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POWER OUTAGE and your CPAP
We had a terrible ice storm this past winter and we lost power for 5 nights!! It was terrible. Yeah, we had no lights, and no heat (upstate NY in December can be chilly) Anyway none of those things were in any way as inconvenient as not having electric to run my CPAP so my husband, (MCGIVER WANNABE) went out and bought a car battery and a AC inverter to use to run my machine (can also use a DC power cord and alligator clips for a battery if your machine can run off of DC).He hooked it up and I could deal with the icy cold in our house and living with candles and all the other downsides of a power outage but I just could not live without the CPAP.
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Vicki E Jones on
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A marine battery (boat battery) works better. You have to keep a power inverter handy that is made for enough wattage for the maximum wattage of your CPAP or VPAP machine. My power inverter has cables to hook to the marine battery. You'll need to keep your battery fully charged, so we have a battery charger.
We also have a "trickle charger", a low cost item to keep the marine batter fully charged between uses. Finally, we have the marine battery in an acid-proof molded plastic battery case. People with young children or pets may not want to have one of these around, unless they can keep the battery locked up where children and pets can't get to it.
We have occasional power outages during storms where we are.
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Permalink Reply by Nat Pike on
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Or neighborhood has power outages way too often, so we finally bought a samall gas-powered generator. When the big Eastern power failure hit a couple summers ago, it's main purpose was to keep my cpap going. I had to sleep in a different room for the cord to reach, but it worked. We also used it to alternately power the refrigerator and a separate freezer we have (as long as you don't open them, they can each sit a couple hours without power).
The downside to a generator is it needed to be refilled with gasoline avery 4 hours or so, so I did not sleep through the night. But it was better than nothing.
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A power generator has to be vented to the outside. Using it inside a closed house is dangerous. We have a large one for major, long power outages, but, so far, haven't used it. We have the marine battery, inverter, battery charger and trickle charger just to power my CPAP. I soon will be on VPAP instead, since I have Central Sleep Apnea (neurological) as well as Obstructive. (Obstructive from small lower jaw that is too far back, and can't advance the lower jaw enough with an oral appliance due to long-standing TMJ problems. I may eventually have the lower jaw surgically advanced.)
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Nat Pike said:Or neighborhood has power outages way too often, so we finally bought a samall gas-powered generator. When the big Eastern power failure hit a couple summers ago, it's main purpose was to keep my cpap going. I had to sleep in a different room for the cord to reach, but it worked. We also used it to alternately power the refrigerator and a separate freezer we have (as long as you don't open them, they can each sit a couple hours without power).
The downside to a generator is it needed to be refilled with gasoline avery 4 hours or so, so I did not sleep through the night. But it was better than nothing.
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Permalink Reply by Dan Lyons on
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Here is a thread I started back in May. It might be of some interest.
http://www.sleepguide.com/forum/topics/backup-power-sources
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Dan -
You're right on target. I found out about using a marine battery (powers the CPAP machine more hours than an auto battery, from my experience) and an inverter about two years ago. Bought the trickle charger more recently.
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Dan Lyons said:Here is a thread I started back in May. It might be of some interest.
http://www.sleepguide.com/forum/topics/backup-power-sources
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Permalink Reply by amott1973 on
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I was just talking to my father in law about this recently. Both he and his wife are on cpap and they have a generator and he has a battery backup too. They live out in the country where the power goes out a lot.
But I was thinking about me now and how hurricane season has just started. Back in 2004 when we were without power for two weeks with Hurricane Frances (or Jeanne? it was a bad year!) I didn't have my dx and machine to worry about (or a kid either) but now? I can't imagine having to deal without power for my cpap for even one night! I'll have to check into some options. Thanks for the link Dan.
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