Best standby lighting for a powercut?

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#3456903 29-Jan-2026 10:34

Prepper here so I bought a kerosene/ paraffin hurricane lantern that I keep in storage along with a couple bottles of fuel. Anything rechargeable makes me nervous at the thought of no power in a calamity.

Nothing wrong with candles if they are set up properly inside a jar, or with a glass open top cover.

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#3456904 29-Jan-2026 10:35

sidefx:

richms:

I have many lamps that use my powertool batteries incase of an outage.

The ozito batteries and charger combos are dirt cheap for what you get, and there are lamps on aliex for a few dollars, but the legit ones from bunnings are not terribly priced like the other powertool brands. Like all powertool company lighting, its aweful, giant blue and yellow rings, flicker when dimmed. CRI that looks like you are using a laptop screen to light the room up, and very poor beam control or uniformity. I say that its best to avoid powertool brands for speakers or lighting but at the cheap end of the market and easily available batteries and chargers they are kinda hard to beat.

I do this with EGO tool batteries. The camping invertor I got from them is limited to 150W, so mainly use it for fibre, phone charging + laptop during power cuts. Not so much lighting but have been thinking I should get some USB lights to use with it.

+1 for the EGO ecosystem. The Area Light is good for about three days continuous with a 7.5Ah battery and I have a couple of those. There is now a 400W EGO inverter available too.

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#3456906 29-Jan-2026 10:39

USB port may have limited usefulness. Our last powercut appears to have been caused by a storm bringing down numerous trees onto Electra's transmission lines. We got a message from Spark just after midnight that our fibre seemed dead so here's some free mobile data but by 8am the cell tower was also dead.

gzt

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#3456963 29-Jan-2026 11:14

pdh:
>When I hear of people using gas inside I think its as sensible as bringing the BBQ inside.
>You don't do that because of the fumes so why is it ok for light or other cooking to do so?
>Generally power outages and dark are in winter when you least want the added venting
>needed to get that crap out of the house.

I'd guess that half the houses in NZ - a mere 100 years ago - had never known anything else...That was certainly true in the UK - they were electrified at 6% in 1919 and hit 66% in 1930.

People of those eras were also subject to lead in petrol and numerous other pollutants and environmental hazards. There's no need to continue that when it's not necessary.

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#3456966 29-Jan-2026 11:27

Have some solar powered "fiesta" lights in our courtyard, they work damn well and keep running overnight, so I'd just grab those and take them inside if needed.

They also have a USB port to power off a powerbank as well.

XPD / Gavin

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#3457016 29-Jan-2026 15:54

Perhaps one should not lump a simple power failure in with a genuine power cut. But for some people, it's probably the same thing. 😁

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#3457017 29-Jan-2026 16:00

Bung:

USB port may have limited usefulness. Our last powercut appears to have been caused by a storm bringing down numerous trees onto Electra's transmission lines. We got a message from Spark just after midnight that our fibre seemed dead so here's some free mobile data but by 8am the cell tower was also dead.

Yeah, but its still of value as more and more cell providers start to offer satellite services for regular smartphones

You'll potentially get text/low bandwidth data and ultimately voice via an OTT service....

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/2degrees-spark-sign-surprise-satellite-to-mobile-deals/WRPR4JQXUZEFFBZB62WAA32SQ4/

I can see these becoming very useful in future disasters... so USB power will be vital...

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#3457034 29-Jan-2026 18:53

sorry for the temu links but these are great. I bring them hiking all the time (often have groups of 20+)

usb lights

or these

usb hiking lightbulbs

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gzt

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#3457038 29-Jan-2026 19:41

Both links above prompt for login.

kiwifidget

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#3457039 29-Jan-2026 19:42

blackjack17:

sorry for the temu links but these are great. I bring them hiking all the time (often have groups of 20+)

usb lights

or these

usb hiking lightbulbs

I dont have a temu login so the links wont work.

Could you post pics please?

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#3457056 29-Jan-2026 21:17

gzt:
pdh:

>When I hear of people using gas inside I think its as sensible as bringing the BBQ inside.
>You don't do that because of the fumes so why is it ok for light or other cooking to do so?
>Generally power outages and dark are in winter when you least want the added venting
>needed to get that crap out of the house.

I'd guess that half the houses in NZ - a mere 100 years ago - had never known anything else...That was certainly true in the UK - they were electrified at 6% in 1919 and hit 66% in 1930.

People of those eras were also subject to lead in petrol and numerous other pollutants and environmental hazards. There's no need to continue that when it's not necessary.

It’s teeny gas mantle being used for a few hours a year. It’s going to do 3 x 7/5 of no harm to anyone in that time.

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johno1234

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#3457060 29-Jan-2026 21:31

Gas mantle lights nice and bright but are just a bit of a fiddle with fueling and lighting them. The kerosene smells. They run hot and are a potential burn/fire hazard. You need to find some matches. It is a lot easier to just switch on a battery powered work light that uses your power or garden tool batteries, it's robust, odourless and cool to touch.

kiwifidget

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#3457062 29-Jan-2026 21:43

There are Stihl battery tools in the shed, but it looks like they dont make lights.

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#3457081 30-Jan-2026 00:18

There is odourless, clean-burning lamp petroleum with a test certificate. And the lamp looks like this:

sidefx

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#3457102 30-Jan-2026 07:04

kiwifidget:

There are Stihl battery tools in the shed, but it looks like they dont make lights.

There is this? Pretty low output power, and looks like a slightly odd device, as it looks like it has a built in battery, and can charge from the Stihl batteries or can charge them. But it does have built in light and USB ports.

https://www.stihlshop.co.nz/stihl-ps-1-portable-power-bank-as-2-charger.html

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