Onwards to freedom!

SuperSecretSquirrel

Thanks SH. I find it just as interesting seeing how little electricity some appliances use, it allows us to focus on the bigger culprits where real savings can be made. We're not wasteful, we do switch things off at the wall socket when not in use, turn lights off in empty rooms, etc, but it seems we really don't need to stress if we accidentally leave some things on longer than intended, the impact really is minimal with some of these things...

Case in point, my wfh setup uses an estimated 40.7kwh over the course of a full year. That's about £14 for a whole year at current prices. Not a concern.

I've measured the first of the big beasts now, and the results are confusing. I monitored the oven with a stopwatch in hand one day - 190c, 7 minutes preheating, 35 minutes cooking, 1kwh used. I then left the monitor in place for a week without micromanaging, everything would have cooked at 180-190c during that time, 6 hours 24 minutes use in total, 4.9kwh used. If I assume we use the oven at similar temperatures for an average of 6 hours a week throughout the year (there will be ups and downs but it seems a reasonable estimate) the first number gives 445.7kwh per year, the second 238.9kwh per year. A massive difference. We don't tend to leave the oven on longer than necessary, not even just the light, in fact we tend to turn it off completely at the wall isolator switch 5-10 minutes before we're done cooking and let the food finish cooking in the hot but unpowered oven. I guess maybe a longer cooking time uses less per hour as once up to temperature the heating element takes a break, then kicks in again when the temperature drops below a certain point, and even short cooking times will involve the same initial preheat phase. The difference is massive though, so I'll have to come back to the oven to get a proper handle on things. A full week of micromanaged monitoring should do the trick.

SuperSecretSquirrel

I've been thinking about the potential for planned power outages this winter, along with any unplanned outages due to bad weather events, and what we can do in mitigation. It's clear that potential planned outages will be nowhere near the hassle we routinely face each winter with unplanned weather events, it's just that if they become a regular thing it could get a little wearisome.

We use electricity for all our home energy needs except for hot water and central heating. If the electricity goes, we have no heating. I had been thinking about buying a petrol generator to allow us to run the combi boiler off grid, but have come to the conclusion that it would be overkill for us. A better option might be a portable power station or to install a pure sine inverter in one of our cars and run an extension reel from the car to the house, but even that would be overkill for the scenarios we are considering. If an outage is planned (or anticipated even) we can use the kettle to fill a big 12 hour thermos ahead of time, ensure we shower and wash up outside those times, and if the heating is timed appropriately the house shouldn't cool down too much. Even if outages were scheduled between 4pm and 7pm every single day (a needlessly pessimistic scenario) all would be fine. If the outage is unplanned and longer lasting, we have a camp stove that we can use to heat some water for washing dishes and ourselves, and we could probably manage in the coldest temperatures we tend to see around here bundled up in warm clothes and blankets for quite some time. Realistically, any outage lasting more than a couple of days would likely see us decamp to friends/family, or if all else fails a local hotel.

The realistic scenarios actually worth thinking about are either planned outages of a few hours a day, or up to a couple of days unplanned. We always replace hygiene essentials when there's one unopened pack/bottle/tube of whatever it is left in the cupboard, so we shouldn't run out of anything like that. We have usually got plenty of food in, but with cooking options limited to a camp stove it could get tricky as very little of our normal meals are cooked on hobs alone. We’ve relied on takeaways in the past, but in extremely bad weather they can be tricky to get to, and deliveries might not be an option either. I've come up with a three day camp stove only menu that uses only long-life foods (tins, jars, and dry goods) plus half a loaf of bread and a tiny bit of milk and cheese (that we'd normally have in, but failing that are easily picked up from a local shop within walking distance - I keep a £10 note handy in case cards machines aren’t working). This little emergency food parcel fits in a small box stored out of the way in a cupboard. There's over 40 litres of bottled water in the shed just in case too, that's enough to cover a few days drinking, cooking, and washing up water. For planned outages we’d likely make more use of the slow cooker, if it switched itself off at 4pm the food would still be hot an hour or two later.

