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I have been ignoring the alarm emanating from my ups (the uninterruptible power supply type, not the brown truck type) for, oh, two months now as it beeped continuously for 60 seconds every eight hours to inform me that the battery(s) had failed the internal selftest and I could possibly be unpleasantly surprised should the local electric utility ripoff, er,supplier suddenly loose power. After all, it quits beeping after a minute so why address it immediately... (Plus I forced the unit onto battery to determine if I still had sufficient time to shutdown properly if left in the dark by our local subsidiary of Con -aptly named- Edison.)

After listening/ignoring the periodic beeping, I did break down and order replacement batteries for the unit (2 12v 12AH) from that emporium of all things in the universe, EBay, so they would be available when I felt ambitious.

Tracking indicated that they would not be delivered until tomorrow, but when I took a trek to the postal facility (conveniently situated at the foot of the drive) I discovered the mail reception device filled with a box that weighed 35 pounds. I carted the box into the house and inspected the contents, set the contents on the desk, and placed the box (after removing a bunch of those inedible plastic after dinner mints) on the floor with the top flaps closed for the felines to investigate. (Last time I saw it, one of the felines had his paw stuffed into the gap of the four lidflaps and could not retrieve his paw - the flaps gave when he pushed, but when he pulled they closed back up - with his paw inside.. He ‘carried’ the box out into the hall as if seized by a leg-hold trap.. (The box is in the hall sans cat at the present moment.)

Anyway, I informed the computing females in residence that the system would be down for maintenance and shutdown my computer so I could yank the UPS and replace the batteries. (APC will sell me a replacement battery which is in reality two batteries with a fused jumper that wires them in series, covered with a pretty label that serves to 1) inform you of the proper APC part number and warn you to use only genuine APC batteries because the world will come to a tragic end should you use anything else, and 2)stick the two commercially available batteries together in a manner that obscures the generic model number so that APC can make a buck if they are able to convince you that it is really a super special proprietary battery which they will gladly sell you. For $30 more than you can buy the two commercially available cells, transfer the fused center connector, and break out the tape made out of gorillas to make the two batteries one.. (Hmmm.. I wonder if that counts as ‘earnings’ since my labor was used to make one ‘battery’ out of two, thus effectively paying myself $30.)

So, I installed the new battery (which of course is the battery assembly I self-assembled) into the UPS hull, connected the pretty color coded wires to the corresponding colored terminals, closed it all back up, returned it to its spot on the floor and pushed the little round button. The unit started up, went through its self test without a murmur, and sat there with its pretty green light looking at me with its unblinking eye.

Only remaining task was to fire up my computing device (the one with the internal fan or fans that periodically emits/emit grinding noise(s) - that is watching me as I build its replacement on the desk beside me and internalizing fears of soon-approaching abandonment.) The psychological affect of these feelings of soon-abandonment have so affected the old computing device that it conspired to kill the cmos battery and instead of the normal bios screen I was greeted with the ‘Hey dummy, your internal clock is waywrong, press F2 to enter setup’ nag..

So, date/time/boot order/all that stuff have been reset and, if all remains well, I will not have to deal with that again until AFTER this box is disconnected and its newer bigger’n’better replacement is in place and I am pondering what to do with this box. Unless of course, another hurricane Sandy blows through and we are without power for five days again.

Even with the new batteries, the ups will not run THAT long. ;-)

When you’re talking days, mere batteries are insufficient.

And if the proximate cause of a lack of power is something like a Hurricane Sandy, then solar panels may not do the trick either.

My analysis says that true security comes from having a Plan B for all contingencies. At a first approximation then, you may need a generator.

Short diversion: Generators can bring hazards. One of the less obvious is that in the silence of your power-out community, your generator will be broadcasting the fact that you are prepared even though your neighbors may not be.

The most obvious risk is the fumes. You can’t operate the generator inside anything. It might kill you. And if you put it out on the sidewalk, it might walk.

I saw a dual-fuel generator at Costco. It could be started on gasoline and then switched to propane. Or maybe vice versa. Still noisy though.

Theoretically, if you can afford it, a whole-house generator would be the way to go. That could even be made silent enough to avoid neighborly curiosity, if you are smart enough to keep your lights turned off. The best fuel for this kind of thing is natural gas. Although propane would also work, it’s usually more expensive.

But probably the cheapest way to go would be to invest in two “jump-boxes”, normally used to jump start a car whose lights stayed on too long.

This presumes you have two vehicles in your family. If each has a jump-box, and you keep them charged, you can use them as the power source for your UPS. Some jump-boxes even have inverters built into them.

Or you could figure out a way to patch in the vehicle batteries to be the UPS secondaries. It’s easy enough to use regular ROMEX wiring as a really long jumper cable.

By the way, even if you have power for your computer, your connection provider may be without power in your neighborhood, especially after a day or two. The usual Plan B for that situation is trying to connect through your smart phone.

Of course, if you had a smart phone, you could use it as your computer.