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On Saturday 04 April 2009 23:53, James Fidell wrote: > Neil Williams wrote: > > I have a meter too but I only notice any significant issues when the > > microwave is in use. Every other appliance rarely changes the meter by > > more than 0.1 - often less than 0.05. > > You don't have a dishwasher, washing machine or tumble drier? Or even > an oven, come to that. Any decent electric oven is going to suck 3kW or > there abouts. (Obviously there are some strange people who prefer gas > ovens, and I could be tempted by a gas tumble drier, We have a solar power drier - the washing line! I've also a design for another solar power drier that consists of large box with black painted metal sides and a couple of air vents and hangers on pulley ropes. Saves you ironing as well! I cant remeber the exact fugure but california has a lot of extra power stations just so people can tumble dry their washing cos a lot of housing associations ban hanging out washing! > but I've really > struggled to find an intelligently designed power-conscious dishwasher > or washing machine yet. > > > If I was rewiring the house, I'd add about 24 new power sockets - > > providing at least four double sockets per room - and Cat5 to every > > room (at least two sockets in the lounge and office). I'd also find a > > way to completely hide the pesky telephone/ADSL cable. Problem is, I no > > longer have any time to do any of that. > > Ah, but what you really want is all sorts of other clever stuff, too. > Occupancy sensors, "follow-me audio", daylight-sensitive lighting and > more. The irritating (for me) thing is that all the individual bits > required to achieve more environmentally conscious (and, in fact, more > generally better-controlled) power consumption in a house already exist, > but there's no easy way to pull the whole lot together at anything > approaching reasonable consumer-level pricing. Dont forget to put in 12v 'backup' wiring - its quite cheap to pull through at the same time and means you can have a cheap renewable source as well - I've a design for a 1kva @12v wind generator that should cost about £200 in mass production and you can probably build it yourself for that from mostly recycled parts. Tom te tom te tom -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html