Knowing when the power might go off

My pleasure. Now you know it is coming, if it is cold, you can plan ahead to make a hot water bottle, a flask for tea and have blankets/duvet on standby.

I worry too - like you, the cold really goes for me, especially since 2018. Stay well, and stay as warm as you can.

PS - you can always drop any of us admin team a PM with your telephone number if you want someone to keep an eye and give you a nudge at any point. We can hold it confidentially in the office so it would only be us that could see it.

 

Good evening looks like I shall have to get a new corded home phone just in case as I have a cordless one at the moment

Power cut
If you have a “corded” phone, then yes your landline telephone will work during a power outage. If you have a “cordless” phone, then it will not work, because a cordless phone requires electricity to transfer the signal from the base to the handset

 

Having been using an oil lamp as auxiliary heat (they chuck out a fair old bit of heat, surprisingly) I was tempted to get a greenhouse paraffin heater purely because it would quite happily run on lamp oil as a house heater and then double up for greenhouse duties if/when the world returns to normal. Indeed, it appears that a lot of the paraffin that is sold now is actually just lamp oil (in itself, just a more refined, odourless/smokeless version of paraffin); we've got two oil lamps that were originally intended as emergency lighting use.

It is 2022 and here I am looking at paraffin heating... it takes me back to when I was a kid.

 

Or, your mobile phone should still work (assuming of course that there is not a total blackout) - infrastructure such as telephone/radio/TV transmitters will also be V block, so thus protected. Just keep your mobile charged up as much as you can.

 

I think the cheapest I have seen it is around £6 per gallon(ish) but for the more refined stuff I've seen it getting on for £12 a gallon. The oil lamp that runs the hottest uses around 200ml over around 6 hours, so a gallon goes a fair bit - but, that is supplementary heat only.

 

We have been taking part in the govt sponsored energy saving sessions, basically we switch off all the electric we can for an hour and get paid for the amount saved. It's a trial being run by some energy companies to see if enough households are willing to switch off then power outages would be avoided (this is for the lower severity levels). Being only an hour it's not much of a sacrifice and sitting in the dark without the telly, internet or phone is actually quite relaxing.

To get by just needs a bit of common sense and planning. We boost the heating prior to switch off. We shift our meal times or cook by candle light on the gas hob. We found it's easier to prepare all beforehand in daylight. We make sure we don't go into the fridge or freezer. For entertainment you can walk the dog, visit the pub or play old fashioned games around an open fire (or a candle in our case).

 

It depends on what happens in Europe as we import power from them. If they had to switch us off we would be around 5% short. Fingers crossed it doesn't happen.