Every Car Can Be A Generator

Every car can be a generator!

Here in the Mallee we are in the middle of hot spell. Yesterday reached over 45 C and today looks like it will be the same. We had our electricity drop out at around 8pm last night when temperatures were still over 40 C. With a baby to keep cool and fridges and freezers full of food this had the potential to be a huge problem.
Thankfully we were well prepared
Heat waves and power outages are a standard practice in this part of the world and we were ready when it happened. What you see in the above photo is an inverter attached to the battery of one of our cars. With the engine running at idle and some long extension cords we have plenty of power to keep cool, safe and connected to the outside world.

Leading into Summer we purchased a 2200 watt inverter with 4400 watt surge capacity. This gives us plenty of power to cycle our fridges and freezers, run pedestal fans, small air-conditioners and keep our mobile phones charged and connected to the network.

The importance of being connected
We live in a very poor reception area and require an antenna and powered signal boosters to get any phone reception at all in and around the house. Thus no power means no reception. Last night was not only very hot but we also had a lot of dry lightning in the area which means bushfires were a real threat. We have an excellent app on our phones that keeps us updated of any known bushfires in our vicinity but again this requires power.

Our basic back up power system allowed us to monitor the fire situation and still get some sleep last night. The power came back on at about 4am and all is well so far today.

We also opted to set up a tent outside to sleep as a means of keeping cool. This proved to be a fun idea and we will continue to do this through the heatwave.

Overall we are very happy with how well we were able to cope with this situation.