How long would it take for electricity and water (or general utilities) to stop being functional in an apocalyptic setting?

Question

I have this idea for a story were the surrounding infrastructure is intact. Now barring regular maintenance, how long would it take for existing infrastructure to not function? How long could a house run on existing utilities?

Thanks for the help!

In: Engineering

Answer 1

ELI5: Electricity is made by things that spin or panels which capture the sun. All of those things are connected together by a bunch of wires. Together those things and wires make up “the grid.” Hundreds of mommies and daddies have a job to make sure that every hour of the day, every day of the year, that grid is kept running. The #1 thing they do is to make sure the amount of electricity is just right for what everyone needs — not too much nor too little, but exactly the right amount. If the mommies and daddies don’t go to work, the whole grid is going shut down in an hour or less because it really can’t stand anything but exactly the just right amount of electricity flowing through it.