No power...No Cpap

We lost power last night, a near by transformer blew out due to a thunder and lightening storm. It was close to my usual bedtime...the dilema, no electricity - no cpap. I haven't gone without a night on cpap in over a year and a half, I did once before for a couple of nights when I had a cold (before I had my full face mask). So....I put an extra pillow under my head hoping that would help. I felt like I kept dreaming and waking up, dreaming and waking up, not a very restful sleep. About 2:15 a.m. the power came back on and I quickly put on my mask, and slept well the rest of the night. We do have a generator for times when the power goes out for longer periods of time, but it would have woken up the whole neighborhood it's so loud. It's good in the winter when we lose power due to ice storms.
What are other options for times when power is out?
Reinforced my knowledge that I need my cpap!!

I use a UPS device like you would use for a personal computer. It is good for about half an hour at best. It works fine for those momentary power outages that happen more often than most of us would like. Most of these UPS's beep when the power goes out. I am familiar with electronics and actually went in and removed the buzzer. Most consumer UPS devices do NOT have a switch to turn the buzzer off so if you go this route you are warned.

When the power goes out for real, and stays out, I manually plug in to a small battery. Mine is lightweight for traveling, but a small sealed lead acid battery would also work. A sealed lead acid battery would also be far less expensive. Walk in to a Batteries Plus type of store and explain what you need, chances are good that they can put together something for you.

When using a battery it is most likely not going to power a humidifier.

My small portable battery was purchased on CPAP.com and is still available, or at least it was when I looked yesterday. for my machine and pressure it works for about a night and a half.

You might also consider one of those whisper quiet generators. They tend to be small and would probably not even bother you if it was sitting outside your bedroom window, just watch out for the exhaust gasses entering occupied areas.

Roadie

I've been using a PowerSource 400. I have twice gone to bed with it running my CPAP, and it ran it until power returned later during the night.

It has also handled brief outages that happen while I'm sleeping. In fact, there were a couple last night (one at 5:58am -- I checked my clock when it woke me -- and the other around 6:30am -- I didn't check because all the booming outside had stopped and I wanted to go back to sleep.)

The PowerSource 400 beeps when it switches to battery, and beeps when it switches back to AC....otherwise it is quiet until it becomes critical. Which I haven't experienced yet. The beep when it switches is loud enough to wake me, which may or may not be a good thing....I haven't decided yet.

But, the other UPSs in my home can be much more annoying. The two times I went to bed with the PowerSource running my CPAP, I had to wait for all the other UPSs (except for the other PowerSource 400s) to run down first. Which was extra long, because both times after about 4 hours the power came on for a moment and then was off for another 4-6 hours. And, that brief on time, was only long enough to make the UPSs all do their "I'm critical" beeping....

The worst offender is my SmartUPS, true sine wave UPS....its an old beast that doesn't have any computer interface (well, there's a slot for a board or something, but the board is more than what I paid for the UPS). That thing stays up the longest of all my UPSs and beeps the whole time.

My humidifier is not connected to the PowerSource 400, even though it says its safe to connect to an inverter. But, last night was the first time I used heated humidifier in a while. I had thought I would've rearranged things differently by now. Maybe when I do get to it, I'll position the PowerSource 400 not at the head of my bed (the rearrangement plan called for getting a headboard...)

The Dreamer.

Roadie wrote:I use a UPS device like you would use for a personal computer. It is good for about half an hour at best. It works fine for those momentary power outages that happen more often than most of us would like. Most of these UPS's beep when the power goes out. I am familiar with electronics and actually went in and removed the buzzer. Most consumer UPS devices do NOT have a switch to turn the buzzer off so if you go this route you are warned.

I wanted to add a more emphatic warning about modifying a UPS.

Remember that these devices are capable of PRODUCING 120 VOLTS AC WHEN UNPLUGGED. So just pulling the plug does not make them safe.

You must, at a minimum, internally disconnect the battery, and discharge any large capacitors in order to safely work inside a UPS.

If you do not understand this, DO NOT OPEN THE CASE OF ANY UPS.

For all of the UPS devices in my home I not only needed to unplug them to take them to my workbench, but the batteries needed to be disconnected and removed to open the case.

Your warning is well taken though, when working on any electrical device. Make certain it is rendered safe before opening it up. It should also be noted that without a background in electronics a regular Joe would not likely even know which component on the circuit board is the buzzer. This modification is not for most people, the buzzers just annoy me. I already know the power is out since the lights in the room went dark!

