Author Topic: Making the best of Global Warming  (Read 2435 times)

Offline Joules

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Re: Making the best of Global Warming
« Reply #25 on: July 06, 2025, 08:12:31 AM »
 :lol: I can sell you some over unity extension leads that plug into themselves, you only need plug it in once for free power......  50% of your money back if not totally satisfied....
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Online vtsteam

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Re: Making the best of Global Warming
« Reply #26 on: July 06, 2025, 03:43:12 PM »
Another nice thing about generating your own is when there are power outages. Around my rural area, trees falling on power lines interrupts power 3 to 5 times a year.

When I lived on the houseboat, I was at a country marina dock one night in Florida, plugged into shore power, and the power must have stopped. I didn't notice because the automatic transfer switch worked instantly, and was very quiet. I only realized the power was out when I went up on deck. The marina was dark and also the big city glow that normally flooded the horizon at night was gone. My boat was lit up like Christmas tree, and the music was still playing. Nice being the only one left in civilization-- that was the feeling.
I love it when a Plan B comes together!
Steve
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sDubB0-REg

Online vtsteam

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Re: Making the best of Global Warming
« Reply #27 on: July 06, 2025, 07:53:19 PM »
I think we're paying about $0.16/kWh and using about 800 kWh/mo. Varies summer to winter.

We do have electric hot water which accounts for a lot of that I bet. Solar assisted hot water would make sense for us. We don't have air conditioning.
I love it when a Plan B comes together!
Steve
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sDubB0-REg

Offline Joules

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Re: Making the best of Global Warming
« Reply #28 on: July 06, 2025, 11:55:45 PM »
Be interesting to hear what other peoples monthly consumption is.

We run/ran a max of about 160kW a month during winter and now around 40kW average during summer.  We shall see what the tracker contributes this winter. 

We have a daily standing charge of £0.50 and about £0.28 per kW, the standing charge often more than the power we use.   No dual fuel discount as our gas supply was capped years ago, saving us the daily gas standing charge.   We are not expecting electricity cost to drop realistically  The air con unit we run really needs to be grid powered for longevity of its compressor.   Happy to accept that as we make good savings elsewhere.   Our way of life is more demanding physically and both heating and power require far more interaction than the average push button household.  It quickly became a normal daily chore, no different from our grandparents.

Just wait a few years when we look back at this thread, how cheap electricity was 😆
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Offline Joules

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Re: Making the best of Global Warming
« Reply #29 on: July 07, 2025, 12:20:55 AM »
I suppose a lot of this stems from being self employed, not having a stable regular income for the last 20+ yrs.  We have always valued independence, solid fuel heating, buy fuel through the year, no big surprises during the winter and easy to self maintain.  I've been accused of being a pepper without ever knowing it.   Well it just seems sensible to have winter provisions and a workshop to fix what needs fixing.  Battery storage, how else you going to do stuff when the power is out.  Live this style of life, so it's normal in a crisis, you certainly don't have time to be bored.
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Online vtsteam

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Re: Making the best of Global Warming
« Reply #30 on: July 07, 2025, 10:38:38 AM »
I like your philosophy Joules. I actually subscribe to it myself, though obviously with much less success! I want to look at our actual usage bills to get a more accurate picture. I was going from memory above.
I love it when a Plan B comes together!
Steve
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sDubB0-REg

Offline Joules

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Re: Making the best of Global Warming
« Reply #31 on: July 07, 2025, 01:32:52 PM »
Steve, going back to your houseboat.  Around year 2000 our lives here took a massive wobble, life events, careers ending.   We had to prepare for loosing the house, I had been visiting canal boats for sale in a worst case scenario, even bought a frame generator for doing a fit out.   At its darkest we got a chink of light, wife got work I risked the remaining money I had on getting the workshop built and fitted out, the rest was a steady climb, with rock falls from there.
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Online vtsteam

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Re: Making the best of Global Warming
« Reply #32 on: July 07, 2025, 02:27:19 PM »
Joules, I'm glad you weathered that and came back to where you are now. it certainly does make one appreciative of being as close to independent as possible. And to simplification in living. Not that there aren't pleasures in doing those things beyond just feeling more secure. Of course life on a boat can be interesting in itself. But maybe not because it seems the only alternative. One doesn't want to be forced onto the water, when land is the preference!

