What Preps are you doing this week? Part 9

[Yorkshire Andy]

The local church room has a couple of these (the wife volunteers once a month for their "free" breakfast morning by free it's a donation based drop in tea coffee hot sandwich but no one gets turned away supprised it actually turns a small profit which goes back into the church funds for other community days / repairs ) I often get a shout to go grab some more bread / bacon / sausages then get a butty thrown in my direction i digress :

https://www.nisbets.co.uk/olympia-vacuu ... 500ml/c092

They stay cool being a vacuum flask type so you can use a hand on the metal body if you struggle to lift / steady it

There's the pump top jobbies but I'm not a huge fan the older members struggle with them as they need a firm push

https://www.nisbets.co.uk/olympia-pump- ... -3ltr/k636


Then there's these jobbies plenty of different ones on the market

https://www.argos.co.uk/product/4230429 ... lsrc=aw.ds

Some better with an adjustable dispensing quantity



I've just cleaned the chickens out which are still no it laying but the moulting looks to be slowing ...

Cleared some leftovers off the allotment to the compost heap,

Modified a couple of solar lights to let me boost them up on the mains and as the law of sod dictates now the sun is blazing after a week of grey. .

Couple of cheaper lights I've polished the plastic coated solar panels with pink stuff paste back to clear ISH again from dull yellow...

Charging a few battery lights up whilst the sun's out on my solar chargers

[jennyjj01]

Having finally got all 4 solar panels mounted at an angle, I've chanced running TWO freezers from solar. Enough light through today but have set battery charger to contribute a bit earlier. Monitoring closely..

[GeeGee]

Having finally got all 4 solar panels mounted at an angle, I've chanced running TWO freezers from solar. Enough light through today but have set battery charger to contribute a bit earlier. Monitoring closely..

Oh keep us posted please Jenny ..what size freezers are you running off them ? Got a couple of solar panels we've had a few year run various things off them have a chest freezer in summer house but wasn't sure that it would work from solar alone
Non stop fog here at moment though hasnt been light for about a week

[jennyjj01]

Having finally got all 4 solar panels mounted at an angle, I've chanced running TWO freezers from solar. Enough light through today but have set battery charger to contribute a bit earlier. Monitoring closely..

Oh keep us posted please Jenny ..what size freezers are you running off them ? Got a couple of solar panels we've had a few year run various things off them have a chest freezer in summer house but wasn't sure that it would work from solar alone
Non stop fog here at moment though hasnt been light for about a week

The first one I ran was an big full-size old upright fridge freezer. That ticks over at about 0-70 watts but takes a big unmeasured gulp at start up. The second one is a newer built under integrated one. That takes 0-70 watts too and about 400W to start up. I've yet to see whether them starting up simultaneously will trip out the1500W inverter.
I doubt the batteries would run them overnight* without some extra input, so I have a cludged system of relays that powers them off the house mains during darkness. Also my battery charger on a time switch tops the batteries up over night, too. So each dawn, the system starts the day with a full battery and whatever the sun can give.
There's a few ways it can go wrong, so I have to keep a close eye on things. Daftest problem I had was when it was too sunny and my batteries got over charged to 15V. that tripped out the inverter. If they drop below 10V, that trips it out too. I need to see if the inverter can run the freezers at start up both at the same time.
I have a LOUD Mains fail alarm always connected. It went off just once.
Objective is to try to run a third small chest freezer during daylight hours, or during blackouts..
Total solar array is now
1x160W (£75)
2x 85W (£50)
1x 100W (£50)
That's an area about 1.2m x 2.4m, mounted on a flat garage roof, supported to be pitched at 15 degrees. Not optimal, but 45 degrees would have peed off the neighbours as well as potentially blowing away.
I've now run out of places to mount more panels.
For now, it's rigged up to harvest and use as much sun energy as I can during daylight hours, to cut the bills, just using the batteries to level out the load between clouds. At dusk, the load is shifted onto house mains. thus my batteries never get stressed or deep discharged at night.
If we ever have power outage, I swap a few plugs about and the batteries would be used for resilience.

There's so almy initial 25W panel dedicated to AA battery charging for lamps.

[grenfell]

Got a bit of free time over the weekend so managed to have a bash in the garden. Cleared loads of leaves now in bags for leafmould , bagged up compost , refilled one heap , chopped up some more firewood nd stacked it and also cleared out the one greenhouse the consequence of which means fried green tomatoes for tea tonight mmmmmm....

[Yorkshire Andy]

Just joined the scramble in Lidl dear god it's like a pensioners no holes barred rugby / UFC match didn't realise there was some idiotic "black Friday" event on All in there scrabbling for the cheap air friers .... Dropped the lad off at school and needed the basics bread milk and a pallet of eggs

Got another set of ski thermal baselayers and a mid layer to wear at work to be fair the midlayer "thermal" top seems fairly warm for its thickness for £7 I might pop back and grab another later

(they were not fighting for the ski clothing despite probably being a batter buy that the junk branded black Friday specials. ... Wouldn't buy another brevil kitchen appliance if I had my way and as for Daewoo didn't they make cars and the Tassimo coffee machines were that price about 3 years ago without the "sale pricing" but like computer printers they make the money back on the cartridges of coffee

[jennyjj01]

... needed the basics bread milk and a pallet of eggs

Visualised as

[Sneddle]

In light of the upcoming winter, I've been sellotaping some of the windows shut. Until I can afford the have them replaced (they were from a skip originally so don't owe me anything), some sellotape over the joins where the seal has gone massively cuts down on the amounts of draughts. I have used the cling film type stuff in the past, but it makes it a bit difficult to water the plants.

[Frnc]

In light of the upcoming winter, I've been sellotaping some of the windows shut. Until I can afford the have them replaced (they were from a skip originally so don't owe me anything), some sellotape over the joins where the seal has gone massively cuts down on the amounts of draughts. I have used the cling film type stuff in the past, but it makes it a bit difficult to water the plants.

Depends on window type, but I use a thin plastic strip that folds into a V shape. I comes on a roll, and one side is self adhesive. Was easy to apply and the window still opened and closed. Before that I had more rigid ones that weren't self adhesive, but these are better as they don't fall out if you open the window. Was very cheap, £2.50 for 5 metres. Is Sealcraft brand.

[Stonecarver]

Come to think of it, I think I'll start delaying ordering a bit each time they email/text. I don't need a bigger safety net than what I have. I was glad to have a few weeks buffer when Covid struck of course, pus the fact that I get it all delivered.

I wonder if you and other's have been checking the dates on your medication. Have noticed medicines I ordered months ago have newer date than those I recently recieved