Flat power protection

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Stonecarver
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Flat power protection

Post by 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
Not worried about powering the whole house,just eating hot food,getting a brew,seeing through the dark,and staying warm.
Jansman
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sniper 55
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Re: Flat power protection

Post by 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.
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unsure
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Re: Flat power protection

Post by 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 .
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Yorkshire Andy
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Re: Flat power protection

Post by 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
If your roughing it, Your doing it wrong ;)

Lack of planning on your part doesn't make it an emergency on mine
Stonecarver
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Re: Flat power protection

Post by 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
Not worried about powering the whole house,just eating hot food,getting a brew,seeing through the dark,and staying warm.
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xplosiv1
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Re: Flat power protection

Post by xplosiv1 »

Stonecarver wrote: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
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Yorkshire Andy
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Re: Flat power protection

Post by 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
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Brambles
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Re: Flat power protection

Post by 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.
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ukpreppergrrl
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Re: Flat power protection

Post by ukpreppergrrl »

Brambles wrote: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.
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Deeps
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Re: Flat power protection

Post by Deeps »

ukpreppergrrl wrote:
Brambles wrote: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.