How do you prepare for a blackout?

How do you prepare for a blackout?

250 Piece Survival Gear First Aid Kit

LifeStraw Water Filter for Hiking and Preparedness

250 Piece Survival Gear First Aid Kit

  1. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    Car battery or two and inverter or two. Then just learn how to math out electric stuff (400 watt inverter? Don't connect your fridge!).

    Keeps me with light and internet, and even some heat (electric blanket) through the worst stuff.

    Don't bother with lithium, it's benefits are not applicable here. You don't need low weight, density, or full rechargeability.

    Lead acid is the way to go. 80$ for 1kw storage is unachievable any other way. Maybe go for a deep cycle marine if you think you'll have constant black outs.
    Keeping communication open is important. Just set up one of those inverters to run your router and modern and landline if needed (corded does not need power), but, test this.
    Contact your utilities and ask if they power the lines in blackouts. If so, you'll still have internet and phone.

    From there, you could invest in a mini fridge, or learn to keep your fridge full. Keep bags of ice and stuff in there, and DONT open it unless you absolutely positively NEED something in there. fridges are great insulators until you open them and let all the cold air out, then it has to suck the cold form your food to rechill. Very bad.

    Get 12v led strips for lighting, and 12v accessories to hook up to your lead acids (You can even go small, ask at junkyards for cheap ones. They don't have to be great. It's better to have a few small ones that one big one if you're more clever with electronics, but i won't get into that yet.

    As for why you want 12v accessories.... Inverters are mildly inefficient. You should avoid using them *if* possible.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      Stop relying on electricity.

      >doing all of this just so you can stay on your computer
      This is sad bro.

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        >This is sad bro
        Welcome to nu-out. Enjoy your short stay

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        This. The less you need, the less can surprise you. Electricity is a convenience, but make it so you don't need it. Fridge is a weakness, store just food that doesn't rot without a it. Have candles ready. Don't store information in digital form, paper is your friend. Electric kettle is useful, but you can boil water on stove too. Try to live in the city like if you lived off the grid. Internet just at uni/public library. Charge your phones in public transport or at your workplace. Collect water in barrels.

        • 11 months ago
          Anonymous

          I see what you're saying but also, you can do both.

          Have the larder of canned/dried supplies, use pen and paper and all the dependable old ways. It's smart. But also, have a fridge if you can... have internet and a PC. Even if it is crap 30% of the time, that's still a lot of time with your creature comforts. And I don't see anything wrong with it, you can still put it all away and enjoy the great outdoors all around you. Watching Breaking Bad at the lake while 20 miles from the nearest person, on a warm summer night, is acceptable behaviour.

        • 11 months ago
          Anonymous

          >Try to live in the city like if you lived off the grid. Internet just at uni/public library. Charge your phones in public transport or at your workplace.

          You are an absolute fruitcake.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      >fridges are great insulators until you open them and let all the cold air out, then it has to suck the cold form your food to rechill. Very bad.
      You can get one that opens from the top to decrease the amount of cold air that flows out when opened.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      >part 2: Non electrics

      https://i.imgur.com/xRAvhw5.png

      >fridges are great insulators until you open them and let all the cold air out, then it has to suck the cold form your food to rechill. Very bad.
      You can get one that opens from the top to decrease the amount of cold air that flows out when opened.

      Bro's right. You can practically treat cold sir like water. It flows. It'll flow out your fridge door... unless you have a TUB. A big old freezer tub. Open the door, and all that cold stays in. As a result they're extremely efficient and can run off as low as 30 watts. BUT DONT BE FOOLED, they need a burst of power, up to 1,000watts, to crank their motor, only settling to their super low power after. You'd either want to design your electrics around this (straight 12v if you can find one, no inverter), OR... just use it as a big cooler, no electricity. It'll work as good as the best yeti.

      For heat, you can't beat hydrocarbons.
      You also can't beat bundling up. Your dad was right, heating isn't easy. But if you have pets, or indoor plumbing (pipes can freeze)... you do need to try to heat the place.

      There's a lot to get into. It depends on your budget, home size, insulation, etc.
      But personally, i have 3 coleman pump gas lanterns, and a gallon of gasoline. Heat and light, and super efficient. That one gallon could last me 2 weeks.

      If you really wanna get toasty, try a mr buddy, but propane tanks get expensive if you hoard them like you'd need to. They sell out fast in local stores during hardship, buy them now. Gasoline is almost never unavailable, and even at $5 a gallon... a gallon is all you need for those small lanterns or stoves.

      Yes, they make gas stoves too. Look into them, it's down to preference really, but i have a pump gasoline one too.
      Don't buy whitegas, it's just purified gasoline, for like 20x the price. Get a dual fuel, they can handle it.

      Lastly, entertainment. No real advice here, everyone has different tastes. Just consider power-free entertainment. Books and art supplies and puzzles and whatnot.

