Onwards to freedom!

savingholmes

Lol at enjoying the energy monitor. Worth it though 

SuperSecretSquirrel

I've been testing the power bank and camp lights (among other things 🤓) and I am very pleased with their performance. Be warned - this is pretty much a reminder for myself, and it probably won't make interesting reading! 🤣

Each fully charged camp light on the medium setting is bright enough for us to carry on as normal without power for 5 hours (so that's 10 hours of excellent emergency lighting from 2 fully charged lights). Beyond that they start dimming slowly, and eventually, after many more hours (I gave up waiting for them to fully run out after 24 hours) are only of use as safety nightlights.

The lights aren't quite equal, one appears to discharge more quickly than the other, so it takes more power to recharge it after 5 hours use. The light level isn't noticeably different in the first 5 hours (but is very noticeable after 24 hours). I decided to measure the most useful first 5 hours only - realistically we'll be recharging at that point.

Light A used 8% of the power bank's displayed charge to recharge, 0.008kwh when using a monitored wall socket, and in each case it took 2 hours 40 mins to get back to full battery.

Light B used 7% of the power bank's displayed charge to recharge, 0.005kwh when using a monitored wall socket, and in each case it took 1 hour 40 mins to get back to full battery.

One fully charged power bank had enough juice in it to fully charge both phones from 15% (1 hour 50 mins and 32% of the power bank's capacity each), both camp lights after 5 hours on the medium brightness each, and the remaining 21% was enough to charge a games console from totally dead to 67% (in 2 hours 10 mins). I'm very happy with that result.

Fully recharging the empty power bank using a fast charger takes 6 hours 30 mins, and consumes 0.102kwh.

I tried recharging the empty power bank using an in-car charger and gave up after 2 hours 20 mins when it displayed 9% charge. If linear, that's over 24 hours for a full charge - very much an emergency only option!

If we fully discharge and recharge the power bank 6 times a year (every quarter is recommended for battery health, and I'm allowing a couple of real emergency discharges) it'll cost us about 20p in electricity at current prices. If we used the camp lights evenly for a total of 100 hours in a year, that would amount to about 5p in electricity at current prices. I think it's fair to say the running cost is negligible 🤣

At a total purchase price of £34.75 for two camp lights and a power bank, I am very happy. They should make any power outages far more comfortable for us. The devices have all been added to the emergency rations box now, so I know where they are when needed. I'll do one more test in a few weeks to see how well they've retained their charge (the power bank dropped 0% in 12 days, so that's encouraging), then they can be packed away and will only resurface for maintenance discharge-recharges, or during a real power outage.

edinburgher

I say this with love SSS but you have basically turned into my energy efficiency mad father-in-law

SuperSecretSquirrel

Thanks Ed 😁 I think the lack of financial targets has driven me slightly loopy 🤣

I'm aiming to get the electricity monitor onto anything with a 3 pin plug (that we actually use) over the next few weeks. The small fry we can happily ignore, and the big beasts we'll be a bit more careful with. Having some reasonabke kwh per year estimates will be useful, but once we have them recorded that's that little diversion over and done with... I'll need to find a new project soon 🤔

savingholmes

Good luck with finding a new project. What kind of thing are you thinking of 

Karmacat

Yeah, I totally skimmed all the tech, but I'm really impressed  

SuperSecretSquirrel

Hi SH and KC 👋

You're really asking something there SH... It was just a throwaway comment, the electricity monitoring takes up very little time, but maybe it is time for a project.

I've been invited to work a part time side gig, a fixed 10 hours per week, totally flexible in terms of which specific hours I'd work each week, and 100% from home. I did consider it briefly, then realised it didn't really have the fun factor, and I'd get more money for less than half the time if I just boosted my normal work hours. Since I don't want to do that (no matter how much I enjoy my work I'd like to keep my committed time at the current level, plus I'd like to spend some time doing something different) any kind of rigid time for money trade is probably a non-starter!

