For the average American living in one of the most affluent, technologically advanced nations on Earth, electricity is something that is often taken for granted. To some, electricity may even have degenerated in perception to merely that “annoying piece of paper that arrives every month, charging money for something.”

But the reality is, without electricity, modern American life as we know it and take it for granted would not be possible. Most people understand just how inconvenient things can be if the electricity goes out during a blackout, for a few minutes, or maybe an hour, but what happens if you lose it for much longer? Do you know what your life would be like if you had to go for a day without it? It would be something like this.

Sweat Or Freeze

Depending on the time of year, a lack of electricity for a day means that you’re either going to drown in your own sweat or be forced to wear your winter clothes indoors.

Air conditioning relies entirely on electricity to cool the air and then pump it throughout the home. And while some HVAC systems burn gas in order to heat the air, electricity is still required to run the fan that pumps that heated air through the home.

In addition, your thermostat also runs off electricity, so without it, you would lack the means to set the temperature on any HVAC system anyway. In other words, without electricity, the comfortable temperature you rely on inside your home regardless of the weather outside would be gone. You’d be as hot or as cold as everyone else outside.

Stay Clean

There are a lot of different factors at work here, depending on the type of setup you have in your home. If you’ve got a tankless system for heating your water, for example, you’re completely out of luck as far as taking a hot shower goes.

If your home uses a water heater tank that operates on gas, you’ll still have some hot water in the tank, but once that’s gone, the electric components in your heating tank won’t be able to warm up some more.

Where things get very unpleasant is with your toilet. The most common toilet uses gravity in order to flush away waste and move it out of the drainage pipe. However, some homes have electric pumps that perform these functions; if this is your home, it means that using the toilet repeatedly that day will inevitably flood the chamber, and force that waste to come back up.

Break Out The Candles & Start Reading

Probably the most obvious omission for electricity going out for the day is when comes to how you entertain yourself for the night. No more computer, no more Internet, no more television, and, most important of all, no lighting either.

You’ll have to rely on whatever candles or lanterns you may have at home to see at night, and if you have any work to do on a computer in your home office, or just unwind with a movie or a video game, none of these are options anymore.

Electricity is something that every home and business owner in Fort Wayne, IN enjoys. Don’t take this resource for granted! It’s what makes your modern American lifestyle possible!