Beholder
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• Seal up any cracks in doors and windows. Your door might need a special tool for realigning before sealing. A professional can do it well for $200.
• Insulate any wall that feels cold to touch. Old mattresses, rugs, book shelves, wooden boards...
• Cover your fridge and freezer with styrofoam to reduce power consumption. Always save it from large packages if you have storage space remaining. Attach using long pieces of silver ducttape, because transparent tape just falls off. If a surface feels cold, it needs more insulation. This may feel silly if you count the cost at low energy prices, but you will be doing this in panic if there is a longer blackout where doors must remain closed.
• Use a wattmeter to find any energy thieving device or adapter. A lower use of watt may still add up to more watt hours if rarely turned on.
• Replace any old light bulbs with efficient LEDs. At least 100 lumens per watt. Also buy flashlights and USB lamps for power outages.
• Place cheap solar panels in your windows. These may overheat if used behind glass during summer. You can repair discarded solar panels by replacing the diodes if new panels are too expensive. Connect in series or parallel to get the voltage requested by the solar charger.
• Connect the solar panels to an all-in-one powerstation or solar charger with separate batteries. Do not use lead acid batteries indoors without proper ventilation. UPS function, 500Wh LiFePO4 battery and at least 200W solar charge capacity is a minimum requirement for emergency off-grid power, which does not provide power for ventilation, fridge nor freezer. Inverter for AC output and MPPT for more charging is nice to have.
• Buying more LiFePO4 capacity is very expensive, so stacking many 100000mAh powerbanks of regular Li-Ion batteries can provide much cheaper maximum capacity. With a lifetime of only 500 cycles, it is only suitable for weekly discharge, so charge when the powerstation is full and drain when the powerstation is empty.
• Run central ventilation and heatpump on a timer during the hours when electricity is cheapest. Oxygen and heat reserves are your largest energy storage. Check sure that no place in the home has frost or high moisture.
• Lower the minimum indoor temperature to 15°C to further reduce energy spent on heating.
• Run your desktop computer on sunny days when the powerstation is fully charged. If you can't use the excess power, you must cover up the solar panels to prevent the trapped energy from causing damage with heat.
Use natural light by placing tables and chairs in sunny locations next to windows.
• Watch movies on a portable DVD player, drawing 5 watts from your powerstation.
• Play games on a mini monitor powered directly from the powerstation using a DC cable. Then connect a SNES Classic Mini to the monitor's USB port to run the whole system on only 12 watts.
• Do the laundry in buckets with a small amount of cold water in the bottom. Sometimes you only need to rinse once in water to get the stench out.
• Dip a sponge in water and soap if you just feel a bit sweaty. If pulling your hair does not give you a black lump of dust, grease and dirt, you don't need a shower yet. You will get used to the stench until you can't feel it.
• Use the microwave oven to heat pasta, vegetable and sausage soups. Microwave ovens heat water directly and is many times more efficient than heating a frying pan. If you have to blow on the soup or wait before eating, then you wasted a lot of energy. Only heat to boiling temperature for unprepared meat that requires it.
• Buy food that can be stored for more than a year without any fridge. Canned food, dry food, soy drinks...
• If the food comes in a box or is wrapped in paper, use it for eating to avoid cleaning plates.
• Soak up any visible food leftovers into a piece of soft bread and eat it right away. If your plate looks dirty, you are not done eating. Use a jar of dishwater and brush manually to quickly clean your plate before it dries up. Rinse off using a few dropps of tap water and dry it with a rag to be safe.
• Buy pre-sliced cheese and avoid greasy food that would require more water to clean.
• Buy calzones, burritos, rolls and such, which come in thin bread.
• If you have to eat from a plate, smaller gives less surface to clean.
• Don't go around in a t-shirt while your radiator is on. Use thick wool socks and shirts. If you feel like taking a hot bath or you constantly need to pee, you need more clothes. If you feel sweaty, you wear too much.
• Put a rug on the floor to make it feel warmer than it actually is.
• Hoard cheap blankets, pelts and indoor tents.
You have now saved around 80% energy on your electric bill during winter and should be ready for a shorter power outage. Lower costs, cleaner energy and ready for disasters.
