Winter Blackouts

[Stasher]

There's some great stuff on here. Part of our blackout stash includes an old fashioned carpet sweeper (works a treat) and a toasting fork. Everything is better when eating hot buttered toast...................

[pitchshifter]

hi all, this is my first offering on this site so if my stuff is nothing new. sorry.if you have a home bargians store near you, they sell scented candles in glass jars for £2.99 which burn for appx 100 hours(they last longer than my wifes £20 yankee candle of the same size).they actually smell ok too.

The trick to getting a full burn time with jar candles is make sure from the very first lighting that you have the wick trimmed to the correct length and that it is lit long enough to melt the wax all the way across so that there is a small pool of wax completely covering the surface, if you don't do this then the next time you light it, it will only burn across to where you last melted the wax to, this causes "tunnelling" in the candle and once started can't be stopped. If you do this every single time you light them you use the whole candle. If you cant be around for the time this takes you are better off lighting smaller candles. I've got loads of Yankee jars and some I've had for 3 years and still going!

Worth remembering too that putting any candle into a hurricane type vase will extend the life of your candles as they are not in a draft blowing the flame around and you get a cleaner burn, keep checking the wick and at first signs of that mushroom curl trim it again to stop soot coating the vase, jar and walls. Plus of course the safety aspect of keeping them in a contained space makes it safer when there are pets or small children around.

Just a little heads up, if you already have candles that are tunnelling because you haven't given them a long enough 'memory burn' to melt the whole wax pool, there is a trick you can do to try to save them. Take some tin foil that is long enough to completely encircle the candle jar with 5-6cm overlap, fold this width-ways so that it is wide enough to cover the top of the wax by 4-5cm and it overlaps the top of the jar by 1-2cm. You should then have a long thin strip. Wrap this around the top of the candle, leaving 1-2cm over the top of the jar, then fold this over to keep the foil in place. Light the candle and leave it to burn until the whole wax pool has melted. If you started with a deep tunnel you may need to remove some wax with a spoon to stop the wick drowning as it melts, this wax can be used for other projects!

[ukpreppergrrl]

Part of our blackout stash includes an old fashioned carpet sweeper (works a treat)

Ah yes I have one of these! I have two cats and it occurred to me some time ago that were the power to disappear for any length of time the carpets would be knee deep in cat hair within a week! Not required for a few hours outage, but will make life rather more pleasant should the power be off for several days.

[Stasher]

@ukpreppergrrl

It's the cats and one particular dog............handy for extra insulation tho!

[grenfell]

More news to cheer
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/news ... fails.html

[Decaff]

That's rather embarrassing news!! Not to mention a pain! I'm so glad I have lots of woolly scarves and snoods to share round with everyone.

[junmist]

More news to cheer
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/news ... fails.html

Oh joy and who on here thought we could keep the lights on(off griders need not apply) if the blackouts happen.

[Decaff]

More news to cheer
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/news ... fails.html

Oh joy and who on here thought we could keep the lights on(off griders need not apply) if the blackouts happen.

I'm off to get more candles tomorrow then! Got a huge drawer full but they do help to heat up the room too if necessary! Got plenty of battery powered lights too but candles do double duty.

[Yorkshire Andy]

Well dispite the various agency's saying all is well I've been proactive in this big time

Must have about 100 as and 100 AAA batteries piled up

Got more led lanterns from Tesco £5 each

Now have the new small inverter box

[butterbean]

hi all, its been a while since i posted.

well, i live in the south leicester area, and last tuesday night there was a rather large blackout, for us it last 2 hours, i believe others were restored slightly sooner. it wasnt just our house, street or next couple of streets, it was a good few mile radius, we had friends and family who are a good 20 minute walk away who had the blackout aswell

im thankful for this in 1 way, it has finally brought the wife closer to the idea of prepping. ive convinced her its not about wearing tin foil hats and having a zombie proof hideout, its being prepared for when things are not going as smoothly as you would like,

i was out of the house when it went down, and my wife went into a bit of a panic and didn't know what to do, it didn't help that phone masts when down so the signal was intermittent, i got home as soon as i could but i had to try and text/call the wife to tell her to stay calm, where to find the lantern and torches in the house and things like that.

in a strange way i found it exciting as it was sort of a good test run and as far as i was concerned i can see where things i need to do better. and the wife has agreed to be on board now.

1 thing i didn't expect was when the power came back on the house alarm went mental, it seemed to do a full reset and kept screeching until settings were restored.

the wives car was in the garage, electric door, so she couldn't get it out.

and as somebody who works on power stations all over Britain, i know a lot of the stations have been shut down either temporarily or permanent. so im fully expecting there to defo be more blackouts,

i aim to be even more prepared for the next 1