Roadie

On many recent UPS models, you can disable the warning alarms via software. My APC UPS even has the ability to disable the alarms during a predefined time period, so it can alarm during the day, but stay silent when I'm asleep.

I have the Respironics battery pack. Simple. Works great! At my pressure, it will give me power for just over 3 nights. I cannot use heated humidity with it but I almost always use pass over humidity anyway so no problem at all.

If we are having thunder and lighting in the evening and the forecast is for more overnight, I just hook my battery to the machine and run on battery all night. If the power goes out I don't even wake up. If I get caught in the middle of the night with a sudden power outage, I just hook the battery up and go back to sleep. I keep the battery in the corner of the bedroom. It's handy there if the power goes out for some reason in the night. I only am up for a few minutes hooking it up and back to good therapy!

I find it a very good solution to the power outage problem for my cpap anyway.

Hawthorne wrote:I have the Respironics battery pack. Simple. Works great! At my pressure, it will give me power for just over 3 nights. I cannot use heated humidity with it but I almost always use pass over humidity anyway so no problem at all.

I think I'm going to have to try passover humidification and see how I get along on it. I'm leaning more and more towards the Respironics battery pack simply because it would be a relatively easy solution.

It is so simple! I am a real dummie about things like batteries!

I worry about how safe some things are but I don't worry about this. I've tried it and know it works and it just needs to be plugged into the machine where the power pack (the brick) is plugged in for normal power.

My biggest problem is remembering to top up the charge. I've solved that by topping it up once a month (a forum member suggested that) when I change my machine's white filters.

Hawthorne wrote:I have the Respironics battery pack. Simple. Works great! At my pressure, it will give me power for just over 3 nights. I cannot use heated humidity with it but I almost always use pass over humidity anyway so no problem at all.

If we are having thunder and lighting in the evening and the forecast is for more overnight, I just hook my battery to the machine and run on battery all night. If the power goes out I don't even wake up. If I get caught in the middle of the night with a sudden power outage, I just hook the battery up and go back to sleep. I keep the battery in the corner of the bedroom. It's handy there if the power goes out for some reason in the night. I only am up for a few minutes hooking it up and back to good therapy!

I find it a very good solution to the power outage problem for my cpap anyway.

Sounds like a good solution, I need to get a back up system. Has anyone's insurance ever paid for a battery pack if a doctor wrote a prescription for one? I have an appointment with sleep doc at the end of the month, so think I'll ask her about it.
Thanks for the information.

cpapper wrote:Sounds like a good solution, I need to get a back up system. Has anyone's insurance ever paid for a battery pack if a doctor wrote a prescription for one? I have an appointment with sleep doc at the end of the month, so think I'll ask her about it.
Thanks for the information.

Yes. My sleep study center DME did a great job of getting this through my insurance with the rationale that power outages are common in my area and that my life depends upon continuous therapy.

My insurance did not consider a battery backup a necessity!

Hawthorne wrote:It is so simple! I am a real dummie about things like batteries!

I worry about how safe some things are but I don't worry about this. I've tried it and know it works and it just needs to be plugged into the machine where the power pack (the brick) is plugged in for normal power.

My biggest problem is remembering to top up the charge. I've solved that by topping it up once a month (a forum member suggested that) when I change my machine's white filters.

Topping it off once a month sounds like it would be a good idea. Might go for using it once a month so I could be sure I remember how to hook it up.

I'm not so much a dummy about things like the batteries. I'm just plain LAZY. I have so many other things I'd like to fiddle with.

plr66 wrote:Yes. My sleep study center DME did a great job of getting this through my insurance with the rationale that power outages are common in my area and that my life depends upon continuous therapy.

Hmm, that's interesting to know. I've already been told once that Aetna will deny the need for the battery, but that I can appeal it.

My problem is that Apria wants me to sign a financial responsibility form so that if I get the battery and Aetna denies it, I have to pay them their price. Except their price, uncapped by the insurance limits, is likely to be much higher than I could get it from CPAP.COM.

I have an aeiomed Everest portable cpap...recently it's been shutting off and on...I have the battery pack on and it is plugged into the wall..It's only 3 years
old and no longer under warranty.....I was wondering if I should buy a new battery cell and would this solve the problem...any ideas out there? I have another
machine which I'm using now...but here in Florida, we lose power quite a bit, especially during hurricane season...so I like to have the portable one on hand.
Insurance won't cover portables now that I'm on medicare, so I'm on my own with cost...