Out here in the country, life revolves a little differently than it does in the city. We put hard, long hours into making our homestead a self sufficient haven for our families. Homestead Hints will be a series following things that we’ve learned over the last several years on how to make our homestead a little better. Welcome to the Little Homestead on the Prairie…
I thought that Thursday's Living Like Little House post opened up a good topic of discussion. Regardless of whether or not we want the progression that we are seeing, it's still here. However, you and I both know how unreliable it can be. My electricity blinks on and off all the time, regardless of whether or not there is a storm. And when there is a storm it usually goes out and I have no idea how long it will take to come back on.
I know there are all kinds of machines and things that you can buy to help you be able to do things without electricity, I haven't purchased any of them yet but I'm curious...have you? What kind of things do you do differently to prepare for the days when you may not have electricity? Or do you even worry about that?
We put a wood stove in our house last year to prepare for being without power in the winter. And it did happen. It was the middle of a horrible storm, it was something like -40F outside and the power went out. It was already fairly cold in the house because of the wind but when the power went out and we could still sit in front of what fireplace, I was so grateful. The power stayed off for hours and the house got very cold, but we had the fire to keep us warm. I was glad we had thought ahead and prepared for that time.
Another time was in the spring. It was raining so hard and something happened with the rain flooding around our electrical box. The power went out and I had no way to make food. It stayed off for a long time. This time I didn't have to worry about keeping the house warm, just prepping food. Thankfully, I had prepared for this as well and I had food in my pantry that didn't need to be cooked or warmed up, it was ready. And I was glad that I had prepared for that.
So I think preparing to have times without electricity doesn't have to be a big deal. I don't think you need fancy appliances or equipment. But I think it does make sense to be prepared for those times.
So let's chat..what do you do to be prepared to go without electricity? What do you wish you did more of? What (if any) non-electric products do you recommend?
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{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
It sounds like you are really trying to deal with any situation. Where we live, it gets cold and snows and rains and we have wind storms. And the electric will go out. We have always had a nice gas grill with a side burner. You can cook anything on that. It has really saved us alot. You don’t need electricity for that. You could also just get a charcoal grill too.
The old house, now a rental, had a woodstove – and I miss it. This house has a fireplace insert – which is not as good, but helps. Both put heat out, the stove way more than the insert. Both are flattops – by my choice… I am able to cook on top of them in my cast iron pans and dutch over, and on a trivet, keep water going. So… Heat, Cooking, Hot water, and a little light from the glassfronts.
Camping lights, a afire pit, rain water – hopefully it doesn’t stay out too many days. In the processing of doing more meat canning and less freezing… just in case! Got books to read, sewing and scrapbooking to do, cards and board games, so all is well as far as entertainment goes – which actually, is the same as every day as I don’t have tv
I am thinking of getting a sun cooker, as well as the BBQ, but as we have so few days of sunshine, I’m not sure that would help in the winter. Also, thinking of getting a wind generator, now that they are getting in the $400-$500 range – just in case! We get plenty of wind here!
Aside from the freezer and refrig, I can go a very very long time without electricity.
It’s ok 
We live completely off-grid, so we don’t usually get power outages, but we do have to prepare ‘just in case’! We own not one, but two propane back-up generators in case the normally high wind doesn’t blow or the sun doesn’t shine.
I’d love to chat some time Amanda! We are planning on building our new home next year and going off the grid as well!
My biggest concern with power outages is my fridge and freezer. I have a lot of money invested in the food in them, and would hate to lose it to a power outage. I know that my chest freezer will keep cold for quite some time, but only so long. In the winter I could just load all the stuff outside, but in the summer there’s nothing I could do.
Crank flashlights and crank cell phone chargers along with the previous suggestion about grills (propane or charcoal) are my top suggestions.
We live on a farm and will be celebrating our one year anniversary in October.
We’ve had power go out here often in the spring and so far in the summer. My biggest concern is the water. Our water pump is electric. So when it doesn’t work we only have access to the water in the cold water tank and the hot water tank. Which should be enough, but what if the power was out for 2 days or more? I have filled several 2L bottles with filtered water and dated them so I can change them in 6 months as was recommended by this site: http://www.grandpappy.info/indexhar.htm There is a lot of information on this site and helpful hints. We also have a wood burning source of heat in the house for winter. So my only real concern for when the power goes out is the possible lack of easy potable water.
There are many little things that I have done to prepare for loss of power. I installed a hand pump for the well. The one I have is installed in the basement, where it is warm and dry.
It will charge our pressure tank so we can use taps and toilets. I also have hand crank blender, food processors, and other items. We have oil lamps, kerosene heaters, crank flashlights and radios. We have canned heat ready, which is made with alcohol and gives heat, light, and a cooking fuel. I have a gas stove and a percolator. I even got an air pot so I can make it in the evening and have it ready when I wake up. Most of these items were second hand finds. The well pump was from a small mom and pop shop in Canada, and is American made. We try to have two or three ways to do anything we might need to do.
Went thru hurricane Andrew and went without elec. for a month. Filled trash cans with water so we could flush toilet and wash other things. Filled every container I had with water and waited. Tub is not reliable unless you have a bladder inside. If frozen food is packed tightly together wrapped with paper and frozen gallon bottles of water you might be okay for 4 days so consider feeding the neighborhood fast. Numerous tealights under a baking dish can cook chicken so I’m melting down old candles into tuna/catfood cans with 2-4 wicks to use as a cooking source along with charcoal, gel fuel, solar oven