Tips To Beat The Load Shedding Blues

South Africans have had to deal with the country's embattled power utility Eskom implementing rotational load shedding for over a decade now.

Load shedding is a reality that nobody's happy about it. But unless you have the money for generators, solar installations, or other expensive alternatives, the reality is that you are at risk of losing power for periods of time until the country's energy supply eventually stabilises.

In our tech-driven world, it's really disruptive to have a few hours without electricity. But losing power doesn't necessarily mean losing productivity. We look at some key strategies for minimising the blow of load shedding, while also making the most of the electrical downtime.

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Do the Easy Things - Here are our suggested 5 Tips to make Loadshedding easier

1. Check the load-shedding schedule to plan your electricity usage. Buy a small gas cooker if you don't already cook with gas.

2. Make sure that your electronics, like your cell phone and laptop, have sufficient battery life.

3. Buy a solar cell charger, a car phone charger, or a cell phone power bank.

4. Buy rechargeable lights. They last for up to 10 hours when fully charged.

5. Buy a surge protector plug for your television, computer and fridge. This will protect your appliances when the power comes back on.

Know your schedule and the load shedding status

The current load shedding is subject to fairly reliable schedules - so you can plan ahead. Whether you're supplied by the City of Cape Town or Eskom, keep your schedule close at hand - whether printed or on your mobile device.

And, because the national and local load shedding status can change in an instant, keep yourself updated by connecting to the right information sources:

Twitter: @CityofCT | @Eskom_SA

Websites: Eskom

Download this App for easy reference of areas across South Africa: EskomsePush

Do Research & Be Prepared

Calculate the daily minimum amount of electricity needed for the household. Do you need the lights, fridge, and TV on? Or only the lights and TV?

- You can then find out how much electricity each appliance needs.

- With lights, identify the wattage of your lights (it is usually printed on the globe itself).

- With appliances, find the labels on the appliance that state the power usage.

Kettles and electric stoves use a lot of electricity over a short period of time, so it's best not to include these. You can rather use a gas stove to heat your water or cook your food. It is also best to exclude your geyser, as it uses a lot of electricity.

Now that you know how much power you will need, find out what the different options will cost you. Load-shedding can last for between two and four hours at a time. Therefore, an ideal battery system capacity of five hours should be sufficient.

Keep a list of tasks you can complete without electricity, such as:

• reading,
• studying ,
• holding team meetings or brainstorming sessions,
• paperwork, or
• physical filing.
• quality family time

Most of all, STAY POSITIVE!

Brought to you by the SAProperty.com Team