Nightly Goodnight Everyone

[supersparky]

No Dot, you don't need to tow an electric car to be self sufficient.
There are probably thousands of vehicles with a decent battery setup and adequate solar roaming the country. But if the sun don't shine.........

[Greynomad]

Yup, that’s their weakness.
Many moons ago when we took Girt to Tasmania, we parked in the Hobart Showgrounds — no power, one tap shared by all campers, and generators banned after 2000h (that’s 8:00pm for the mathematically challenged) — but it cost peanuts.
The week we arrived Hobart had 100% overcast, which continued for our entire holiday.
Three days in, our batteries cried ‘Enough!’ I thought our solar setup might be faulty, so took Girt to a local auto electrician.
After testing batteries, solar panels, wiring & the 240/12/Inverter/Generator control panel wiring, he sat back on his rolly stool, looked up and said, “Son, your problem is ‘Not enough sunshine, Sunshine’…”
So we started using the generator for an hour before curfew.

[dream4red]

Dot, never a dull moment with you two is there? Seeing a corpse being pushed across a public road would be very uncomfortable. Just not something that you would expect to see. xxxx

You got that right, we are being told that we are living through a rain bomb. NFI what that really means, but it has been a horrible day. I had the air con running in the house, just to get some of the freezing edge off the air and the lot just went fut. No power. The lights stayed on, so I am guessing the air con isn't on the solar battery circuit. As we have had very little sunshine all week, I was not planning on using the power for too much anyways. The big gas heater wont run in a blackout, needs electricity to run the fan, so that was a no no, and not on the solar circuit either.

The whole area had a long cold blackout. I think Shirley would have had the same fate as us. The winds are horrific and the rain is flying around in heavy unpredictable squalls. By 2 pm, our house thermometre said 8 degrees and I can tell you, that's cold. I had 2 pairs of gloves on, a jumper and a heavy cardigan along with a blanket over my legs. By 6pm, I called our tenant next door, to come in and get her phone charged up, and some dinner cooked up on our gas stove. She was so happy to visit. I had boiled her up a thermos full of water and her phone was doing a super quick charge and we were about to get some dinner on, when the electric powered door bell chimed and all around us things were lighting up. It was the longest power outage that we have had in a very long time.

I reckon that the poor repair people who were out in that storm for all those hours deserve a medal for doing their job. I am certainly thankful for their work. Who knows what tomorrow will bring? We are seeing homes on the North Entrance and Wamberal areas being evacuated, due to coastal erosion. I feel sorry for them, but the old "build on the rock and not upon the sand" Bible teaching is still hanging in there somewhere. The council has done nothing to help these people over the last ten years and now their homes are very much at risk of being reclaimed by the sea. Not a good news story at all.
Don't know what tomorrow will bring, but there are still a lot of trees out there, that are capable of landing on electric wires and roads. We will be slowly doing very little again I suspect.

Stay warm and dry everyone,
night all xxx

[Shirley]

Good afternoon,
BOM tells me it’s 16c feels colder, we had steady rainfall until about midday, miserable weather.
Agree with Deborah yesterday rain was constant all day & the wind was destructive, brought down our power line to the house when we were already experiencing a blackout, I rang Ausgrid, chap arrived late arvo & secured our powerline, still waiting for them to come today to repair same, as we have 3 phase power connected we need a special electrician if we get it repaired privately, still hoping Ausgrid arrive today, been really cold.
Not good having no power.

[Dot]

No Dot, you don't need to tow an electric car to be self sufficient.
There are probably thousands of vehicles with a decent battery setup and adequate solar roaming the country. But if the sun don't shine.........

You need a generator?

[T1 Terry]

So do I understand that to be totally sufficient I have to tow an electric car?

If you mean self sufficient energy wise, it depends on what level of comfort you are looking for ...... a swag and firewood could be considered self sufficient, if you want all the house comforts from home and all electric powered, you'd need a big generators and find somewhere that you wouldn't be chased out of because of the noise/ground/sound vibrations ..... no generators in National Parks, Showgrounds and stop over areas within city limits these days, the MG4 gives us up to 32a @ 220vac (7kW) plus and another 5kva from the inverter to power high start up loads, you would need a generator capable of more than twice that to get the same instant power, and we have run the Winnie house for 3 full days with no solar or shore power from those two battery storage systems ..... and not a scrap of noise, fumes or requirement to fill up either of them a with fuel, and still had 100kms range remaining in the MG4 if we needed it as transport .....

T1 Terry

[T1 Terry]

Dot, never a dull moment with you two is there? Seeing a corpse being pushed across a public road would be very uncomfortable. Just not something that you would expect to see. xxxx

You got that right, we are being told that we are living through a rain bomb. NFI what that really means, but it has been a horrible day. I had the air con running in the house, just to get some of the freezing edge off the air and the lot just went fut. No power. The lights stayed on, so I am guessing the air con isn't on the solar battery circuit. As we have had very little sunshine all week, I was not planning on using the power for too much anyways. The big gas heater wont run in a blackout, needs electricity to run the fan, so that was a no no, and not on the solar circuit either.