      There's enough for a part 3, considering the outside world and it's connection to you (your town's water supply is electricity dependent)
      But this is already pretty much prepper territory.

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        propane is nice in that you don't need stabilizers, gasoline might not be usable when you need it.
        where I live heavy snow almost always means no power, we're only 15 miles from town, but the roads are almost impassable. going into town to get gas for a generator isn't always going to be practical

        if you can swing it, a wood stove for heat/cooking, a propane generator. barring that a few deep cycle batteries and an inverter charger to keep them topped off would come in handy for smaller electronics (think cell phone, laptop, etc) to use with an inverter.

  2. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    With a telescope. You can see the milky way from your backyard

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      with a spaceship you can go anywhere you want

      Why would there be a blackout? I don't live in California or Texas

      https://i.imgur.com/XwcTFNl.png

      That's great buddy, but it mostly happens in those shitholes.

      every winter some idiot slides into a pole

      https://i.imgur.com/Sic4R4R.png

      Because China has access to our grid....thanks Joe.

      also this

  3. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    I hope everyone is prepared for any disaster after what happened with COVID in March 2020. You better have enough food and water to last you a month

  4. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    i ussually try to make it to my bed, and hopefully have some water in a bottle next to me, and make sure to lay on my side

  5. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    Why would there be a blackout? I don't live in California or Texas

    • 11 months ago
      tinfoil-hat

      a blackout can happen everywhere

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        That's great buddy, but it mostly happens in those shitholes.

        • 11 months ago
          tinfoil-hat

          sorry to disapoint you, but i am an europoor

          • 11 months ago
            Anonymous

            >for a short one
            same as elsewhere, flashlights, extra batteries, shelf stable food, enough bottled water for drinking and cooking for 3 days, power bank to keep -Basic- phone use running. clothing and blankets to deal with your local weather spectrum.
            >extended one
            you don't. for eurps who can't go hid in a fortress, you revert to classic expendable peasant status and your odds are not good.

  6. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    Buy an inverter generator, that way you can watch anime and play video games...plus the noise will attract opportunistic raiders and you can shoot them and get free loot. But in all seriousness, an inverter generator is probably the cheapest option and if you are not worried about clean power for sensitive electronics a regular generator is even cheaper. There are also battery banks and solar panels, that can get costly, but they don't make noise.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      This. I picked this up 5 years ago and it's pretty efficient and will power a refrigerator, lights, tv. Even started and ran and filled a well pump (with nothing else plugged in).

  7. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    I've got solar and a bank of deep cycle batteries. No black outs here.

  8. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    >How do you prepare for a blackout?
    used to happen all the time
    then like 12 years ago or so when the govt was paying 80% of the cost to install solar panels I got 2 panels put on my house
    havent had to worry about it since
    its nice still having lights on and loud music playing when the rest of the town is in darkness lol

  9. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    Our power was off for 6 days following Hurricane Katrina and 14 following Ida.

    Generators are ok. Just be prepared to only use it maybe twice following a long outage. Most aren’t designed for a duty cycle like that. Don’t buy a used one. You’re supposed to change the oil in them pretty often but I do t think anyone does.

    Barring that, be prepared to empty your fridge. Freezer things spoil in a day or two, fridge items soon after. If you evacuated for several days, just duct tape the door closed and toss it out. Everything will have melted and you’ll never get that smell out.

    Keep books and games on hand. With no power means you probably won’t be going to work. After a day or two you’ll be sitting around your house with nothing to do. “Hurr you need power for entertainment? Durr people lived without it for hundreds of years!” Yeah, and they read and played games. Also most of them farmed from sun up until sundown, or went to social events on their days off. You’re not a farmer and you do t know your neighbors names.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      you do t know your neighbors names.
      There is 12 house's on this street, I can name off every single person who lives on this road. Love my neighbors.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      Oh man I don't miss New Orleans AT ALL.
      Enjoy that shithole, anon.

      Also the solution is to live off grid.

  10. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    What happened to the prepping general? Some Polish guy was doing some shit.

  11. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    Because China has access to our grid....thanks Joe.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      they can just cut the under sea internet cables it would cripple your economy so badly you would never recover

  12. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    ask your mom

  13. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    I don't.
    Prepping is for people that are spiritually weak.
    You accept death when it comes to you.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      I love that type of thinking, keep doing what you're doing

  14. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    jugs of kerosene

  15. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    a short one?
    power banks for charging phone and candles

  16. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    Car battery and inverter or just wait for the power to be switched back on.

    If in some weird situation civilization fails and you get blackouts that don't get fixed then probably small scale alternative energy.

    Solar is cheap and thermoelectric plates are also cheap if you want to use firewood and heat to generate your electricity. I would use charcoal as well for thermoelectric, or steam, if you can't access or repair solar.

