiter mains tripping wedding venues ... it was great but weighed a ton, couldn't actually carry it on my own and it fell off a sack cart while I was transporting it and destroyed it's self on the tarmack  ......... still use a much smaller one for the digital desk 

Would it work if each band member had a smaller one behind his amplifier and  you had one in the bottom of your pa rack?

Probably, but you are looking at 120kg a pop for something that would cope with that load. That's a lot of Kgs...

which is why I was thinking that everybody should have a smaller one for just their gear so that the one in the pa rack has only to handle the pa equipment

richardhomer

The power went off here at about 7.00pm on a Thursday night, 6 or 7 years ago. Obviously I had no candles - or a generator - or a wind-up wireless. What I did have, was a warm rosy feeling that I’d been transported back to the 70s.

When the power came back on at approximately approximately 7.25, I was disappointed to find The One Show was on, rather than Tomorrows World - and gutted five minutes later that it was ‘Enders, rather than Top of The Pops....

Danny1969

To be honest it was the last resort in situations where they couldn't be bribed to disable the limiter or wouldn't let us run power from another ring. 
The one I had, an 8U HP unit was capable of sourcing 3KW constant for 22 mins so plenty enough for the class D PA and backline at wedding volumes

The one we still use is the 1U unit in the bottom of the right hand rack, fine for running all the outboard and desk for a about 30 mins