Warmth, hygiene, and sustenance are all covered. That just leaves a need for some entertainment/stimulation. Daylight hours are easy, we have plenty of books, board games, card games, crafting materials, pens and paper, colouring/puzzle books, toys, etc. In previous winter power cuts we’ve just used torches and candles once it got dark, but we were sparing in their use - pretty much just using them to cook and eat by, then early to bed. I’ve just ordered a couple of rechargeable camping lights (led bulbs that you can hang from existing light fittings) to make it feel a bit more normal in case the outages become a regular thing. With normal levels of ambient light we can keep doing the same things in the evenings that we can do in the day. Conscious of the fact that we’d also need some passive entertainment I’ll ensure that there is always a variety of netflix films and children's TV shows downloaded onto my phone (there’s over 30 hours worth on there right now). We also have a small rechargeable portable DVD player and a portable game console that would help stave off boredom. It might seem a little strange gathering the family around a 7” screen to watch a film or play a game, but it would certainly be better than nothing. Our mobile phones have a small monthly data allowance each, so that would help keep us connected, and they can be used as mobile wifi hotspots at a push.

All these devices (rechargeable lights, mobile phones, dvd player, game console) can be recharged by our cars, but that would be inconvenient, wasteful, and environmentally unfriendly. I’ve decided to order a 20ah power bank that can charge all but the dvd player (if I bought the right adapter I'm sure that could be charged too, but it's not worth the bother). We can keep it topped up and ready for use at all times, charge a few items simultaneously without having to leave the house, and as it will be fed by electricity from our renewables only provider it should be kinder to the environment too. If we have regular outages, we can simply top the power bank up outside the outage times. If we have a prolonged unplanned outage that drains the power bank entirely, we can fall back to using one of the cars to recharge it if necessary.

If it comes to it, I think we're quite well prepared for an at home version of “waiting for it all to blow over at the Winchester” this winter. I can't help but think that a few solar panels on the roof and a big battery in the loft would let us operate almost as normal off grid, at least for part of the day. That’s in addition to the obvious benefit of big savings on our bills. We sure missed the boat on that one. The wait times and cost of installation means it's not really a realistic short term prospect now, but maybe in the future it will be. For now it seemed a pretty small expense to get the lights and power bank to make things a little more comfortable if they are ever needed, and it’s not much of a wasted spend if they don’t end up being needed after all.

Have any of you made plans to better cope with the challenges that this winter may or may not bring?

trix-a-belle

I have to say SSS I love your enthusiasm of planning how you would wash dishes in a power cut, my stance would be sod it they can wait

Others I know who have considered generators have found the main factor is you'd have to go round the whole house and turn off/unplug anything unnecessary.
I've recently had a solar together offer for panels & its mostly reinforced to me that the best way is for them to be factored in from new to ensure orientation, structure, neighbours, floor plan mean its optimised. I have an intersecting roofline on the south facing roof which means I lose a lot of mounting space & I don't think the number of panels I can fit gives enough benefit to give a chance of self sufficiency (no electric vehicle). Maybe when the in tile solar systems are more readily available it would cover enough.

I lost power for about 18 hours (including mobile phone signal) after Eunice in Feb & pretty much just camped in the living room where I have a wood burner rather than hoping other rooms would be warm enough, there were plenty of neighbours making dinner & hot drinks on their wood burners, one cracked out the bbq & camp stove. It won't be ready for this winter but I have plans for a pizza oven & bbq cooking spot at the side of the patio and next to the wood store, the intention is for the pizza oven to have a door on it so it is able to be used for roasting & over night meals.

South_coast

Wow SSS, you have given this a LOT of thought! I must confess, the only consideration I have given to it is to think how annoying it would be to lose all the food in my freezers 😳

We never get weather-related power cuts here, so I have no experience to draw on there. Now you've got me pondering though 🤔 My electricity supplier emailed me a few days ago, asking if I'd like to be involved in their scheme to get people to cut their consumption, which I opted into, so maybe that can be a bit of a trial run for me. Other than the oven (which I use with gay abandon), I'm not sure I'm that prolific a user though - my old fix was £22/month (I miss those days!) Will get my thinking cap on 😀!

savingholmes

I have bought some more usb chargeable lights. We already have at least 3 phone battery chargers. I have a gas fire. I may buy canisters for camping gas stove...  I have some candles... 

greent

We have a gas fire in the living room and gas hob in the kitchen - and 2 gas camping stoves (1 with a grill) and a gas bbq which would come into it at a push.  Lots of candles and battery operated fairy lights around the house anyway and we all have power banks which could do phones. Have 1 rechargeable camping lantern for sure, maybe a second. 2 camping kettles. Several handheld consoles which could help alleviate boredom (tend to be charged up)  Hot water bottles and blankets. Could do meals on hob except for 1 child with food issues - he would have to have cereal or grilled bread items as a filler and eat after 7pm (in above scenario) - at 16 almost 17 not an issue. 

Boiled water would do for strip washing if outage continued. Would be concerned about  the contents of the freezers if it continued. 

