Recent/Current Power Outages, Central Maryland Edition

I was just without power for 4 3/8 days, and given the heat, this wasn't great. Others had it worse though, since I never lost water, I didn't have much food in the refrigerator and freezer, and I was able to go to work to recharge my laptop, use the Internet, and be in AC for the hottest periods. A few thoughts on being temporarily without electricity:

1. LED flashlights and lanterns are wonderful. In my 5 nights of blackout, none of my flashlights ran out of juice. Also, I have a Rayovac LED lantern which went strong through the whole thing.
2. A battery-powered radio is a must. I have a Sangean PR-D7 with 6 NiMH AA cells. When plugged into the wall it keeps the batteries charged. Even at the end of the outage, after several hours of use, it was reporting a full charge.
3. NiMH batteries are great. I'd hate to be one of those out searching for batteries during the outage. Searching for breakfast was enough trouble.
4. Being able to keep my cell phone charged was a major plus. For the first day or so after the storm, the Sprint cellular network was having it's problems and at least one 911 service in northern Virginia was reportedly not accepting calls from cell phones, but having phone service is important. I have a Goal Zero 19006 Guide 10 solar charger, which provides plenty of power for my cell phone and my Kindle.
5. Candles should be saved for more extreme situations. Last night out on a walk I noticed a house in the neighborhood burning candles. This seems dangerous to me, and with minor preparations entirely unnecessary for just a few days without power. Of course, with no way of charging batteries, eventually candles become a natural choice, but why mess with fire before you need to?

Unplug Your Charger

An article at RecycleBank suggests that we unplug our chargers when not in use.

Think of it this way:

• Your portable device uses energy. Since recharging batteries is not 100% efficient (among other things, heat is a byproduct), it takes a bit more power than an otherwise equivalent non-battery-powered device does.
• That charger may give off perceptible heat even when nothing is plugged into it. In the summer, this may represent a double-use of electricity, once to generate the heat, and once to remove it via air conditioning.

My NiMH chargers are on strips that are usually turned off. The little charger that Amazon sent with my Kindle (A00810-01) stays warm when plugged in even with no device plugged into it, so it clearly uses power when not in use. thus I keep that unplugged except when needed.

As an aside, I like the little Kindle charger as a generally-useful tool:

• Its output is 4.9V at 850mA. My USB Sanyo NiMH charger NC-MDU01 specs say it draws 500mA at 5V. I can charge NiMH with this plugged into the Kindle charger.
• It's 100-240V 50-60 Hz which makes it suitable for international travel.

On a related note, I have a Nomad7 solar charger that is sufficient for keeping my cell phone and my Kindle keyboard charged, sort of. The problem is that I'm in the habit of sending NYT articles to the Kindle, and am not too conscientious about keeping the Kindle's wireless turned off, which runs down the battery much more quickly. So I often end up using the plug-in charger for the Kindle.