Six itemsBefore the outage, and after it
An electrical emergency kit, for before and after
Most of an electrical emergency happens either side of the dangerous minutes: the preparing beforehand, and the slow, careful business of getting power back afterwards. This guide packs those two halves into one kit, item by item.
A guide published by Dotto from the official sources listed at the foot of each page: Australia’s electrical safety regulators, health departments and electricity networks, each labelled with the state its words belong to.
The kit, laid out: a plan card in torchlight, a battery radio, and the six items below.
If anyone is in danger, call 000 first.In the NSW Government’s words: “Call Triple Zero (000) immediately in life-threatening or emergency situations, always follow the advice and instructions of emergency services.”
The kit, item by item
Each item is one guide. They can be read in any order, though the plan card is the one to write first.
- 1The plan cardAn outage plan for your household
What electricity networks ask a household to have written down before the power goes: essentials, staying in touch, leaving home, heat and cold.
- 2The extension leadRunning a generator safely
Where a portable generator may run, how it may join a home’s wiring, and Victoria’s and Queensland’s generator advice in full.
- 3The paper folderGetting reconnected after severe weather
The reports, cards and certificates a network may leave after a storm or flood, and who acts on each.
- 4The sun tagSolar panels and batteries after a storm or flood
Why rooftop solar and batteries stay live when the street is dark, and when to switch off or keep away.
- 5The eskyFood and medicines in a power outage
How long a closed fridge and freezer hold, as each source puts it, and NSW Health’s advice on medicines.
- 6The hand fanHeat and power cuts
What changes on the network on a very hot day, and keeping cool when the power is out.
How the guides are put together
Every fact comes from a regulator’s, a health department’s or an electricity network’s own page, and each is labelled with the network or state it belongs to. That matters, because they don’t all say the same thing: the pages in food and medicines in an outage give different holding times for the same closed freezer, and Queensland’s advice on solar after a storm is not Victoria’s.
Where a regulator publishes a safety list, such as Energy Safe Victoria’s advice on using a generator, it is printed whole, in the regulator’s own words and order, rather than cut down. Distances, numbers and conditions stay with the source that gave them, and where two sources disagree, both are shown side by side rather than blended into one figure. A state’s rule is written as that state’s, never as Australia’s.
Electrical work stays with licensed people
Nothing in this kit is electrical work, and the regulators quoted here keep that work for licensed people. New South Wales: “By law, any electrical wiring work must be done by a licensed electrician.” Queensland: “A person who performs electrical work in Queensland must have an electrical work licence authorising the work.” Energy Safe Victoria, for a home that has lost power in a storm: “Do not try to solve any major electrical issues or do major electrical repairs – it is unsafe and illegal. Wait and call a licensed electrician.”
Once everyone is safe, a licensed electrician can check what a storm, a flood or a long outage has left behind, from the switchboard to the solar inverter, and tell you what the home needs before the next one.