It Is Crucial To Always Put a Quarter On a Frozen Cup of Water Before Leaving Your Home - Here Is Why

Sep 13, 2018

If you are leaving your home due to hurricane warnings or even just taking a vacation, you'll want to use this emergency hack every time you leave your house! You often don't have time to clear the freezer or fridge of expensive food items and you wonder if they are okay.

If you've ever been away from home for a few days and come back to flashing digital clocks, then you too have worried about how long the power was out. You don't want to throw food away if you don't need to and this method to answer that question couldn't be easier!

To determine if the power was out for an hour or days, all you'll need are a few items that everyone has at home. Specifically, just a coin, a cup, and water will let you make your own power outage monitor.

A woman from North Carolina, Sheila Pulanco Russell, is credited with bringing this lifehack to the masses with her "how to" Facebook posting.

Fill a cup with water and freeze solid. Once it is frozen place a coin on top. Then put the cup with coin back in the freezer and voila, you have a power detector. When you come back from your hurricane or wildfire evacuation, or vacation, check on the coin.

Now that you have returned safely, check to see if the coin is on top of ice or has moved. Is it on the bottom of the cup?

If your answer is yes, power was out long enough for the ice to melt and your frozen food (and refrigerated food too) is not safe to eat. If the coin is in the middle of the cup, the outage was fairly short and your food should be good. If the coin is still on the top, then there was no power outage or just a quick one and all is well. Note: no one wants food poisoning, so if you are in doubt, throw the food out.

Your friends and family all have pricey frozen and refrigerated food in their homes and may have even tried to stockpile items to ride out a storm. And they also have coins and water, everything they need! Why not help them out by spreading the word about this amazingly easy trick. Maybe they'll show their gratitude by defrosting some steaks or shrimp and inviting you to dinner.