Prepping For Power Outages

Thanks to our home’s location in Sammamish where the power lines are all above ground; there are tall, aging trees; and new housing development has removed a number of those trees and created something of a wind tunnel; our power goes out a lot more often that we’d like. This most recent outage lasted for almost two full days. While they are always unpleasant, over time we’ve learned and adapted in how we deal with them.

First of all I would recommend that everyone get a UPS (uninterruptible power source, not the brown trucks) and plug your cable modem (or equivalent) and Wi-Fi router into it. With this in place your internet connectivity should persist for a couple of hours when the lights go out.

If you also deal with power interruptions regularly then the next thing that you need is a generator. Most importantly we plug our refrigerator and freezer into it so that none of our food spoils. I also run a number of 50’ extension cords throughout the house with power strips that we use to plug lamps, laptops and the Nespresso machine into (there is no happiness without coffee). When shopping for generators keep in mind that most of them need to be grounded to operate safely, so you’ll want to buy a grounding rod and wire along with it.

With this setup we can function pretty well at home because it allows us to work, eat and entertain ourselves. Unfortunately I don’t think that I can operate the furnace without a thermostat even though it uses gas, so the thing that really gets on our nerves is the cold. We do have a wood fireplace which offers some relief, but most of its heat seems to go up the chimney.

Emily likes to rub it in that her car is much more practical than my EV in the absence of electricity, but in the near future most EVs will be able to power your house like the new F-150 Lightning, and then we EV owners will feel even more smug than we do now.