Thread: Gotta love having no electricity......

hopefully things pick up soon and the rain and damaging winds bugger off

After Ului, we lost power for 5 days.

I was actually away for work when it happened, and arrived home about 2 hrs after power was restored

Wasn't a happy welcome home that time.

Yes we often take the supply of electricity supply for granted until we lose it.

The same goes over here, usually it lasts just lasts a few hours BUT every so often we will get a cut due to bad weather and they can last for days.

If we get an early snow storm like in October which is wet and heavy, it will rip the tree limbs down as they are still in leaf which in turn brings down the power lines in neighbourhoods.

I remember one such doozie in a late September when I bought a ranch style house (a4500sq footer) which had 125 cats and an old lady living in it until she died. The stink inside was bloody awful but you got used to it!--well you can imagine the whiff of cats!

I got most of the inside contaminated materials out, like the waist board and wainscoting out wood tile etc and piled in the back yard. Sat in the bath after a days ripping out, the snow storm hit and out went the bloody lights!
The hit was enormous as half the city plus the burbs were without power, it took five days to get it back on line.
I was lucky since I had a nice barbeque pit out the back and two fire places in the house, so I burnt the cat pee soaked wood/board ripped out the house as fuel for heating and cooking on the barby.

I was talking to a neighbour during all this who remarked, "yah know since that storm we can smell the 'orrible stink of cats and cat pee! Do you???
Nah mate dunno where that is coming from

Dennis
zedcars

Originally Posted by zedcars

I was lucky since I had a nice barbeque pit out the back and two fire places in the house, so I burnt the cat pee soaked wood/board ripped out the house as fuel for heating and cooking on the barby.


Dennis
zedcars

I would rather freeze/starve to death!

Originally Posted by MEANZ06

I would rather freeze/starve to death!

Oh you should try it mate My special a la carte designer local smoke barby flavour!
Not!
Cheers Dennis

I have talk water and the worst thing about power going off is losing the water pump.
My plan is a tank with a few days supply mounted at roof height so if power goes off it will gravity feed at low pressure.
Already gone gas for cooking and I've got slow combustion heating.
About to start replacing all the lights with LEDs and run them off just one big transformer mounted back at the meter box then if power goes off I can hook up a deep cycle battery and run lights for several days...
Light, water, cooking and heating makes a blackout not that bad...

solar power installers around here are hooking up batteries to allow you to use this power at peak cost times.now that rebates are gone.

my work mates battery system is set to cut in with power loss using 12V circuits.

power loss is rare--and evertime i plan to buy a geneator.
I missed during the GFC buying good stuff.and my roof wont support solar pannels.

lots of fams around here that have the grid moved to them.they been off grid,and now its come to them they have to pay for it.

Originally Posted by Carnut1100

I have talk water and the worst thing about power going off is losing the water pump.
My plan is a tank with a few days supply mounted at roof height so if power goes off it will gravity feed at low pressure.
Already gone gas for cooking and I've got slow combustion heating.
About to start replacing all the lights with LEDs and run them off just one big transformer mounted back at the meter box then if power goes off I can hook up a deep cycle battery and run lights for several days...
Light, water, cooking and heating makes a blackout not that bad...

Already done that here, fill the tank on the hill from the river and gravity feed the paddocks and half the house. We have minimal fall too, IIRC only about 4.5m with the tank full, but it's enough with 1.5" rural pipe + 3/4" through the house.
The rain water tank is pressure fed though, so we lose half the shower.
Hot water only there isn't good

The worst thing I find with outages these days (and we get a lot here thanks to a single radial feed from 150km away ) is that I can't ring customers or anyone relly, as everyone uses mobile/portable house phones which rely on power.......