The whole area had a long cold blackout. I think Shirley would have had the same fate as us. The winds are horrific and the rain is flying around in heavy unpredictable squalls. By 2 pm, our house thermometre said 8 degrees and I can tell you, that's cold. I had 2 pairs of gloves on, a jumper and a heavy cardigan along with a blanket over my legs. By 6pm, I called our tenant next door, to come in and get her phone charged up, and some dinner cooked up on our gas stove. She was so happy to visit. I had boiled her up a thermos full of water and her phone was doing a super quick charge and we were about to get some dinner on, when the electric powered door bell chimed and all around us things were lighting up. It was the longest power outage that we have had in a very long time.

I reckon that the poor repair people who were out in that storm for all those hours deserve a medal for doing their job. I am certainly thankful for their work. Who knows what tomorrow will bring? We are seeing homes on the North Entrance and Wamberal areas being evacuated, due to coastal erosion. I feel sorry for them, but the old "build on the rock and not upon the sand" Bible teaching is still hanging in there somewhere. The council has done nothing to help these people over the last ten years and now their homes are very much at risk of being reclaimed by the sea. Not a good news story at all.
Don't know what tomorrow will bring, but there are still a lot of trees out there, that are capable of landing on electric wires and roads. We will be slowly doing very little again I suspect.

Stay warm and dry everyone,
night all xxx

Get your friendly sparkie to wire in the fan for the gas heater and the fridge/freezer, to your battery powered inverter, so you have some creature comforts when the power goes out.
The MG4 has been one of our best investments, the Winnie was a good investment for the price .... but it's sort of a land yacht, it wants money poured into and constantly work on .... could be a lot worse ..... I can imagine being homeless in a scrape together tent/house cooking on an open fire and trying to stay warm and dry ..... now that would be real bad ......

T1 Terry

[Dot]

Deborah the dead one was not going over the main road , he was being loaded within the hosp grounds but in view. I was on the main road and just happened to turn my head to where I used to work and interested in the new alterations being done. Hospitals (apart from the big hosp) don't have a morgue any more. The little way outback places may still have a morgue but the undertaker comes to the bed side to collect. Hope that was of some assistance Guess who knew of what I spoke of and the boiled mutton? No lesser than HTFFBO, she said she used to slow boil the meat with a drop or two of vinegar. Has been a sunnier day with no wind or rain but still dam cold. Q/ who has a stick vacuum and are they any good? We have the normal type Dyson (hardly used) but I feel it is too awkward to use with just the one useful arm and the same for Gman. Off to get G's shoulder steroid jab then he sees the back man. Hopefully that will be the end to all the Drs for a while. There wasn't much of any news about the rain bombs tonight has it effected any one here apart from Deborah's power outage and T1's bus a rocking a bit. How's the nose Jd? Off to a nice warm bed now so get well all you sickies, stay careful on the roads. Goodnight everyone x Goodnight Tanks hope you are keeping warm over there x

[dream4red]

Dot, yep it's been a crazy couple of frozen days here. Get that meat in the slow thingy and have a deliciously tender meal. xxxx

Terry, we already have the fridges/freezers on the solar circuit, but we think the heater fan would use way too much energy from the battery, especially when we have had so little sunshine for the last week. These events seem to run wild when we have had no sunshine to get everything up and running, we will survive. Nice suggestion tho.

I hope that Shirley has got her power back by now. We really do take things like electricity for granted. A lot of the coast are still out of power and the latest they have been told is by midnight tomorrow. Poor sods. Many of the people in affected areas are those from poorer household and they have no ideas of how to get things sorted for themselves. The poshies who own big waterfronts will also be doing it tough. Many are still worried their houses/mansions will fall into the Pacific Ocean over night. They are probably holed up in more exotic places and have power, but who knows.

As it has been yet another freezing cold miserable day with winds to match our moods, we stayed close to the heater and did very little again today.

night all xxx

[T1 Terry]

Dot, yep it's been a crazy couple of frozen days here. Get that meat in the slow thingy and have a deliciously tender meal. xxxx

Terry, we already have the fridges/freezers on the solar circuit, but we think the heater fan would use way too much energy from the battery, especially when we have had so little sunshine for the last week. These events seem to run wild when we have had no sunshine to get everything up and running, we will survive. Nice suggestion tho.

I hope that Shirley has got her power back by now. We really do take things like electricity for granted. A lot of the coast are still out of power and the latest they have been told is by midnight tomorrow. Poor sods. Many of the people in affected areas are those from poorer household and they have no ideas of how to get things sorted for themselves. The poshies who own big waterfronts will also be doing it tough. Many are still worried their houses/mansions will fall into the Pacific Ocean over night. They are probably holed up in more exotic places and have power, but who knows.

As it has been yet another freezing cold miserable day with winds to match our moods, we stayed close to the heater and did very little again today.

night all xxx

Worth checking Deborah, fans don't use much power .... if it's a plug in the power point job, you could run a long lead from the fridge to the heater ...... but it might be a very long lead 'cause I have no idea how your house is laid out

T1 Terry