Preparing for an autumn power cut includes knowing what information you would need about refrigerated food. The Food Safety Authority of Ireland’s consumer guidance recommends a fridge temperature between 0°C and 5°C and a non-mercury thermometer to check it. A control dial alone does not tell you the measured temperature. [1]

For an outage, FSAI says food in a fridge that remained closed may still be safe, but advises discarding it if the temperature exceeded 5°C for a substantial period. That wording is conditional; it is not a guarantee based solely on keeping the door shut. [1]

Make a record while the facts are available

Put a short note near the household’s outage plan: when the power stopped, whether the door was opened, when supply returned and the temperatures you could establish. Recording what is known helps you distinguish evidence from a later guess about how long the appliance was warm.

Follow the appliance handbook when adjusting or checking its operation. Household food decisions and repairing an electrical appliance are separate tasks; do not attempt wiring work as part of a temperature check.

Treat the freezer as a separate assessment

FSAI’s freezer guidance says partly frozen food retaining ice crystals can be used or refrozen. It advises discarding food that has spent more than two hours warmer than 5°C. Its estimates about how long a closed freezer stays cold depend on how full it is; check the food’s condition and temperature when power returns. [1]

Do not transfer a freezer threshold to a fridge situation without reading the relevant advice. They appear in separate sections of the authority’s household guidance.

Keep the source link in the same record as the appliance instructions so the correct section is easy to find. If you cannot establish the conditions, ask FSAI for guidance rather than assuming an item is safe. This guide does not assess a particular food, report a current outage or promise that an appliance will maintain a safe temperature.