I got ahold of our power usage statement and I don't mind sharing it here, if it's of interest. Our usage is better than I wrote earlier, by about half, so I don't feel quite as bad. Still it could be improved. Actual cost/kWh is now $0.20, with 22% additional in various fees added on.

I'm really surprised at what the peak months and minimum months are. Wow, April is our worst month??? October the best???  And the range is very pronounced 260 kWh to 660 kWh. There's probably a lot to learn here!

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I love it when a Plan B comes together!
Steve
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sDubB0-REg

Offline Joules

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Re: Making the best of Global Warming
« Reply #33 on: July 07, 2025, 02:54:58 PM »
Thanks Steve, wish I could say our bills are 10% of yours because our property was 10% the size  :drool:

Interesting to note you are 9 degrees lower latitude than us, but approximately 200 miles inland to our 60 miles.  So very different climates before we consider anything else.   Can't see I can offer much advice without being incredibly nosey on your setup.   Solar hot water sounds a good start for you, wife would have liked us to fit that a few years back.  My friend who lives about 20 miles north fitted a vacuum tube system and been pleased with the results he gets.

Have you finished your winter prep by October ?

I use a few Sonoff power monitoring plugs that log power consumption.  Very handy for figuring out who is taking power when.

https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/sonoff-wifi-smart-plug?variant=54923434066299

They are also useful for working out which power bank can power what and for how long.   Even recording how much power you put back into a power bank to work out efficiency.
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Re: Making the best of Global Warming
« Reply #34 on: July 07, 2025, 06:48:36 PM »
After thinking it over I think I get the unusually high peaks in the early spring and late summer months this year. I realized the gray bars are the prior year levels, and the orange this year's.

In fact we did borrow a compact window air conditioner last year for a couple months from my wife's parents -- we don 't normally. That would explain July August.

And, gulp, this year I did spend a lot of time out in the shop from january through spring with an electric heater working on the Stirling engine. and I might have also forgotten to turn it off overnight a few times.  :wack: .

It's good to see graphically the effects of one's actions.

I'm going to concentrate on the shop, I guess as a priority. It's kind of essential to be able to use it in winter here, or cabin fever will get me. It could be a lot better.

Oh, what about October? Well my daughter went away to college in September. That must certainly be the explanation......
I love it when a Plan B comes together!
Steve
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sDubB0-REg

Online vtsteam

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Re: Making the best of Global Warming
« Reply #35 on: July 07, 2025, 07:03:25 PM »
Oh in answer to your other question, I do have two Kill-A-Watts, but they aren't remote sensing meters like yours.

I just got a handheld thermal imager, ostensibly to look at heat gradients in regnerators in my Stirling experiments, but the selling point at home was looking at the heat losses in our house.

And the shop.
I love it when a Plan B comes together!
Steve
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sDubB0-REg

Online vtsteam

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Re: Making the best of Global Warming
« Reply #36 on: July 07, 2025, 08:14:07 PM »
Well speak of the devil.... our power just went out.

Started up the old Indian Lister clone generator. Hand cranked to start. Two 24" flywheels.

Lights back, cooking dinner, router powered up, back online.

Soothing sound, putt, putt at 600 rpm in the distance instead of a 3600 rpm racket maker.
I love it when a Plan B comes together!
Steve
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sDubB0-REg

Offline Joules

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Re: Making the best of Global Warming
« Reply #37 on: July 08, 2025, 03:15:55 AM »
Nice choice of the Lister clone Steve, I used to be in contact with Ken Boak many years back.  He used to be a UK guru on Lister CHP use.  I still have a Petter AVA1 and alternator under a tarp that has to go at some time.   It was part of a design project I got roped into 😅 during the "Great Veg Oil Rush"  All the new stuff has pretty much made those ideas obsolete now, allowing silent running.

