How to Prepare for a Power Cut: 12 Essential Things to Sort Before the Lights Go Out

If you want to know how to prepare for a power cut, start with the boring truth: most UK power cuts are fixed within a few hours, and the households that cope best aren’t the ones with the most kit. They’re the ones who know where the torch is, have a charged power bank in the drawer, and already know which things in the house stop working when the electricity goes.

That last part catches people out. A power cut isn’t just the lights and the telly. The boiler stops, the electric shower stops, the electric gate stays shut, the cordless phone goes dead, and if your landline has moved over to digital, that goes too. So does any alarm pendant that runs through it.

This guide covers the lot: 12 steps to prepare for a power cut before it happens, what to do in a power cut in the first few minutes, keeping warm and fed, looking after vulnerable people and pets, and what to do when the power comes back on.

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What a UK Power Cut Actually Looks Like

Most power cuts are local faults: a cable, a substation, a tree on an overhead line. They tend to be sorted within a few hours. The long ones come with storms. Storm Arwen in November 2021 cut power to around a million homes, and some rural households in the north of England and Scotland waited more than a week to be reconnected. If you live at the end of a long overhead line in the countryside, you are always near the back of the queue, so prepare for a power outage of days rather than hours.

There is also the national picture. The government has a plan for a full national blackout, and it assumes it would take days to bring the whole grid back. It’s unlikely, but it’s another reason to prepare for a power outage that lasts more than one night. See our Special Report “UK Government Blackout Plan: What Programme Yarrow Actually Says” first published on 28 August 2026.

You don’t need to plan for the end of the world. Good power cut preparation simply means an hour without power is a non-event, a night without power is uncomfortable but fine, and a week without power is hard work rather than a crisis.

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How to Prepare for a Power Cut: 12 Essential Steps

None of this is expensive, and most of what it takes to prepare for a power cut can be done in an afternoon. Work through it once, then check it twice a year.

1. Put light where you can find it in the dark

The first problem in any power cut is finding the torch, usually by feeling your way along a kitchen worktop. Keep a torch by the bed, one in the kitchen and one by the front door, always in the same place. A plug-in night light that switches itself on when the mains fails is even better: it turns the landing light on for you at the exact moment you need it.

2. Keep your power banks charged

Your phone is your torch, your news source and your way of reporting the fault, and it will be on 30% when the lights go out. A charged power bank fixes that. Pick a day, the first of the month works, and top up every power bank in the house. A power bank that has sat in a drawer for six months is a paperweight.

3. Have a radio that doesn’t need the mains

If the outage is big, local radio is where the updates come from, and it doesn’t care whether your phone has signal. A wind-up or rechargeable radio covers this, and most will charge a phone in a pinch.

4. Check your home phone still works without power

This is the one most people haven’t thought about, and if anyone in your house relies on a landline it’s the most important way to prepare for a power cut on this list. The old copper landline carried its own power from the exchange, so a basic corded phone kept working in a power cut. That network is being switched off, with the move to digital landlines expected to finish by January 2027. A digital landline runs through your broadband router, and the government’s own guidance is blunt: digital phones and routers won’t work in a power cut without a backup battery, and telecare devices may not work either.

We saw what that means this month. In Great Broughton, North Yorkshire, seven homes lost their broadband after a cable was damaged, and for weeks some elderly residents’ internet-linked personal alarms stopped working, reported the Northern Echo. That was a cable fault, not a power cut, but the effect is identical: when the router goes off, so does anything that relies on it.

Mobile signal isn’t a guaranteed fallback either. Many mobile masts only have a short battery backup, so in a long power cut the signal can disappear too. What to do:

• If you or a relative rely on the landline, tell your phone provider. Ofcom’s guidance says providers should offer at least one way of reaching the emergency services for a minimum of one hour in a power cut, free for people who depend on their landline. That is usually a battery backup unit for the router.
• If you have a telecare alarm or pendant, ask the alarm provider what happens in a power cut. Does the base unit have its own battery, and does it fall back to a mobile SIM?
• Keep a charged mobile phone as your second way to call 999, even if you rarely use it.
• Remember cordless phones need mains power at the base station, even on an old copper line.

If you want to keep the broadband running for hours rather than an hour, a small portable power station will run a router, charge the phones and power a lamp.

