Power outage checklist: what to run first

Everyone has enough energy for the first few hours. Plans fail on day two, and they fail because of what was left switched on during day one.

A portable battery holds a fixed amount of energy, so every watt-hour spent on something optional is a watt-hour unavailable for something that matters later. That makes the useful question not “what can this run?” — almost anything, briefly — but “what is each load costing me, and what happens if I skip it?” Ranked that way the list reorders itself immediately, and it stops resembling the prep lists that begin with a shopping trip.

Worked at typical published draws. Your appliances differ; the method does not.

That totals roughly

Leaving the fridge plugged in for three days because it is the important one.

A refrigerator is a thermostat, not a constant load — it draws power only while the compressor runs, and a full, closed fridge coasts for hours on the cold already inside it. Plugged in continuously, it wakes and cycles on the station’s schedule rather than yours. Cycled deliberately, with the door kept shut between openings, the same food stays safe for a fraction of the energy. It is the single largest saving available, it costs nothing, and it is the step most outage guides omit because it is a behaviour rather than a product.

The second mistake is sizing on running watts and forgetting the start. A well pump or sump pump can pull several times its rated draw for the instant its motor spins up, and a station that comfortably runs it will still trip on that spike if the surge rating falls short.

Most of what determines how day two goes is decided while you still have grid power.

If you have warning — a storm forecast, a planned shutoff, a utility notice — the highest return actions cost nothing and take minutes. Charge the station to full and every device alongside it, because a battery at 60% is a plan that starts a day and a half short. Turn the refrigerator and freezer to their coldest settings a few hours ahead so the food itself becomes thermal storage. Fill containers with water if you are on a well, since no power means no pump. And find the flashlights before you need them rather than after.

The one worth doing even without warning is knowing your own numbers in advance: which appliances you intend to run, what they draw, and how many hours your capacity buys. That is a fifteen-minute exercise on a calm afternoon and an impossible one by candlelight.

The plan is not a single decision. It is three different ones, made a day apart.

The pattern behind that table is that early generosity is what causes late shortage. Almost nobody runs out of energy in the first twelve hours; people run out on day two because of what they left plugged in on day one. If you can recharge — a sunny day and a panel, or a car and a suitable adapter — the arithmetic changes completely, which is the strongest argument for pairing a station with solar rather than buying a larger battery. See pairing solar panels for what a panel realistically returns in a day.

One threatens your heating; the other threatens your food. They call for opposite choices.

In winter, the highest-value load is usually a gas furnace’s blower — a modest draw that unlocks a heating system you already own, and one of the few cases where a portable battery meaningfully changes the outcome. Electric resistance heating is the opposite: a single space heater will drain a kilowatt-hour-class station in under an hour, which is why layering and closing off rooms beats trying to power heat. Cold also reduces what a battery delivers, so plan on less than the label in an unheated space.

In summer, refrigeration works harder in a warm house, and central air conditioning is out of reach for essentially every portable unit because of its starting surge. A fan is not a consolation prize here — moving air is a fraction of the draw of cooling it, and it is the load that most improves a hot night per watt-hour spent.

For the specific appliances you are weighing, the appliance wattage reference gives published draws, and can-it-run works individual devices against real units.

A budget can tell you what fits. It cannot tell you what is safe to go without.

Everything above is electrical accounting from published draw figures. It is not advice about food safety thresholds, heat or cold exposure, or any powered device someone’s health depends on — see the boundary above. For the non-electrical half of outage planning, the Red Cross and your utility’s outage guidance are the authorities, and your utility is also where a medical-needs register is kept.