On the electrical dependence:
Saturday I visited a 17th century palace, which had been kept intact. The owners kept it more or less like a museum already in the 19th century and it's now a real museum. It has only had some minor modifications since it was constructed. To this day, there is no central heating, no running water and no electricity. The only light is the daylight coming in through the windows. And the guide's torchlight.
What surprised me was that you really didn't miss the electric light. One could probably get by really well at night too with just an oil lamp.
But here comes the shocker: The lack of heating meant that it was far below freezing indoors during the winter. There's ice in the attic and top floor in winter. "Doesn't the cold damage all the paintings?", I asked the guide. "No, on the contrary. The paintings and wallpapers have been excellently preserved for 300 years because of the cold and the lack of light."
The palace was never completely finished. You can see the ongoing construction work in the largest room as the worker left it off 300 years ago. No cables and no water pipes there, just the beams