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Allways best not to be 100% dependant on a single source of energy, We have electric, gas and wood for heating, not all at the same time though, that would get a bit warm! Wood is the cheapest but most labour intensive. Gas is best all round. Electric is expensive but versatile and quick.
I'm guessing you get your water from a pumped well, might be an idea to rig that up with some car batterys and a U.P.S inverter to keep it going in a power cut. Or pump the water to a header tank on the roof but that would be a lot of re-plumbing.
Climate change will make these outages more frequent. Here in the UK we seem to be getting extreme freak flooding events at least once a year. Last year in tewkesbury the flood water got into the water works and shut the whole facility down so there was a drought... In the middle of a flood... how fucking ironic. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/gloucestershire/6913267.stm

First off, it's cool to see you posting and talking more on topics other than AA

I totally agree with you though. We got an electric pellet stove to replace a really crappy wood burning stove. I enjoy the pellet heat much better, the pellets are easy to store and are environmentally friendly since they're just shaped wood mill scraps. I have been thinking a lot lately about getting an inverter and since we plan to replace the car battery soon, it would be a great opportunity to try that out at minimal cost. More recently, I got to thinking about how the pellet stove is pretty much just 2 fans; one for blowing heat into the room and the other for exhaust. It does have an ignitor that requires electricity but they can be manually lit easily. I'm pretty sure I could get an inverter hooked up and run the pellet stove's fans for a while on a battery (or several). On top of that, I've been looking into propane heaters, they actually make some that are ok to use indoors.

Our water is well pumped, I'm not so sure that it could be run on a battery system easily since it feeds 2 other homes (and they probably wouldn't pay or invest in a setup like that) and I'm also pretty sure that it requires 220v which would be more difficult to get an inverter for that. Being without water isn't too big of a deal, we did it about a month ago when the pump died. We have some 30 gallon containers that we went and got filled up to flush toilets and whatnot then some distilled water for washing and drinking. The week it was out, we managed pretty good.

Wow, what a unique product. As far as the site, you really know efficiency. It's probably the fastest cart/store code I've seen as a user. I'm quite impressed.

I admit, I'd like to have a welder. I'd like to at least learn emergency welding with a rod and car battery.

you seem pretty disturbed about not having leccy, Every thought about buying a genny, I've seen then for sale £250 in asda(wal-mart).
I love not having electric, makes life more interesting. More of a challenge.

I do get pretty disturbed. I'm quite addicted to the computer. I've thought about a generator but for the 1-3 times a year it goes out, I don't think it's really worth it unless it's a life threatening emergency.
I like the simplisticness of not having electricity but for me, it means no water and no heat as well and it got in the 40's (F, not C) in the house and winter has barely started. This has opened my eyes though, I am looking to get a propane stove and heater so at least some hot food can be made and enjoyed in acceptable temperatures.

I'm in the process of editing a video that I shot a few days ago. I answered 2 questions and forgot the rest. This thread now serves as a suggestion box for future videos.

headband

Power went out and I was cold