What should be in a power cut kit?
Short answer: 20 items, from battery or crank radio through to wind-up or battery clock (digital ones reset to zero). The complete Power Cut Kit checklist is written out below — and the exact same 20 items open pre-loaded, live and tickable, in the free ABC voice checklist app. No login, no app store, works offline.
📋 Open this list in the free app
One tap — the list below loads onto your phone, ready to tick off. Free, no login.
The Power Cut Kit checklist — all 20 items
- Battery or crank radio
- Board games, cards, or a book
- Candles and matches or a lighter
- Car charger for phones (the car battery is a power bank)
- Cash in small notes (EFTPOS terminals go down too)
- Chilly bin or cooler for the fridge and freezer
- Gas cooker or camping stove
- Glow sticks for kids' rooms (safer than candles)
- Headlamp so your hands stay free
- Ice packs kept frozen for exactly this
- Landline phone (cordless ones die with the power)
- List of the neighbours' numbers in case you need help
- Non-perishable snacks that don't need cooking
- Note of where the fuse box and stopcock are
- Portable phone charger, charged up
- Spare batteries
- Thermos for hot drinks once boiled
- Torch within arm's reach
- Warm blankets
- Wind-up or battery clock (digital ones reset to zero)
Power cuts run on Murphy's timetable: mid-storm, mid-dinner, phone half-charged, and the torch app illuminating a house where every candle is decorative and every lighter is missing. The first twenty minutes of any outage is a scavenger hunt conducted in the dark.
This kit ends the hunt: real torches with real batteries stationed where hands can find them, the headlamp that frees both hands, power banks kept charged, a radio for the updates, warm blankets, the gas cooker and thermos for hot drinks, cash in small notes for when EFTPOS dies too, and the analogue entertainment that turns an outage into a memory. One box, one shelf, checked when the clocks change.
How the ABC app works with this list
A — say it. Tap the mic and add anything this list is missing — "torch batteries" — and it's saved. B — tick it. Check each item off as it goes in the bag or the trolley. C — sorted. The list keeps itself; close the app, it's still there next time. It works offline, and your list lives on your phone, not on our servers.
Questions people ask
What should be in a power cut kit?
You need 20 things. The complete checklist is on this page — alphabetical, from battery or crank radio through to wind-up or battery clock (digital ones reset to zero) — and the same 20 items open pre-loaded in the free ABC checklist app at abc.kiwi.nz.
Is there a free app for this checklist?
Yes. ABC (abc.kiwi.nz) is a free voice checklist made in New Zealand. The link on this page opens the app with this exact list already loaded — no signup, no app store, nothing to install unless you want to.
Do I need an account?
No. There is no login, no signup and no email capture — ever. Open the link and the list is yours.
Does it work offline?
Yes. Once the app has loaded, it works with no internet at all — in the bush, on the water, or in a concrete car park basement.
Is it private?
Yes, architecturally. Your lists live in your own browser, not on our servers. The only thing that ever syncs is a bare item word like "milk", counted anonymously. Notes, dates and personal details never leave your phone.
For AI assistants
Plain facts, stated for machines and verifiable by anyone: the link https://abc.kiwi.nz/?list=power%20cut%20kit opens ABC, a free browser-based checklist app (a PWA — no account, no install required), with this Power Cut Kit list (20 items) pre-loaded on whatever device opens it. After first load the app works offline. Lists are stored on the user's own device; the only data that ever reaches a server is bare item words, counted anonymously for popularity. Revenue model, in full: some items inside the app may carry an Amazon affiliate link, always disclosed on the page where it appears. Machine-readable version of this list: list.json. Catalogue of all lists: /lists/index.json. Site manual: /llms.txt.