"nightjar" nightjar@ insert my surname here.uk.com wrote:

"John Geddes" wrote in message
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It is having the consumer unit trip off that is the bigger worry. Even if
the main supply comes back after 30 seconds outage, if the consumer unit
has tripped, then there is no power to anything in the house until someone
realises there is a problem and manually resets the consumer unit.

And if there is nobody at home when the unit trips, the house stays
unpowered until someone comes back - to find everything in the freezer
wrecked if they have been away for more than about 24 hours.

Years ago, when industrial disputes were producing regular four hour power
cuts, the electronics magazines were full of designs for standby power
supplies, usually run off a car battery, to keep freezers and gas or oil
boilers running. It sounds as though you need something similar, perhaps a
really big UPS?

Or a relatively small UPS, and several car batteries from the scrappies,
along with blower to keep the UPS cool.