Using Appliances During a Power Cut in Delhi

1. What to switch off when the power goes

Do this in the first minute, before you go looking for a torch. Switching off at the socket is enough; you do not have to pull every plug.

• Anything with a control board or a display. Microwave, washing machine, dishwasher, induction hob, television, water purifier. These are the parts that a restore spike kills.
• The geyser. A geyser left switched on comes back to full power the instant supply returns, on a line that may still be unstable.
• Anything mid-cycle. A washing machine or dishwasher that lost power partway through should be switched off and restarted deliberately, not left to resume into an unstable supply.
• Chargers and adaptors. Small, cheap and the most likely thing in the house to fail on a spike.
• Leave the fridge alone for now — see the next section, because it needs a different rule.

2. The fridge and AC rule: wait before restarting

Compressors are the one case where the right move is a delay, not a switch.

• Keep the fridge door shut. A closed fridge holds food safely for hours; a freezer longer still. Opening it every twenty minutes to check is what actually spoils the food.
• Do not restart a fridge or AC compressor immediately after supply returns. The compressor needs the internal pressure to equalise before it can start against the load. Restarting instantly makes it stall and draw heavy current. Give it a few minutes.
• Many modern fridges and inverter ACs handle this themselves with a built-in restart delay. If yours does not, switching off at the socket during the cut and switching on a few minutes after restore does the same job manually.
• A hum-click-hum sound after restore means the compressor is trying and failing to start. Switch it off and let it sit. Our guide on a fridge making noise explains what that sound means.

3. What an inverter can and cannot run

Most disappointment with a home inverter comes from expecting it to run things it was never sized for.

• Comfortable for an inverter: lights, ceiling and table fans, a television, a router, phone charging. This is what the standard home inverter circuit is wired for.
• Possible but demanding: a fridge. Compressors draw a large surge at start-up, several times their running load, and that surge is what an undersized inverter cannot supply. If you want the fridge on backup, it has to be sized for the starting surge, not the running watts, and the wiring has to include that socket.
• Generally not sensible: geyser, microwave, iron, induction hob, air conditioner on an ordinary home inverter. These are heating and high-load devices and they will flatten a battery in minutes even if the inverter can start them.
• Do not plug high-load appliances into an inverter socket just because it fits. Overloading trips the inverter at best, and shortens battery life at worst.
• Check the battery water and terminals before the summer. Most inverter failures in May are batteries that were never checked in March. Our power cut and inverter tips cover the routine.

4. Protecting appliances from the restore surge

If your area has frequent cuts, these are worth arranging once rather than reacting to every time.

• Stabilisers on the big appliances. Fridge, AC and any large appliance in an area with visible voltage swings. If your lights dim and brighten through the evening, that is the symptom.
• Surge-protected extension boards for electronics. Cheap insurance for televisions, routers and computers.
• Get the earthing checked. Poor earthing is common in older Delhi buildings and it makes every other protection less effective. This is a job for a licensed electrician, not a home task — never work on live circuits.
• Note the pattern. If appliances fail repeatedly in one flat and not in the neighbours, the problem is your supply or wiring, not bad luck. That is worth investigating properly.
• Restart in stages after a long cut. Lights and fans first, then the fridge, then everything else a few minutes apart. It avoids everything in the house drawing its start-up surge at once.

If something did fail, our appliance warning signs page covers which symptoms mean stop using it now rather than wait.