Very heavy overcast and a little snow yesterday. We got a luverly bunch of snow overnight, so of course I lost electricity. It doesn't look like there's going to be any sun today. I just got in from sweeping off the solar panels, and now the meter is showing about a 24.5 volt charge which should keep the system up unless I do something stupid like use a lot of electricity.
See, there's amp draw and then there's amp draw. The laptop, modem, dish (I honestly don't know if it pulls any current or how it would work if it didn't) and wifi box pull a total of maybe three amps. That's sustainable with very modest input, and so is a single lamp. But if I use the coffee-maker, say, or (god help me) the toaster - well! Now we're talking 25 or 30 amps. The bread maker? No way: That has to run for an hour and a half, even if I only end up with dough. Three hours for actual bread. I don't even own a crock pot, though I used to love them.
Sunny days are good. But you take what you can get. :-)
The good security news keeps rolling in
13 hours ago
3 comments:
We were snowed upon last night, too. Two+ inches. We couldn't park our front wheel drive car in the garage-- couldn't make it up the driveway. So, the Suby got a chance to sit, snug as a bug in a rug, in the garage . He was ready for action this morning.
The rains set in overnight and created an oohey-gooey mess for the morning drive. Yuck.
So the bread electrocution machine is a power vampire?
Who knew?
Do you tend to have water stored just in case your lines freeze?
Oh, you betcha. There's about 30 gallons of water, in 3- and 5-gallon jugs, currently stored in the power shed where the waste heat always keeps the temp above freezing.
Normally (IE when more than one person is here) we also keep 55-gallon drums in there. But they're too hard to horse around by myself so I emptied the remains of their contents into the jugs.
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