5. Join the Priority Services Register

The Priority Services Register is free and run by every energy supplier and network operator. If anyone in your house is elderly, disabled, has a long-term health condition, uses powered medical equipment or has a young baby, sign up. You get advance warning of planned power cuts and priority support during long ones. You can register through your electricity supplier or your network operator, and it takes five minutes. For a vulnerable household it’s the most useful bit of power cut preparation there is.

6. Save 105 and your network operator’s outage map

You don’t need to know who your network operator is. Ring 105 from any phone in England, Scotland or Wales and you’ll be put through to the right one. In Northern Ireland, contact NIE Networks. Save the number in your phone now, along with your network operator’s outage map: UK Power Networks, National Grid Electricity Distribution, Northern Powergrid, SSEN, SP Energy Networks or Electricity North West.

7. Find out what else in your home stops working

This is the part of power cut preparation most guides skip. Walk round the house and ask one question of everything: does this need the mains? The usual surprises:

• The gas boiler. The gas is fine, but the pump, controls and ignition all need electricity. No power, no heating, no hot water.
• The electric shower. Obvious once you think about it, less obvious at 7am.
• Garage doors and electric gates. Find out where the manual release is now, in daylight.
• Stairlifts, riser chairs, electric beds and pressure mattresses. Most have a battery that will finish the journey, but check how long it lasts.
• Private water supplies. If your water comes from a borehole or well, the pump stops. So does a septic tank pumping station.
• Sump pumps in cellars, which tend to fail during the same storm that’s flooding them.
• Medical equipment such as oxygen concentrators, CPAP machines and home dialysis.
• Fish tanks, incubators and reptile heat lamps.
• Card machines, cash points and petrol pumps in the area affected, which brings us to step 8.

8. Keep some cash and fuel in reserve

In a wide outage, local card machines and cash points stop, and so do the pumps at the petrol station. Keep a small amount of cash at home in small notes, and get into the habit of filling up when the tank hits half rather than running it to the warning light. A car with fuel is also a phone charger, a warm place to sit and a way to get to family.

9. Fill the gaps in your freezer

A full freezer stays cold far longer than a half-empty one. Fill the gaps with plastic bottles of water about three-quarters full (they expand as they freeze). In a power cut they act as ice blocks, and if the water supply fails you have drinking water too.

While you’re at it, try the penny in a cup trick. Freeze a cup of water, put a 1p coin on top of the ice and leave it at the back of the freezer. If you come back after a storm and the coin is at the bottom of the cup, the freezer thawed out and refroze while you weren’t looking, however normal the food looks.

10. Have a way to cook without mains power

A gas hob usually still works in a power cut, but you may need to light it with a match or long lighter if the ignition is electric. Many gas ovens won’t work, because their controls need power. If your hob is electric, a camping gas stove is the backup. More on this in the food section below.

11. Plan how you’ll keep warm

Work out now which room you’d all retreat to: the smallest one with the fewest outside walls, ideally with curtains you can close. Know where the blankets, sleeping bags and thick socks are. The heating section below covers the detail.

12. Build a blackout box and check it twice a year

Put the essentials in one box, on one shelf, where everyone in the house knows to look: torches, a lantern, spare batteries, a charged power bank, a radio, a lighter, some snacks and a copy of your network operator’s number. Check it when the clocks change, in spring and autumn, so the batteries are fresh and the power banks are charged. The power cut checklist at the bottom of this page covers what goes in it.

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What to Do in a Power Cut: The First Few Minutes

When the power goes, most people’s instinct is to start opening fridges and flicking switches. Knowing what to do in a power cut before it happens stops that. Here’s the order:

• Check whether it’s just you. Look outside. If the street lights and the neighbours are on, the fault is in your house: check the fuse box (consumer unit) for a tripped switch. If the whole street is dark, it’s a network fault.
• Report it on 105. Even if you assume they know. It puts your address on the map and gets you updates on when the power should be back.
• Switch off anything that could start up on its own when the power returns: the hob, the oven, heaters, irons, hair straighteners. Leave one light switched on so you know when the power’s back.
• Keep the fridge and freezer shut. Every time the door opens, cold air you can’t replace falls out onto the floor.
• Check on anyone vulnerable, whether that’s someone in your house or the elderly neighbour across the road. Early, not after 12 hours.

If you’re out when it happens and your phone battery is low, put it into low power mode and save it for calls and checking the outage map rather than scrolling.

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Lighting Without Candles

Getting light sorted comes first. Everything else, from finding the blankets to cooking tea, is easier when you can see what you’re doing.

