What Preps are you doing this week? Part 9

[rik_uk3]

And keep your freezers full, they stay cold longer = less power. If you can't fill it with food freeze water.

[Frnc]

And keep your freezers full, they stay cold longer = less power. If you can't fill it with food freeze water.

Also if the grid goes down the food will keep longer, up to 2 days if the freezer is full. If you remove food to eat during this period you can add food from the fridge if it's less than 4 hours, or cooler packs. Food in the fridge should be below 8°, preferably 5°. Keep a thermometer in there. I have one that's a dial on a little stand, easy to read when I look in.

[diamond lil]

Freezer full, all cupboards full, I couldn't squeeze in anything else at all. Now buying thermal tshirts and loose-top socks for the cold diabetic husband and knitting socks & throws for the family. Bought younger son a wee stove as he is a joiner and has access to free wood. But the one thing that's bugging is that we are waiting to move, trying to get a transfer to a bigger house. Fedup living in a hamster cage.. so then I'll have to move all the damn preps again. But it will keep me off the streets and out of trouble . maybe.

[Frnc]

Last night, I glanced at the Smart Meter and it was sat showing about 400W being consumed.... But we'd switched most things off for the night, so that troubled me.

So this morning, I did a deep dive analysis of what's just ticking over, using up the 'Leccy.

Note 400W burning constantly costs about 11p an hour or £2.50 per day

It turns out that our daily spend of about £5 - £6 includes around 350 - 400W ( £2 ) of 'Always on' usage.

WHAT The Hell !

I'd thought the expense was Washer/ Drier/ Cooker, and here I was burning half my electricity in my sleep.

So. DEEP Dive! Using the smart meter and turning EVERYTHING OFF and bringing stuff back on, one by one.

Discovered......

One Freezer, running 24/7 burning 75W, costing £0.26 x 24 x 0.075 = 47p per day. Defrosting it now to see if that fixes it, or if it needs a new thermostat.
One small computer, running 24/7 burning about 75W (47p)
DVD player and PVR, and assorted bits behind the TV burning another 80W or so. (50p)
A few minor items like the clocks, garage doors, network gear burning about another 75W

TV's and music centre on standby, really insignificant, but from the above I should easily save £40 per month with no effort. I hope the freezer isn't faulty, but if it is, I'm hopeful it's a cheap repair.

While on this, I decided to replace our remaining old light bulbs with LEDs. We'd been working through our stock of old light bulbs, but they are going in the bin, even where unused.

All this has further inclined me to improve the solar rig AGAIN

I checked the app, my use during the night is about 0.1 KW per hour. It goes up and down between 0.07 and 0.14 KW each hour. I'm going to keep my chargers unplugged and try to put my computer to sleep, see if I can get it a bit lower. So 400W is 4 x what I'm using with 2-3 people here.
I've used about 2680 KW in the last year, = 7.3 KW per day (2.4 of which is 'always on'). I say about because I've only got 11 months accurate readings, so I added a rough guess, it hardly varies month to month regardless of season.

[Nurseandy]

Freezer full, all cupboards full, I couldn't squeeze in anything else at all. Now buying thermal tshirts and loose-top socks for the cold diabetic husband and knitting socks & throws for the family. Bought younger son a wee stove as he is a joiner and has access to free wood. But the one thing that's bugging is that we are waiting to move, trying to get a transfer to a bigger house. Fedup living in a hamster cage.. so then I'll have to move all the damn preps again. But it will keep me off the streets and out of trouble . maybe.

Oh Lil, I feel your pain - we moved in April and shifting the preps was a bit of a 'mare. To be honest we ate a lot of the canned goods (particularly the oldest ones) and mostly just moved the dried goods.
House move was delayed a couple of weeks after we'd packed everything away into a mates lorry and we actually felt pretty exposed to the vagaries of the world even though our preps were safe in the lorry and onlyba short distance away.

