Flat power protection

[Stonecarver]

How can you provide power for household appliances for those who live in flats when grid power goes offine. Different time periods of off grid power

[sniper 55]

Do you have a balcony to put a generator on? If not you could use car battry and an inverter (like a caravan) not too expensive. I suppose it depends on what you want to run though.

[unsure]

you don`t say if you own the flat , if you do and you have room for a gen set . you can have a change over switch fitted after you elec meter .

i have a socket on the out side of the house , this has a change over switch , when you throw the switch it kills any main power and puts it on the generator .
mine is big enough to run the house , with the exception of the shower . that would be possible with a larger out put generator .

[Yorkshire Andy]

How much power are you wanting? As if your looking at running a washing machine or electric cooker it's going to cost you a fortune

If your balcony ) windows face north forget solar


It's always more efficient to run 12v appliances rather than go 12v to inverter back to low voltage via plug in transformer

[Stonecarver]

My bad. No this is not for me. He lives top floor south facing up block of flats. Council house and no balcony. I would imagine he wants to run just the essentials like freezer since you can get around other machine tasks

[xplosiv1]

My bad. No this is not for me. He lives top floor south facing up block of flats. Council house and no balcony. I would imagine he wants to run just the essentials like freezer since you can get around other machine tasks

since its a council property that seriously complicates things, if he was allowed to install solar panels on the roof that would be a solution i'm sure there would be lots of legal loopholes to jump through with the council, if the solar install was a no go a battery bank trickle charged from the mains would be another but again that's probably prohibited in the tenancy agreement and only a short term solution as when the mains fails the battery will quickly drain without and solar to recharge during the day.

Ideally a solar system with a battery bank would be the best solution.

other than the above you can buy gas powered freezers ..... that might be the easiest and cheapest solution

[Yorkshire Andy]

However iirc its illegal to store gas in a high rise / flat / against terms of tennency agreement

Especially since greenfell

That and with no balcony you would need s flue to vent the combustion gases

[Brambles]

The only way I could see working would be a good sized sealed leisure battery kept in operating order and ready to go at all times. But again, you would probably need to check the rules and regs. Have a look on a few caravan or canal boat forums, there might be a solution on one of those.

[ukpreppergrrl]

The only way I could see working would be a good sized sealed leisure battery kept in operating order and ready to go at all times. But again, you would probably need to check the rules and regs. Have a look on a few caravan or canal boat forums, there might be a solution on one of those.

Yup. A good car charger keeping the battery charged during the good times, then it springs into its own with an inverter. The freezer doesn't have to be powered 24/7. And keep the door shut. A fridge will stay cold for about 4 hours without power and a full freezer will stay frozen for 24 hours without power (24 hours if only half full). If the door is kept shut: https://www.foodsafety.gov/blog/poweroutage.html The recommendation on this board is to fill the remaining space in your freezer so that it's full with pop bottles filled with water (leave a couple of inches at the top for expansion). Kills two birds: full freezer, stored water.

[Deeps]

The only way I could see working would be a good sized sealed leisure battery kept in operating order and ready to go at all times. But again, you would probably need to check the rules and regs. Have a look on a few caravan or canal boat forums, there might be a solution on one of those.

Yup. A good car charger keeping the battery charged during the good times, then it springs into its own with an inverter. The freezer doesn't have to be powered 24/7. And keep the door shut. A fridge will stay cold for about 4 hours without power and a full freezer will stay frozen for 24 hours without power (24 hours if only half full). If the door is kept shut: https://www.foodsafety.gov/blog/poweroutage.html The recommendation on this board is to fill the remaining space in your freezer so that it's full with pop bottles filled with water (leave a couple of inches at the top for expansion). Kills two birds: full freezer, stored water.

I keep some 2L bottles in the freezer to put in the top shelf of the fridge too, that should hopefully keep stuff in the fridge chilled in the event of a relatively short term outage. You can also insulate fridges/freezers with old duvets etc too.