What have done towards your prep?

[Mortblanc]

(18 April 2018, 20:35)Pete Grey Wrote: Bought a load of LED light bulbs today, 240V only 6W, take just 50mA, with care i reckon i should be able to run the whole house on a leasure battery and inverter if nessesary.

LED bulbs are fantastic. I was forced to make the change a couple of years back due to the government phasing production of the incandescent bulbs out of manufacture. I did not like or appreciate the forced change when it occurred, but now I am a real supporter of the LED bulbs.

The LED uses reduced wattage and produces nearly zero heat. I have a couple of the bulbs that are three years old and if their performance is an indicator I will not be replacing blown out bulbs for a long, long time. Old bulb performance at my place was 6 month replacement schedule.

Apparently running the lights at my place was not a real draw on the total energy use since I have seen absolutely no reduction of my electric bill whatsoever!

Back in the 1990s when I built my last off grid cabin it took nearly 1000w just to light the house if I turned everything on at the same time. I had to factor that into the gen-set requirement and started machine requirements at 3,000w.

If I used just the 12v florescent light it would drain the battery in a couple of evenings without good sunshine.

Now, using the LED bulbs throughout the entire house, I can turn every light in the place on and consume only 50w. I can light the house and run the fridge off a little 2500w gen-set.

It makes running the gen-set just for lights a real waste. Might as well turn on the fridge too.

Also allows one to use a simple and cheap 150w+- solar panel, feeding a rec-battery or two for light, run the laptop.....

Almost makes one want to have a separate small solar system just for lights and relegate generator use to using power tools or keeping the deep freezer powered to protect food.

It also lowers the wattage needed on the inverter on that small system, where the price really jumps above the 1000w level. At least it does over here. Going from 800w to 1200w is nearly double the price.