Lamps / Lanterns

[Carrot Cruncher]

I've just been looking around at better lighting options in the event of no power and was just wondering what others use.

I have a few of the cheap Hurricane Lamps, some battery powered LED lanterns, some wind up Lanterns and loads of candles and torches etc. The problem with them all (apart from the torches) is they dont throw out an awfull lot of light unless you use a lot of them together and I dont really want to use my batteries for my torches except in real emergencies

What i'm after is just one lantern that will light a small room fairly well. I looked at Tilley Lamps which seem good and run off paraffin but they seem to cost around £115 I looked at the Coleman Dual Fuel which can run off petrol as well but they are around £45, The other option is the gas ones which seem to start around £15 but will involve storing the small cans of gas.

Anyone got any other ideas ? (other than sitting in the dark) I just want something that means I can have enough light to be able to see / work easily without having to use loads of candles etc.

At the moment I am inclined to go for a couple of the gas ones due to the price but storing lots of little cas cannisters is a pain. I have a generator so I can run a couple of normal standard lamps but am looking for something to use if I cant use the generator


CC

[preppingsu]

'Fraid I don't know anything about lamps (but would like to know!) but came across this website that may (or may not be) some help.
http://www.hurricanelamps.co.uk/index.htm
let us know how you get on.
preppingsu

[Carrot Cruncher]

Thanks Su, that looks an interesting site. I am much like you and dont know an awful lot about lamps. I just tried a couple of the cheap Hurricane lamps I have down the garage to see how bright they were, the answer is not very bright at all.

One thing I have learned while looking around is that a single 100 watt light bulb is equal to roughly 80 candles....thats a hell of a lot of candles. The basic Hurricane lamps can't be much more that 2 or 3 candles at most.

[preppingsu]

Hadn't realised that you would need at least 80 candles to be equivilent to a light bulb! Mind you, just think of the heat they would give off... .
I also think that in a SHTF situation, no electric etc we may resort to going to bed earlier when it gets dark and get up with the sun (although that doesn't work so well in the winter!)

[Carrot Cruncher]

Hadn't realised that you would need at least 80 candles to be equivilent to a light bulb! Mind you, just think of the heat they would give off... .

Actually my maths was slightly out, its between 62 and 75 candles to a 100w bulb...still a lot though. I think you are right about any long term power failure, get up when it gets light and go to bed when it gets dark.

The more I look the more i'm likely to go down the gas route, you can get some of the tilleys and colemans on evilbay 2nd hand a lot cheaper but you dont know what condition they will be in.

[hobo]

CC,

In the event of no power we'd blackout and use these: Osram Nightlux http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Trwh0UFWhGo
Shop around as the prices vary wildly. I bought ours for around £8 at a local B&Q store.

Our idea is that at night we'd only want to safely move around and not attract any attention at night.

We use wind-ups (Freeplay Indigo and ML-1) and also have several 13w u-tube lanterns like these http://www.amazon.co.uk/Gelert-Double-U ... 103&sr=8-1 which could be recharged from a leisure battery such as a Weza http://www.freeplayenergy.com/product/weza or a Xantrex xpower powerpack 400 http://www.caravantechnology.com/Powerpack-400-P32.aspx

Hobo

[Carrot Cruncher]

Cheers Hobo, some of them look quite interesting but i'm really after something a lot brighter. This time of year it doesnt really get light till 8am and starts to get dark by 4pm and i want to extend the available working time by a 3 or 4 hours. For longer term outages though rechargeable and wind up would probably be the way to go and we would just have to adjust how we work etc.

[Carrot Cruncher]

Cheers NR, I might have a look down Maplins. I do need to get a decent solar panel for charging the leisure battery in the camper when its stationary for a period of time, I could hook up some lights to that.

[Huorn]

Try E-bay for Tilley lamps, a mate recently put a bunch over bids in around the £20 mark thinking he might, just might get lucky and ended up with six lamps! Others will say that Vapourlux and Coleman lamps are the way ahead, but I'm very fond of our Tilley.

H

[Bulldog]

Tilley lamps are good but you will need a good supply of spare mantels, same with the blue gaz lantins.
Put a reflector behind the lamp to throw more light / heat into the room.