Auldwife’s Weblog – Tatties o’er the side

Stoney

Is having to look at his electricity usage in attempt to combat the ever rising price of main grid electricity. Not really something we have to worry about up here, but the way we live up here is something that can easily be adopted by some.

Firstly, all houses on the isle have a 3kw limit to the amount of electricity they can use. Nothing beats a limit to make you sit back & see the things you really dont need and are in thereselves nothing but a waste of fuel.

We dont have electric ovens, kettles, toasters, gadgets, gismo’s.  We cook using bottled gas which costs us £140 per year, hot water comes from either the wind power or the multifuel stove in the lounge.

We run 3 freezers & keep them well stocked up, each year, 1 cow, 2 pigs, 9 lambs & 30 chickens go into the freezer & this is added to in the summer with up to 180kg of freshly caught fish, as the freezers empty I fill the spaces with baked goods to ensure the freezers always run on the most economical settings.

Our electric fencing is run by 3 x 12v energisers, each small unit can power up to 2km of fencing wire, powered by batteries which are charged when we are on wind power using a low voltage charger, this provides more than enough for our needs for 4 pig runs, cows, sheep & ESA .

There are always ways to improve your power usage, you just have to put your mind to it & be open to suggestion.  But yes, we are lucky up here, the isle has its own electricity company, we receive no national grid power what so ever & our quarterly bills are half what you lot on the mainland will be paying, but then we have far higher costs of living overall, so still constantly find ways to make financial cutbacks.