I don't want to make firm commitments for two reasons. Firstly, it makes childcare arrangements so much easier - none is needed! Secondly, I have plenty of interests that eat up my time between March and October that I'd miss out on if I overcommitted now. So I need something casual, to keep myself occupied for maybe 5 hours a week, during the bleaker months only, and it doesn't need to earn a penny, though incidental profit would be welcome.

I could absolutely take on small freelance commissions as and when I felt like it, with no commitment beyond the current task. Or maybe get serious about surveys, again something that can be picked up and dropped again on a whim. There's also the semi professional competition entering that goes on here, that could be fun. Or join some of the others here on the happy wheel... There are definitely some casual diversions available that could earn a little bonus cash.

Or maybe I should up the pace on the list of jobs that still need doing around the house 🤣 There's only so much time I'm happy to spend each week using hand tools and the like though, so small progress at the current rate is fine.

I'll probably end up doing none of the above, and try to make a dent in my untouched books and games pile instead 😁 I can always pick up a casual moneyspinner if I ever get bored of being a lazy slob 🤣

SuperSecretSquirrel

The central heating finally kicked in this week. It was on for an hour on Wednesday morning, and about another hour in the afternoon. Half an hour Thursday morning, and another half an hour or so in the afternoon. Half an hour yesterday morning, and it has remained off since - it seems to be getting warmer again. I'm loving the mild November! The hope was no central heating until after Halloween so we're very happy with 23rd Nov. So close to making it all the way to December though…

We have an lpg boiler, which we've always known is quite expensive to run compared to mains gas, but we never really worked out the details.

It turns out our lpg cost per kWh is 39% of our electricity cost per kWh. The price cap has mains gas priced at 29% the price of electricity per kWh. We always assumed we were paying about twice the price of mains gas for lpg, but it turns out we're actually paying a little over a price and a third, which doesn't seem so terrible really.

Last year we mostly used electric heaters to heat the main living spaces. I know electric heat is pretty much 100% efficient, and boilers can be much lower, but we now have a modern condensing boiler that should be over 90% efficient, so lpg should work out noticeably cheaper for us (provided the TRVs are all set appropriately). I think the electric heaters will probably only come out of storage if we have lpg/boiler problems this winter!

Electricity monitoring continues… The daily meter readings have been in the 4kWh to 11kWh per day range so far this month. The difference in our actual usage between days isn't immediately obvious. There are so many inconsequential appliances that it's getting easier to discount the irrelevant ones though - alarm clocks, toothbrush chargers, lights, stereo, iron, phone chargers, laptops, extractor fans, they all use so little electricity it's laughable. Then there's the constants or near constants - fridge, freezers, router, kettle, main tv, dehumidifier, they use a noticeable amount of electricity but usage doesn't really fluctuate all that much from day to day. I think it really comes down to cooking (oven, hobs, air fryer, toaster, microwave, even the slow cooker) and laundry (washer, and almost certainly the worst culprit - the dryer). I'm in the middle of a week-long TV test at the moment, then I plan to test the washer and dryer.

Don't know what I'll do with the information, we won't end up doing fewer washes, and we already line dry whenever possible. We could maybe try drying clothes on a rack next to the dehumidifier inside the house, but we're wary of causing damp/condensation. Still, it feels good to get a handle on how much each appliance costs to use, even if we do nothing with that information in the short term!

savingholmes

I think negative news can make you over obsess re energy.

Interesting you were tempted by extra part time gig.

SuperSecretSquirrel

I'd say I'm more interested than obsessed 😁 The interest did only surface after energy prices more than doubled and the news was filled with climate emergency stories though... I do have a tendency to see things through once started, and I've talked about little else here recently, so I get how it could appear obsessive 🤣 Energy monitoring has taken up 5 to 15 minutes per day over the past few weeks (not including the probably too much time I've spent writing about it on here). Unfortunately for any readers, I think the subject still has some legs left in it, so the boring energy chat will continue a little while longer 😁

I'd say I considered it, but was not tempted. It was offered, I thought about it, but I wasn't tempted and pretty much immediately declined. The doing stuff in my own time, as much or as little as I like, that has me tempted. I'll probably dabble in some famous MSE interests (surveys/competitions/happywheel) at some point and see if any are fun enough to stick to for a while.