[guru]

Originally Posted by MarkS

People are installing electric garage door openers, which, with power loss, are keeping their (all-weather, 4 wheel drive) cars in the garage.
In addition, people are abandoning all home phones with cords, which will continue to work during power cuts, unlike cordless home phones.
And some people are swapping their PSTN phones for VOIP phones, which rely on mains power to their broadband connections.

I think people, in the countryside, reliant upon power, coming over overhead power lines, need to seriously consider their options, in the event of power loss. Overhead power lines will always be vulnerable to bad weather. And multiple faults increase the time to repair.

This can be easily simulated, by switching OFF their mains electricity, and see what is left working.

Being prepared for a power loss will dramatically reduce the impact, if a power outage does occur, rather than just going for the cheapest, or more 'convenient' option.

Be prepared.

(And keep a manual toothbrush to hand !!!)
Apologies if I seem to lack sympathy.

Rant over

Well if you have an electric garage door you can go in the side door and pull the cord to disengage the motor drive and then open the door manually. As for PSTN phones ALL of them will be VoIP very soon anyway as BT are phasing out PSTN connections by 2025.

Fortunately most of us who live in the country get the chance to test how prepared for power cuts we are on a fairly regular basis! In our house we have plenty of torches which are kept charged all the time and I have leisure batteries and a mains invertor for longer outages.