Six Types of Lighting Items to Have on Hand for a Power Outage

We never know when we are going to have a power outage where we live. There are times when storms knock out the power, critters wreaking havoc at a substation, cars hitting power poles, or transformers blow. Then there are the brownouts. All of these things can happen during the day or during the night time hours.

Sometimes it only lasts for a few seconds. Other times it lasts for hours. Then there have been times it has lasted for days up to weeks.

For those who don't have generators, these types of lighting items can help make your life just a bit easier. This is true for those who work from home writing and want to save on your laptops battery pack.

Battery operated camping lantern.

I purposely bought one of these for $15 at Wal-Mart a couple of years ago because during storms the power inevitably goes out. I have lost power due to snakes, opossums, and other country critters making their way into the substation west of town.

I have used this lantern to write articles by hand during these power outages of the evening and night time hours. If I can't write a full article out, I do write down ideas and make outlines for future articles.

For this camping lantern, I need to have batteries and replacement bulbs for when they stop working during a power outage. I have forgotten to buy these items and had to use the next source of lighting during a power outage.

Oil lamps and oil.

I also have two of the glass oil filled lamps with wicks. These have came in handy for working on my writing before I had the battery operated camping lantern.

I keep at least one bottle of oil and a replacement wick on hand for when I need to refill the lamps and replace the wick. There was one occasion where I had ran out of batteries for camping lantern and used these instead.

Candles and matches.

Sometimes I have used candles to write by because the other items listed above have been used in other parts of the house for lighting. My family prefers the battery lantern as their first choice to read by. If they don't have that they will use the oil lamp.

I had been using the candles that are to be placed in votives, candle sticks or on a glass or metal plate while burning. I hardly use those any longer since my cat thinks everything is her play toy. As a safety precaution, I only use them when she decides it's nap time during a power outage.

I use the jar candles now because the flame isn't wide open for her to try to attack. The only down side to using candles other than the cat is it takes at least five lit ones to give off enough light to write by.

Rechargeable million candle flashlight.

I had used a rechargeable million candle flashlight a couple of times. Since those can take hours to days to recharge, I felt that was not my best option. However, in a pinch those can work well for luminating several rooms so the family isn't stealing your lighting sources while trying to write when the power is out.

Other options I haven't tried for lighting during a power outage.

These are two other options we have for power outages during storms and the occasional non storm outage.

A headlight flashlight.

My husband has a couple of these he uses for fishing and hunting. I hadn't thought about using one of those until writing this article.

Regular handheld flashlight.

I hadn't considered this either even though we have several in the house. This is another thing that could work in a pinch.