In this Issue: The Ultimate Load Shedding Survival Guide

How do you Eskom-Proof your home?

It’s been a minute, eh? The Special Load Shedding Edition of Stuff Magazine went into lockdown, along with all other South Africans at the end of March 2020. What we thought would be the real South African struggle (ahem, load shedding) turned into something far worse. But that doesn’t mean we won’t have load shedding ever again. Lucky for you, you’ve got some good buddies here at Stuff, who want to help you become more energy-efficient. In a way, taking your home off-grid now doesn’t sound like such a bad idea, right?

The Special Issue of Stuff is finally coming to shelves across SA, and we couldn’t be happier. Finally, the country gets to buy and own another hard copy of Stuff Magazine (this doesn’t mean it won’t go to digital too). The Load Shedding Survival Guide features some of the most intensive power-saving measures, tips and tricks to survive in a country that is frequently plunged into darkness. Features in this one include Choosing the right generator, How to keep the internet on during a blackout, How solar power works and How to take your home completely off the grid. In addition to all the tech and reviews you know and love, of course. 

The Ultimate Load Shedding Survival Guide (not to be confused with the lockdown survival guide), features all the tech you can invest your hard-earned money in to make blackouts far more bearable. This includes some fun additions like the Load Shedding book written by South African writers about how South Africans live under pressure, Leisure Quip Ice Bricks (we have to keep our non-existent beer cold somehow), a Midas Jump Starter (that you’ll probably need soon anyway) and the Sky Watcher Dobsonian 10in because why not look at the stars while we’re at it. Load shedding is about to become far more interesting, especially if you work from home. 

This time around, we decided to do an Upvoted we’ve wanted to do in, like, forever. In this issue, we looked at all of our favourite board games. It’s all good and well you’re equipped with a PS4, an Xbox One and a DVD Player, when the power goes out, you’re just as poor as the rest of us. This is exactly when a few boardgames aren’t the worst thing to have in your cupboard. Check out which boardgames we can’t live without in the Upvoted Boardgames feature. Without a social life, we can’t face losing our family over a game of Monopoly just yet… So here are a few other options. 

The only thing you probably know about solar panels is that they’re exceptionally pricey. That and they use black magic to turn sun beams into electricity that power our much-loved tech and appliances. In the Going Solar feature, we look at far more affordable solar options, and it gets a bit wacky. If you can’t convert the whole shebang to solar in one go, at least you can buy smaller solar products that’ll make converting so solar just that much easier. Like the fancy Iconix Flamingo Solar Standing Lights that may seem useless until you realise they can replace electric outside lights. There’s a Solar Kettle to keep your coffee addiction under control, the Macally Solar Wireless Keyboard (yep, no excuse not to work during load shedding), and the Mpowerd Luci Inflatable Solar Light. You read that correctly. It also floats. 

And there you have it, folks. We’re living in strange, strange times, and soon we’ll have to keep track of load shedding schedules as well as lockdown levels. Hopefully next time we see you, we’re not stuck in load shedding stage 6/lockown level 4. In the meantime, you don’t even have to risk getting the ‘rona to get your Stuff fix. You can get your hands on a digital copy of Stuff Magazine right here on our website. Neato.