Power Outages: What's Your Experience?

[LarryRapp]

Pupcamper and Dave:  Thanks, I'll add some to the tank.  Another thing - I want to put a small hole and 5 or 12 volt fan into the room.  The tank is in an insulated enclosure outside.  The generator is in the furnace room which tends to be hot and the tank is just outside.

[SarcasticDave94]

You're quite welcome and sounds like a good plan Larry.

Apologies to OP sheepish for the hijacking...

[DanGagner]

I have a nasal mask (dreamwear), and my mouth is sucked shut, so if the machine stops I'm not breathing and it definitely wakes me up. If the power stays out, I just get up with a blanket and sleep upright in the glider. According to my wife, my apnea is minimal when I do that. If the power stays out for a few day (Kinda rural Maine), we have a medium size generator for heat, a few other things, and the cpap.

Many machines will run on a 12volt connector. I use one in my camper. I suppose that a battery could be used in the house on a temporary basis?

[SarcasticDave94]

Correct. You have a Respironics which makes it easier (cheaper than the required proprietary ResMed cord) to hook up a battery back-up as it runs on 12V.

[SaldusMiegas]

A few weeks ago the power went out around 5:30am ... it woke me up and it was hard to breath.  Being half asleep my first thought was to puff into the mask in order to turn it back on.

After puffing a few times into the mask I realized the power was out and by then I was craving oxygen. So I laughed at myself, pulled the mask off, rolled over, and went back to sleep.  

It was my first experience of a power outage since being on CPAP.  Pretty weird but not scary.

Saldus Miegas

[kbob]

I also have mine on an APC brand battery backup.  One trick is to get the APC Powerchute program, connect to the backup with a USB cable, and then disable the battery backup alarm when the power goes out.  You can then disconnect from battery backup and the configuration will remain.

[The Rog]

I have a nasal mask (dreamwear), and my mouth is sucked shut, so if the machine stops I'm not breathing and it definitely wakes me up. If the power stays out, I just get up with a blanket and sleep upright in the glider. According to my wife, my apnea is minimal when I do that. If the power stays out for a few day (Kinda rural Maine), we have a medium size generator for heat, a few other things, and the cpap.

Many machines will run on a 12volt connector. I use one in my camper. I suppose that a battery could be used in the house on a temporary basis?

I am curious. I use 4 different masks depending on mood  a wisp, a pillairo, swift FX II and a easylife 2 nasal pillow and 2 nose masks but every one of then has a vented elbow right at the mask so even if the power did go out and even if I didn't open my mouth i would still not suffocate. I just assumed all masks had this feature ? I was told when i got my machine that this was a feature of masks so one would not suffocate in case of power failure?
Does the mask you use not have this feature ?

[jaswilliams]

The resmed N10 nasal mask does not have a vented elbow for sure, as I use that one, however the FFM equivalent the f10 airfit does.


Jason