Why candles are the wrong answer

Candles are the first thing most people think of when they prepare for a power cut, and fire services up and down the country spend every storm season asking them not to. Leaving the fire risk aside for a second, candles are simply poor light. A candle gives off roughly 12 lumens. A modest LED lantern gives 200 to 300, and a good one gives far more. You’d need dozens of candles to light a kitchen as well as one lantern does, and dozens of naked flames is exactly what the fire service is worried about.

Candle light is also low, flickering and full of shadows. Reading the fuse box labels, checking a child’s medicine dose or finding the stopcock all become guesswork. Cooking is worse: you need both hands and a steady light over the pan, and a candle beside a gas hob or camping stove is a second flame next to the first. You also can’t carry a candle up the stairs with a toddler on your hip, but you can wear a head torch.

After Storm Eunice in 2022, Devon & Somerset Fire and Rescue reported a rise in dangerous near-misses in areas without power, including a resident asleep upstairs while candles burned unattended downstairs next to a gas fire. Their advice is the same as ours: torches and battery lights first. If you do end up using a candle, put it in a proper heat-proof holder, away from curtains and anything else that can catch, and blow it out before you leave the room.

What actually works

• A head torch is the most useful single light you can own for a power cut, because almost every job needs two hands.
• An LED lantern lights a whole room from a table or hung from a hook, which is what you want for cooking and sitting together.
• A clip-on reading light is an underrated extra for the bedside and close-up jobs, and much easier on the eyes than a head torch through a long evening.
• Battery puck or strip lights stuck inside cupboards and on the stairs give you semi-permanent light where you need it.
• Daylight is free. Open the curtains and do the fiddly jobs while it’s light.

Have a mix of rechargeable lights and some that take AA or AAA batteries, so you’re not stuck if the outage outlasts your charge.

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Keeping Warm When the Heating Goes Off

In winter, warmth becomes the priority within a few hours. Most houses lose heat slowly at first, then faster once the walls have cooled.

Heat the person, not the room

Trying to keep a whole house warm without power is a losing battle. Put the effort into the people instead. Layer up before you feel cold: a thermal base layer, a jumper, thick socks and a hat indoors. Get everyone into one room, shut the door, close the curtains and use blankets, sleeping bags or a self-heating throw.

Disposable hand warmers do the same job on a smaller scale: nothing to charge, and hours of warmth inside a pocket or glove.

What to avoid

• Gas barbecues, camping stoves or patio heaters used indoors for warmth. They produce carbon monoxide. After Storm Eunice, firefighters were called to a home where someone had used a gas barbecue indoors for heat and hot food. A CO alarm got them out.
• Leaving the gas oven door open to heat the kitchen. It doesn’t work well and it isn’t safe.
• Sleeping in a room with a gas or paraffin heater running. Ever.

If you rely on a portable gas heater, keep it at least a metre from people and furniture, keep a window open a crack and make sure it has an oxygen depletion sensor. Every home should have a carbon monoxide alarm, and in a power cut you want one that runs on its own sealed battery rather than the mains.

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Food, Fridges and Freezers in a Power Cut

The Food Standards Agency’s power cut advice is the figure to remember: a closed fridge stays cold for up to 4 hours, a full freezer stays frozen for up to 48 hours, and a half-full one for around 24 hours. A power cut under 4 hours is unlikely to affect your food at all, as long as the doors stay shut.

Fridge rules

• Decide what you need before you open the door, then get it all out in one go.
• Chilled food is fine below 8°C. Once the fridge reaches 8°C or above, eat the chilled food within 4 hours or throw it away. A cheap fridge thermometer stops the guessing.
• Eat in order: chilled food first, then defrosted food that doesn’t need cooking, then anything else perishable, and save the tins and dried food until last.
• If you have more chilled food than you can eat in time, share it with the neighbours while it’s still safe.

Freezer rules

• Keep it shut until the power comes back.
• Food that still has ice crystals in it can generally go back in the freezer.
• Food that has fully thawed should be cooked and eaten straight away, or thrown away. Don’t refreeze it raw.
• Check the penny in the cup (step 9). If it has sunk to the bottom, don’t trust anything in there.

Cooking

A gas hob is the easiest option if you have one. If yours is electric, a single-burner camping gas stove is the standard backup, used outdoors or right by an open window, never in a closed room. Shelf-stable food that needs little or no cooking, such as tins, oats, crackers and peanut butter, takes the pressure off. If you have a baby on formula, you need a way to boil water, or keep some ready-to-use formula in the cupboard.