[diamond lil]

Oh Lil, I feel your pain - we moved in April and shifting the preps was a bit of a 'mare. To be honest we ate a lot of the canned goods (particularly the oldest ones) and mostly just moved the dried goods.
House move was delayed a couple of weeks after we'd packed everything away into a mates lorry and we actually felt pretty exposed to the vagaries of the world even though our preps were safe in the lorry and onlyba short distance away.

It does get you twitchy First load of preps I got had to be given away to family when husband was diagnosed diabetic. I still remember the pain of a pallet full of sugar from Costco.. and the HM jam! But he was diagnosed in 2009 and is still diet controlled so it paid off! Know what you mean re tins, we tend to get more tins than we will actually eat, as you get bored of it fast.

[steptoe]

@Arzosah well if you do need seed shout we may have spares and like you have said we all need to help each other and swap stuff because if the world does go to pot one day we will all need to watch each others backs , there will be people ready to steal from us and take what our hard work grows , as to you missing this year we to have times like that the wife and i am both very unwell mine from and accident her's from just body failing and so we do miss stuff , some years we have had to say look we can push and do what we can , one year i spent nearly 6 months out of the year in hopsital ones at one time or another so you can onl do so much and hours in the day run out so fast .

@Medusa lol well it is starting to look tidy like you we let it get a little out of hand but when health says rest we rest , i have just refitted the racks and we are trying ot get them tidy , but what you see is a bit of the collection lol we also have a lot in the house but most is in large toolboxes ie i got a good deal on bright orange large tool boxes made great medical boxes because you can not loss these .

The offer of seed is to all if people want them and we have spares we are happy to share , i am getting in to herbal medicine again now i have always loved herbs but now well lots of medicine will be needed in the coming times and even just plain hand salves from calendula/pot marigold bit of oil and some bees wax and shea butter , or eldeberry syrup the list is endless but as i sya we are working hard on sorting the stored stuff and now in the evenings i get a sit down i make other stuff .

[PreppingSu]

Been testing out our Big Arse Battery System (BABS). Used the soup maker on it, then the slow cooker. Good to get an idea of what we will and will not use should the need arise.
Did a bit of solar charging but need to make some small changes to make better use of the solar panels.
We are charging smaller devices on it instead of using the mains.
Interesting to note, the adult kids have a different view of what to use it for than I do!

[Yorkshire Andy]

A busy weekend

Saturday we was out at the local church fair or as I call it forging links met up with a few people there who I know from other places like our local drinking Den . Got a free butty and several mugs of tea whilst Mrs A was helping with a jumble sale.... Great we now have 4 big sacks of outgrown kids clothes out of the house and no end of outgrown toys / garden toys gone to new homes.... I got a tour of the large church crypt too so I now know where there's a deep large underground shelter if it ever comes to it and how to access The edc torch came in handy for the explore .... And I've probably saved them a few quid I discovered a reasonable water leak down there from a heating pipe. As I wandered off the recommended route torch I'm hand ... Which the warden was unhappy / happy about the leak I'd found , Achap I was down there with on the tour just happened to be a industrial pipe fitter / plumber so he was going to grab his tools and pop back and sort it

Also I got the church group thinking about using the church hall as a warming centre if the weather turns cold and nasty .... They already do a breakfast once a month on a pay what you can basis .. and funds from the weekend are to help people in financial need be it needing an emergency top up for their electricity bill or the like ... And no one there was preaching at the visitors.....


Sunday I was helping my dad put his folding caravan for winter and assessing overflow camping / prepping kit at their house .. basically Its garage empty caravan in then pack stuff round it.... Gas bottles are kept handy and accessable stuff like patio furniture that might blow about are out to bed too


Today I've hit the allotment beginning to get it ready for winter.... The wall of brambles have been hit with weed killer then once it's knocked it back I'll attack it and burn what I can ... Lost a chicken the other day so they've all been given a good check over ..

Sweet corn is ready ISH cauliflower is now forming

[Kiwififer]

Two hooded individuals came round our estate and tried every door handle both doors and cars to see if anyone had left theirs unlocked. CCTV has them but obviously you can’t see faces or anything.

I’m on holiday later today, not exactly the best time to be going away so I might go get one of those timer switches for the lights.