    Now Solar thermal is another good low tech alternative energy source, which is not the same as photovoltaic panels like you see normally. There is an interesting publication called Low Tech Magazine that is full of stuff like this.

    Let me ask you this: You can figure out a way to provide your own electricity, but what would you do if the internet infrastructure failed?

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      In some countries, brownouts are pretty common, and electricity is not everywhere or always reliable. A lot of people use car batteries and 12v stuff or inverters as mentioned, especially if you are working on a computer or something and a blackout would destroy your data and keep you from working.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      >what would you do if the internet infrastructure failed?
      Build my own internet with blackjack and hookers.

  17. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    3 days minimum worth of stored non-perishable food (for each person and any animals), water (for each person and any animals, also account for water for cooking purposes), and fuel (for a generator large enough to run at least a fridge plus a little extra, extra fuel for something like a dirtbike or car is a plus) is the standard minimum IMO. If you skip the generator you should at least be in a good climate or be adjusted enough or have redundant backups (fireplace, wood burning stove, well insulated house etc) to not need any climate control (AC or electric or gas utility heating and water pumping etc might be unreliable).

  18. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    Darkness won't kill you. I sleep a lot at night and work on whatever in daylight as there's always something useful to do.

    I have a generator, inverters, jump packs, batteries, vehicles, gas heating/stove as backup, small heaters (a Mr Buddy burns less than my gas logs on lowest setting but my gas stove is more convenient0, LED headlamps (most based of lights), Streamlights, a manual water pump (Bosworth Guzzler with garden hose fittings that also primes my well pump without pouring water down the pump housing), reserve drinking water, water barrels beneath my eaves kept full by rain for washing or flushing (but mostly used for outdoor hand washing) a shitload of cordless tools I can recharge off an inverter when running errands and much more but for up to three days I don't bother doing much.

    My phone and tablet are ample for comms and I hotspot whatever notebook I'm using off my phone via USB.

    I eat whatever's in the fridge first and while I can run my genset I'm lazy to odds are in a protracted outage I'd feed my chickens the leftovers. I get more daily eggs than I use and can always feed extras back to the chickens. My alarm clock is a rooster.

  19. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    Let's assume you don't have the cash or time to prepare that these other anons are talking about and instead see how much you can do in a normal home.
    >Lights
    Candles are cheap and they make simple little camping lanterns that make them both safe to leave unattended and way easier to carry with you. Get a bunch of 8+ hour candles and some lanterns to hold them.

    >Heat
    Blankets and disposable pocket warmers will keep you warm in anything other than deep Texas winter. If you have a fireplace use that but I'm going to assume you don't. Don't use candles for heat, they suck at that. Instead get yourself a mini camping stove and use that for heat while you cook.

    >Food
    Keep some dry goods around. You can live on cereal and pork rinds for a bit. It's really easy to boil ramen or whip up some pancakes on a camping stove. This will warm up your house too.

    >Preserving food
    Get some water bottles and freeze them. Throw as many as you can in the fridge the second the power goes out and anything in the fridge will stay good for days and days so long as you don't open the fridge again.

    >Entertainment
    You're going to get bored. During the day do whatever you can outside like walking or biking around and at night enjoy candle lit books. You can also download a lot of entertainment onto your phone.

    >Your phone
    Your phone battery will typically run about 12 hours without any charge. You can get battery backups that will double or triple this time. Personally I have a solar charger hooked up to a couple of USB battery banks so whenever power goes out I have at least infinite phone entertainment. Works for rechargeable flashlights too.

  20. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    What's your climate, and how long are you anticipating it will last?
    Maintaining a full grid-connected lifestyle when the grid is down is pretty much meme shit, you'll be throwing a lot of money and brain at something that's best left as a fantasy.
    You need the basics. Heat, Shelter, Water, Food. So ensure you have an alternative means of heating, mainly. That's the only essential you've lost if the power goes out. Even then, that's assuming you're in a climate cold enough where wrapping up in blankets for a few days isn't a viable option.

  21. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    >How do you prepare for a blackout?

    Where I live in Québec, I get multiday blackouts every 10 years or so.

    Light :
    Always have a headlight in a place you can reach easily in the dark. Make sure it has good batteries.
    Always have matches in a place you can reach easily in the dark.
    Always have a supply of candles.
    A USB/solar recharging lamp or 3 is also nice to have. These double as battery packs.

    Heat:
    I have a wood stove and am rarely down to less then a half cord of wood in my yard. Worse comes to worse there's a load of bad cord wood at my workshop.

    Food:
    Food in fridge lasts a few days.
    Food in freezer lasts longer.
    Lots of dry food and canned food.

    Cooking:
    I cook on a gas stove anyway. I also have camping stove and a Biolite I can use for cooking.

    Computers:
    I have about 10 minutes of UPSes for all my computers. After that, I get the day off. If hard pressed, I have a 700w inverter.

    Communication:
    Land line never fails. Also, cell phone.

  22. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

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