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What if I don't want to run the electricity in my household like a standard Australian household?
Basically, actually having to think about what I turn on when? Running the washing machine and dishwasher while the sun is out. Getting a picture of how much power it actually draws during a run.
Some things, like the fridge and freezer and the hot water heater? Those, we'd like to run no matter what. Honestly, if I could, I'd do three circuits:
1. Fridge and freezer - the only things that we absolutely don't want to lose power to.
2. Lights and hot water heater, water tank pump, and select power points
3. The rest of the house
I know this is ridiculously specific, but staging things very specifically for various levels of power outage is something that will stand us in useful stead going forward.
Also, my sister and I are young enough to manage our usage. We can learn new things. I was speaking with a bunch of (mostly) older friends, and they were warning me that I'd need an inverter that could handle more power than a 5kW because that was the max I could draw in the event of a power-out, and that we'd need to run the aircon…
We don't run the aircon more than a handful of times a year - and if it got really bad, we could do with fans and some damp gauzy fabric hung up in front of it. Honestly, I'd run the dehumidifier more, and that mostly when the humidity is crazy (as it sometimes gets in Sydney).
The key is not electrification of everything we already use. The key is reduction of use to a level which can then be managed at a level of electrification.
It feels like a lot of permies still don't get this. Or maybe it's just the older group.
So the household I share with my sister runs things much the way our childhood household ran. We use most of the appliances, fairly sparingly. We boil the kettle when we want a cup of tea (but we pour the remaining hot water into a thermos for keeping hot longer). We don't hesitate to use the microwave. But we run the washing machine and dishwashers in the middle of the day and when the sun is out, and we dry on a line even in winter. (Which once necessitated running a dehumidifier in the middle of the wet-and-rainy years of 2022 and 2023, but otherwise we mostly use space heaters to warm a room and dry the washing at the same time.)
We do have a lot of 'vampire' appliances that are on standby day and night. The printer, the TV and media players, an old laptop (I really want to swap to an old tower desktop if I had the time and energy to build one).
There may not be time to do all this.
Especially not when the installer we chose won't call us back.
Basically, actually having to think about what I turn on when? Running the washing machine and dishwasher while the sun is out. Getting a picture of how much power it actually draws during a run.
Some things, like the fridge and freezer and the hot water heater? Those, we'd like to run no matter what. Honestly, if I could, I'd do three circuits:
1. Fridge and freezer - the only things that we absolutely don't want to lose power to.
2. Lights and hot water heater, water tank pump, and select power points
3. The rest of the house
I know this is ridiculously specific, but staging things very specifically for various levels of power outage is something that will stand us in useful stead going forward.
Also, my sister and I are young enough to manage our usage. We can learn new things. I was speaking with a bunch of (mostly) older friends, and they were warning me that I'd need an inverter that could handle more power than a 5kW because that was the max I could draw in the event of a power-out, and that we'd need to run the aircon…
We don't run the aircon more than a handful of times a year - and if it got really bad, we could do with fans and some damp gauzy fabric hung up in front of it. Honestly, I'd run the dehumidifier more, and that mostly when the humidity is crazy (as it sometimes gets in Sydney).
The key is not electrification of everything we already use. The key is reduction of use to a level which can then be managed at a level of electrification.
It feels like a lot of permies still don't get this. Or maybe it's just the older group.
So the household I share with my sister runs things much the way our childhood household ran. We use most of the appliances, fairly sparingly. We boil the kettle when we want a cup of tea (but we pour the remaining hot water into a thermos for keeping hot longer). We don't hesitate to use the microwave. But we run the washing machine and dishwashers in the middle of the day and when the sun is out, and we dry on a line even in winter. (Which once necessitated running a dehumidifier in the middle of the wet-and-rainy years of 2022 and 2023, but otherwise we mostly use space heaters to warm a room and dry the washing at the same time.)
We do have a lot of 'vampire' appliances that are on standby day and night. The printer, the TV and media players, an old laptop (I really want to swap to an old tower desktop if I had the time and energy to build one).
There may not be time to do all this.
Especially not when the installer we chose won't call us back.
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I've just started shifting washing / drying to match the sun, as we're hitting the half of the year where the solar panels make about as much energy as the house uses in 24 hours. The batteries help, but we're still importing and exporting electricity and my goal now becomes "reduce both import and export as much as possible".
In winter, we will use everything we generate and I tend to try to run the dryer overnight, as it's probably the biggest energy usage, and we have very cheap electricity 2am-5am. Toaster, kettle, microwave, toastie-maker, breadmaker all use more but generally less intensively. But, at least on days it will be sunny, I need to shift the laundry so the dryer goes on as soon as I'm up in the morning and is powered by sunshine and cheap electricity in the batteries from the overnight charge up. And in a bit I will start reducing how long we charge the batteries overnight.
(We don't have the hanging space to dry clothes for four people including two with a very sweaty hobby, but we hang-dry about a quarter of what we wash and our dryer is the most energy efficient I could find.)