SuperSecretSquirrel

Thank you all for posting 🙂

Trix - OH is pretty meticulous about cleaning. If it was a planned outage for a few hours we'd wait of course, but I don't think she'd sleep properly if we dared leave some dirty dishes overnight 🤣 If it was a prolonged outage and we decamped, we'd definitely wash up before heading out, can't imagine the smells would be too welcoming on our return otherwise 🤢

Turning stuff off wouldn't be a problem here, we do that as a matter of course anyway. Maybe when the children are older it could get trickier, but right now it's a habit, and I do a full tour of the house to make sure everything other than fridge and freezers are off every night and any time we leave the house empty anyway (electrical fire paranoia).

Our house's orientation isn't ideal for optimal solar, but the roof shape is good. I've seen similar houses with the same orientation with panels installed, so I think it's an option for the future.

Our longest power cut so far has been 24 hours in the depths of winter. We did decamp in the end, mostly due to our wind up lantern being a bit pathetic, and our mobile phones running out of charge - we totally forgot that we could have charged them in the car 🙄 Camping in the living room with barbecued food sounds excellent, power cut or not 😄 And a pizza oven capable of roasting also sounds great, I might have to consider that one for ourselves!

SC - it would be annoying, but our fridge and freezers managed 24 hours without power without skipping a beat. I'm sure they'd have lasted a good while longer before it was a problem. Power cut compensation would cover the value of our freezer contents, so it really would just be an inconvenience, not a cost.

We live semi rurally, so power cuts are just an annoying fact of life. We tend to have between two and five each year, sometimes only for an hour or two. The big storms last winter were the worst, so we're trying to be a little better prepared this year. Any utility bill savings are sure to be welcome, but you do sound like a very low user, so the savings won't be life changing to say the least, nice position to find yourself in!

Back in July our electricity DD increased to £110pm. We'd been paying £85pm the preceding 3 years, steadily building up a credit balance over time. Since July the £400 winter credit and the £2500 cap were announced, but we've not adjusted the DD, so the credit balance should still be there to help smooth things out for us later if needed.

SH - You're ahead of the game with your usb lights and power banks, putting us to shame 😁 If these ones I've ordered do a good job I might double up for improved resilience, not a bad idea thanks. I'm not a big fan of candles (just the safety aspect), but a gas fire sounds like an excellent fallback. There are lpg options available, but I don't really fancy the expense or the additional gas pipe run through the house or sacrificing the space for one. We aren't too bothered on the heating aspect for now, though that might change if the winters get harsher and power cuts are longer and more frequent. If we were willing to sacrifice the space we'd probably opt for a wood burning stove instead, probably a better option for us.

Green - you are incredibly well prepared! Heat, cooking, light, entertainment, all bases covered, and with plenty of resilience built into each area, we're not worthy! 😁

savingholmes

We use the phone banks regularly anyway if we go out for a long day, kids forgetting to charge, multiple people wanting to charge at once on a journey. It's a safety thing for me if the kids go out with a spare battery. Mine are young adults now - but the habit is now set to have the batteries so I keep spares in my car and the kids have their own.

SuperSecretSquirrel

That makes sense SH. Our little ones are still little ones, so there are only two mobiles in the house. Both batteries should last a good 48 hours under normal use, less if under heavy use e.g. streaming films. I can't remember either of us running out of charge (outside power outages), no matter how heavily we used them. We just plug them both in to charge overnight and start each day with 100% which has always lasted until the next night's charge so far.

We have two camp lights when we only really need to use one at a time, and one power bank with a back up plan of using a car charger if ever needed. That is probably enough resilience for this winter then, no point spending more than needed, we might not have a single outage lasting more than an hour or two after all!

SuperSecretSquirrel

The kettle has been monitored for a full week now. It has boiled 38 times, and varying fill levels meant each use consumed between 0.03kwh and 0.13kwh. In total it used 2.981kwh throughout the week. I'd say this past week was a fair average - it'll get used more in the depths of winter, and less at the height of summer. A year's worth of kettle use should amount to around 155kwh then, that's about £53 a year at current prices.

Monitoring the kettle has helped explain the oven conundrum too. The monitor has a "runtime" value of 168 hours for the week, so it counts up whenever it is plugged in and switched on, not just when the monitored appliance is drawing power. That means the oven would have had its "runtime" count up whenever the wall isolator switch was on. The same isolator switch has to be on for us to use the hobs alone, so it will have been on for a while when the oven was not in use. I'll monitor it again at some point, but it's all making a lot more sense now.

I'm having far too much fun with this little electricity monitor 🤣