Thanks for the power revelations Steve  once my ribs stopped hurting I could see scope for you saving a wee bit of power 🤣
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Re: Making the best of Global Warming
« Reply #38 on: July 08, 2025, 09:30:01 AM »
Ken Boak, that's a familiar name to me. Wasn't he experimenting with Manson type open cycle hot air engines? And maybe transferators? I think he's also in a book I have about hot air engines.

I have been reading and collecting information about hot air engines for 23 years now. I'm sure I'd have had a lot more contacts and friends with similar interests if I lived in GB. I've got Model Engineers collected in stacks and boxes, and I go through them once every few years. I don't know anyone here who has similar interests to mine. Most people I know don't even know what a metal lathe is. If I mention I built one from scratch when people ask what I do these days, they say, that's nice, and move on to the weather.  :lol:
I love it when a Plan B comes together!
Steve
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sDubB0-REg

Offline Joules

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Re: Making the best of Global Warming
« Reply #39 on: July 08, 2025, 10:14:24 AM »
You certainly fit the mold Steve for eccentric English engineer.  Ken was very much into gasification when we last conversed,  he was spending quite a bit of time in the States working on gasifiers and digital control systems for them.  Lethal bits of kit  producing vast quantities of carbon monoxide, the idea was to use the gas they produced to power the engines like they did in Sweden for cars during WWII.

Sad how our engineering skills have declined, there was a time your average schoolboy had a good working knowledge of IED's often curtosy of the local vicar who made his own fireworks.   Plumbing pipe and fittings being so cheap back then, as well as the availability of Jetex fuse for the model rocket engines.   I guess that explains why we had so many good engineers, the less skilled ones were sorted at an early age  :zap:

Oh, I still get the weather comments when asked what I do, that or OMG....
« Last Edit: July 08, 2025, 06:48:10 PM by Joules »
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Offline Joules

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Re: Making the best of Global Warming
« Reply #40 on: July 08, 2025, 10:36:00 AM »
I come from a long line of lunatics.   My grandfather was in the Royal Engineers, a knack for working out the quickest disassembly method using the minimum amount of explosive  :lol:
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Online vtsteam

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Re: Making the best of Global Warming
« Reply #41 on: July 08, 2025, 04:59:31 PM »
I'm familiar with the Imbert etc gasifiers, and am not an enthusiast. Same for veggie diesel, though a little more sympathetic if the resource is plentiful and available. I was once roped in (as you say) to a veggie oil CHP scheme to produce power commercially. Well not roped in so much as offered a lot of money (to me) to design a couple megawatt plant for supplying a local yogurt company. My first question before I accepted the job was, where are you going to get the oil and how much will it cost? "Oh don't you worry about that, um Canada, we are working on that part of it, your job is just to come up with a plan, equipment, costs, etc." So I eased on in, with some trepidation, but I did need the money. A year later, when I had all of the plans, all of the costs to build, had worked out hourly demand schedules, maintenance costs, etc for the big final presentation, I asked again, what are the oil sources, and what is the cost per gallon so I can give final figures. "Oh, we're going to have that shortly, can you just leave that part out?" This time I said no. "Please, it's coming. We're finalizing..." No, I need those figures now.

Well of course they didn't have anything. The best they could come up with was inadequate supply at a staggering price. Something that seemed obvious from the start. I was paid all along, no hard feelings towards me, my plans and cost figures were considered very complete, but the two "oil" guys who'd promoted the whole idea got the hairy eyeball at that last meeting. Oddly enough the principal never fired them, and they continue to this day planning useless stuff. It's a wonder to me!

That engineer stuff you're talking about.....that sounds like fun!
I love it when a Plan B comes together!
Steve
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sDubB0-REg