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Water, Toilets and Hygiene

Most mains water keeps flowing in a power cut, because it doesn’t rely on your electricity. In a long or widespread outage, pumping stations can struggle and pressure can drop, and if your water comes from a private supply with an electric pump, it stops as soon as the power does. If that’s you, prepare for a power outage by storing more water than most.

• Keep some bottled water at home: around 3 litres per person per day, for at least three days. Our emergency water storage guide covers how.
• If your water company issues a boil notice, boil all water for drinking, brushing teeth and preparing food. A camping stove will do it.
• No pressure? A bucket of water poured quickly into the bowl will flush the toilet. Our emergency sanitation guide covers what to do if there’s no water at all.
• Wet wipes, hand sanitiser and dry shampoo get you a long way when there’s no hot water.

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Medication, Vulnerable People and Pets

Medication

If anyone in the house takes medicine that lives in the fridge, insulin being the obvious one, plan for it when you prepare for a power cut, not during one. Unopened insulin is stored in the fridge at 2 to 8°C. The pen or vial you’re currently using is usually fine at room temperature for around four weeks, but check the leaflet for your specific medicine and ask your pharmacist if you’re unsure. A cooling wallet keeps medicine cool without power or ice.

More generally, try not to run your prescriptions down to the last few days. A week’s spare supply turns a long outage from a worry into a non-issue.

Elderly and vulnerable people

Cold is the real danger in a winter power cut, and older people feel it later and suffer from it sooner. Check on elderly neighbours and relatives early. Helping an older relative prepare for a power cut is mostly three things: make sure they’re on the Priority Services Register, have a torch they can reach from bed, and have a phone that will still work when the power is off (see step 4).

Babies and young children

Babies lose heat quickly. The Lullaby Trust recommends a room temperature of 16 to 20°C for a sleeping baby. Dress them in layers and use a baby sleeping bag. If the house drops well below that and the power isn’t coming back soon, go somewhere warm: family, friends or a council warm space.

Pets

When you prepare for a power cut, include the animals.

• Small and short-haired animals feel the cold before you do. A blanket or dog coat does the same job as your extra jumper. Our animals in extreme weather guide has more.
• Fish tanks lose heat and oxygen within hours. A battery-powered air pump and a blanket wrapped round the tank buy you time.
• Keep some pet food with your emergency supplies. The shop may be shut, or dark.

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When the Power Comes Back On

It’s tempting to switch everything back on at once. Don’t.

• The one light rule. Leave that one light on. When it comes back and stays steady, give it 10 minutes before switching other things back on, a few at a time.
• The boiler. Many boilers need a reset after a power cut. Check the manual, or the manufacturer’s website, before you call anyone out.
• The freezer. Check the penny in the cup, then go through the freezer rules above. If in doubt, throw it out.
• The pipes. If the heating was off for hours in freezing weather, open the cupboards under the sinks and check for bulges or leaks before the ice thaws. Our how to unfreeze pipes guide covers what to do if you find a frozen one.
• Recharge everything. Power banks, torches, radios, the lot, while you can. The next cut won’t wait for you.
• Reset the clocks, the alarms and anything with a timer, including the heating programme.

If the power was off for a long time, you may be owed money. Under Ofgem’s rules, households get £100 if a power cut in normal weather lasts more than 12 hours, plus £45 for every extra 12 hours (2026 figures, which go up with inflation). Different amounts apply in severe storms. Some network operators pay automatically; otherwise claim from your network operator, not your energy supplier.

Finally, write down what you missed. Every power cut is a free test of your power cut preparation, and whatever you were scrabbling around for in the dark is the next thing to add to your power cut checklist.

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Your Power Cut Checklist

If you’d rather have it on paper, here is the short version of how to prepare for a power cut:

• A torch by the bed, in the kitchen and by the front door, plus a head torch and a lantern
• Power banks charged on the first of every month
• A wind-up or rechargeable radio
• A phone that works without mains power, and a battery backup for the router if you rely on the landline
• Everyone vulnerable on the Priority Services Register
• 105 and your network operator’s outage map saved in your phone
• Know how to open the garage and the gate by hand
• Some cash at home and at least half a tank of fuel
• Freezer gaps filled with water bottles, and a penny in a cup
• A way to cook without mains power, and fuel for it
• Blankets, sleeping bags and a warm room picked out
• A carbon monoxide alarm with its own battery
• Everything in a blackout box, checked when the clocks change

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Frequently Asked Questions