• Insulate any wall that feels cold to touch. Old mattresses, rugs, book shelves, wooden boards...
• Cover your fridge and freezer with styrofoam to reduce power consumption. Always save it from large packages if you have storage space remaining. Attach using long pieces of silver ducttape, because transparent tape just falls off. If a surface feels cold, it needs more insulation. This may feel silly if you count the cost at low energy prices, but you will be doing this in panic if there is a longer blackout where doors must remain closed.
• Use a wattmeter to find any energy thieving device or adapter. A lower use of watt may still add up to more watt hours if rarely turned on.
• Replace any old light bulbs with efficient LEDs. At least 100 lumens per watt. Also buy flashlights and USB lamps for power outages.
• Place cheap solar panels in your windows. These may overheat if used behind glass during summer. You can repair discarded solar panels by replacing the diodes if new panels are too expensive. Connect in series or parallel to get the voltage requested by the solar charger.
• Connect the solar panels to an all-in-one powerstation or solar charger with separate batteries. Do not use lead acid batteries indoors without proper ventilation. UPS function, 500Wh LiFePO4 battery and at least 200W solar charge capacity is a minimum requirement for emergency off-grid power, which does not provide power for ventilation, fridge nor freezer. Inverter for AC output and MPPT for more charging is nice to have.
• Buying more LiFePO4 capacity is very expensive, so stacking many 100000mAh powerbanks of regular Li-Ion batteries can provide much cheaper maximum capacity. With a lifetime of only 500 cycles, it is only suitable for weekly discharge, so charge when the powerstation is full and drain when the powerstation is empty.
• Run central ventilation and heatpump on a timer during the hours when electricity is cheapest. Oxygen and heat reserves are your largest energy storage. Check sure that no place in the home has frost or high moisture.
• Lower the minimum indoor temperature to 15°C to further reduce energy spent on heating.
• Run your desktop computer on sunny days when the powerstation is fully charged. If you can't use the excess power, you must cover up the solar panels to prevent the trapped energy from causing damage with heat.
Use natural light by placing tables and chairs in sunny locations next to windows.
• Watch movies on a portable DVD player, drawing 5 watts from your powerstation.
• Play games on a mini monitor powered directly from the powerstation using a DC cable. Then connect a SNES Classic Mini to the monitor's USB port to run the whole system on only 12 watts.
• Do the laundry in buckets with a small amount of cold water in the bottom. Sometimes you only need to rinse once in water to get the stench out.
• Dip a sponge in water and soap if you just feel a bit sweaty. If pulling your hair does not give you a black lump of dust, grease and dirt, you don't need a shower yet. You will get used to the stench until you can't feel it.
• Use the microwave oven to heat pasta, vegetable and sausage soups. Microwave ovens heat water directly and is many times more efficient than heating a frying pan. If you have to blow on the soup or wait before eating, then you wasted a lot of energy. Only heat to boiling temperature for unprepared meat that requires it.
• Buy food that can be stored for more than a year without any fridge. Canned food, dry food, soy drinks...
• If the food comes in a box or is wrapped in paper, use it for eating to avoid cleaning plates.
• Soak up any visible food leftovers into a piece of soft bread and eat it right away. If your plate looks dirty, you are not done eating. Use a jar of dishwater and brush manually to quickly clean your plate before it dries up. Rinse off using a few dropps of tap water and dry it with a rag to be safe.
• Buy pre-sliced cheese and avoid greasy food that would require more water to clean.
• Buy calzones, burritos, rolls and such, which come in thin bread.
• If you have to eat from a plate, smaller gives less surface to clean.
• Don't go around in a t-shirt while your radiator is on. Use thick wool socks and shirts. If you feel like taking a hot bath or you constantly need to pee, you need more clothes. If you feel sweaty, you wear too much.
• Put a rug on the floor to make it feel warmer than it actually is.
• Hoard cheap blankets, pelts and indoor tents.
You have now saved around 80% energy on your electric bill during winter and should be ready for a shorter power outage. Lower costs, cleaner energy and ready for disasters.
