Power went out for two days and we had no water at all, what do people with wells actually arrange for this?

On generators, since that is the usual answer and the sizing catches people out.

A well pump has a large starting surge. It draws several times its running figure for a moment at start-up, and a generator that comfortably handles the running load can stall on the start. This is the single most common mistake, people size for the number on the pump plate and find it will not start.

So:

Find your pump's actual specification, and size for the starting draw rather than the running one. If you cannot find the numbers, an electrician or the well company can tell you in a phone call.

Decide how it connects before you buy anything. A pump is generally hard-wired, so you cannot simply run an extension lead to it. That means either a proper transfer switch installed by an electrician, or an inlet with an interlock. This is the part that costs money and it is not optional, backfeeding a house without a transfer switch is dangerous to line workers and to you.

You do not need to run the whole house. Pump, fridge and a couple of circuits is a much smaller and cheaper machine than one that runs everything. Many people run the pump for twenty minutes twice a day, fill containers, and turn it off.

That last pattern is worth planning around: you are refilling storage, not living normally on generator power.

The first thing to know, and it changes how urgent the rest is: you already have some water, and it is in the pressure tank.

When the pump stops, whatever is in that tank is still under pressure and will come out of the taps until the pressure drops. It is not much: typically enough for a couple of toilet flushes and some hand washing - and it is why you get water for a few minutes after an outage and then nothing.

So the practical sequence when the power goes:

Fill everything immediately. Bath, pots, kettle, buckets. The first five minutes are the only free water you get, and most people spend them working out what has happened. Filling the bath alone covers toilet flushing for a day or two.

Know how many flushes you have. A toilet cistern can be refilled by hand from a bucket; that is what the bath water is for.

Then the longer-term arrangements, in ascending cost:

• Stored water for drinking and cooking. Cheapest by a distance.
• A generator sized for the pump.
• A hand pump or a well bucket, if your well allows it.
• A larger cistern, which some people on unreliable supply install.

Most households stop at the first two.

On stored water, which is the cheap answer and the one I would sort out this month regardless of what you decide about a generator.

Separate drinking from flushing. They have completely different requirements and storing everything to drinking standard is why people give up on this.

• Drinking and cooking: food grade containers, kept somewhere cool and dark. A few days worth per person is a reasonable target and it fits in a cupboard.
• Washing and flushing: anything clean that holds water. Drums in the garage, a covered butt, containers under a bench. Quality barely matters and this is the bulk of what you actually use.

Rotate it. Label with the date, use and refill every six months. Water does not spoil in a sealed clean container, but containers and lids do, and the rotation is what keeps you honest about whether the arrangement still exists.

One thing specific to wells worth knowing: when the power comes back, run the taps for a bit before drinking. Pressure changes and a pump restarting can stir up sediment. And if there has been flooding as well as an outage, that is the situation where testing before drinking is genuinely warranted rather than cautious.

Also worth doing now while it is calm: write the sequence down and put it in the kitchen. In the dark on a Thursday evening nobody remembers that filling the bath is the first move.