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Ask HN: How do I/you prep for the energy crisis in EU?

• YesWeWill 4y ago
  Bought some coal for the winter months. Also going to use wood - but I have enough of my own.
• dimensionc132 4y ago
  • qaq 4y ago
    it's not about "Zelensky" people support a nation fighting for it's freedom from colonial power gone mad.
  • martythemaniak 4y ago
    Amongst the many conceits of people like you is that there is such a thing as "enough". If only you give Putin X (Crimea, Donbas, Ukraine, Moldova, Baltics), he will calm down and everything will be alright. The only 'enough' an empire knows is when it collapses.
    • thematrixturtle 4y ago
      But appeasement worked so well last time in 1938, when we gave Germany the Sudetenland and satisfied their desire for Lebensraum once and for all! And I'm sure we could have avoided all that unpleasantness in the Pacific if the West had just recognized Manchukuo as well.
    • dimensionc132 4y ago
      Where is your outrage against Israel who shell and attack the Gaza strip and who steal land from the Palestinians in the West Bank? Where is your outrage when the USA attacks a foreign country with impunity and kills tens of thousands of "collateral damage" civillians in order to gain access to oil and gas resources or strategic trade routes or military positions? .... all i hear is your silence But when Russia does something to protect their border, ooooohhh, big bad russia.... must punish with useless sanctions that only hurt EU and the rest of the world. Like the German Green Party member Annalena Baerbock who does not care if German people freeze and die in winter because a foreign countries conflict is more important than her own people. " I will put Ukraine first “no matter what my German voters think” or how hard their life gets. " Zelensky is a puppet for the USA and will never relinquish this failure of a war against Russia, regardless of how many Ukrainians die in the process, because 1) he is receiving essentially and endless supply of arms and military aid from the US and 2) his ego won't allow it.
      • arkitaip 4y ago
        At least have the decency to not pretend that you actually care about the Palestinians or any other group of people suffering under oppression.
        • dimensionc132 4y ago
          the history of mankind is mired in war and conquest, it is an inescapable part of what makes us human (sadly). What i don't like is fake outrage and hypocrisy from Zelesnky zealots who seem "ok" with thousands of civilians dying because one actor/Prime Minister can't understand when he is beaten. If Russia really wanted to, they have the arsenal to level and completely destroy the Ukraine and its infastructure, but they don't. Instead of understanding this fact, Zelesnky continues to "poke the bear" and continues this useless war with ever more fervor. Sometimes you have to know when you are beaten for the greater good of your countries citizens.
          • _kbh_ 4y ago
            > What i don't like is fake outrage and hypocrisy from Zelesnky zealots who seem "ok" with thousands of civilians dying because one actor/Prime Minister can't understand when he is beaten. The Ukrainians are fighting for the very existence of their country and people, the Russians commit genocide regularly in Ukraine and regularly kill and rape civilians. > If Russia really wanted to, they have the arsenal to level and completely destroy the Ukraine and its infastructure, but they don't. Instead of understanding this fact, Zelesnky continues to "poke the bear" and continues this useless war with ever more fervor. The bear is not getting poked, it's getting destroyed right now, in this month alone Russias losses have been staggering. Ukraine is clearly winning back large amounts of territory now with the counteroffensive. The Russians have melted in the face of a slight resistance. Who knew that the Russian army was incapable of taking a cities a mere couple hundreds of kilometres from its border?, they are a joke compared to what the world thought of them prior to the invasion this year. > Sometimes you have to know when you are beaten for the greater good of your countries citizens. Should tell Putin this before the Russians roll out the T-55s. I don't think they are far off it.
  • bearjaws 4y ago
    Is this like a cold take? I think you're marking the crisis worse...
  • jotm 4y ago
    Yeah, fuck Putin's Russia.
  • BoxOfRain 4y ago
    Because appeasement worked so well in 1939?
  • badpun 4y ago
    Putin, but cutting off the gas without any warning, only showed everyone that relying on Russia's gas so much was pure insanity in the first place. Now, Europe will pay the price for that stupidity. Hopefully, it won't be that high and things will come back to normal in a couple of years. BTW, I wonder if US is paying attention. It's no longer 1940s when the US manufacturing output won WWII, now the US are mainly people sitting in offices, managing production that happens in China. What happens when the tensions between US and China get really serious? If China decides to cut off US's corporations from their manufacturing base, the US is just a bunch of people in offices sending slack messages to each other... That does not win wars.
    • splistud 4y ago
    • wbsss4412 4y ago
      The US is still has the second largest manufacturing output in the world. This also isn’t the 1940s anymore in the sense that, while the world and the US are particularly dependent on China, China is also dependent on the rest of the world. Supply chains are global and span multiple countries for even basic items.
• wschfdkbrmcdf 4y ago
  It's not too late to invest in mining and energy extraction equities - many are still highly underpriced before the major funds roll into the sector
  • dewey 4y ago
    I'm sure that will keep you warm.
    • qwerpy 4y ago
      Barring a sudden, total collapse, money is the best prep once you have the basics covered.
    • deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    • TheGigaChad 4y ago
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • hamstrung 4y ago
    What are some examples of equities to look at?
• qbasic_forever 4y ago
  Make plans to take a 2-3 month vacation to the southern hemisphere.
• sAbakumoff 4y ago
  There is no any crisis if u don't read the news.
• ice3 4y ago
  Installed solar power last year and an air source heat pump. My pellet burner is still going to be the main source of heat/hot water though. Got pellets at the start of the year (with only 80% premium over last year, now the prices are 3x of what they used to be ), have wood to offset use of pellets and even some coal [just in case]. Replaced every bulb with LEDs from IKEA. Set all rooms in the house to 18-19 c. Going to heat my home office/bedroom to 20-21 c only during the day/while being there.
  • atemerev 4y ago
    In my case the problem is that I literally can’t work (meaning, program) if the temperature is less than 22C. Warm clothing, hot drinks, nothing helps. Tried many times. Hope that electric heating will still be legal.
    • throwayyy479087 4y ago
      Yes you can.
      • jotm 4y ago
        Lol yeah, it's like how I say I can't live with these health problems. Yeah, I can, it turns out. Our bodies can take a loooot more stress than we think.
      • elil17 4y ago
        Decreased comfort = decreased productivity. On an individual level people can cope but on a societal level it’s a real issue. I want a society full of productive people so I want investment in clean energy supplies and high performance buildings.
      • kuschku 4y ago
        No, many can't. Yes, you can live and survive at colder temperatures, but concentration requires no distractions, and the constant slight pain caused by being cold is enough distraction to completely derail any train of thought.
• desindol 4y ago
  I started by nailing up my windows and adding two layers of bubble wrap to the wall. Every family members has 7 liters water per day (drinking included). Eating will be done mostly cold. /s
• nyokodo 4y ago
  It may be a wise time to discuss consolidating households with family/neighbors so you need to heat fewer structures, you can spread the cost, and you can pool resources. If it’s not necessary, great, but if it’s bad enough you have a plan.
  • fullstop 4y ago
    If you do this, make sure to drain the taps so that they don't freeze and burst.
• Workaccount2 4y ago
  Are people actually going to freeze? My understanding so far is that industry will freeze (as needed) so that all the reserves can be used for people. I get a feeling that this crisis is becoming more media-gorging-on-crisis-clicks than it is an objective analysis.
  • rjzzleep 4y ago
    Industry doesn't freeze as needed. It freezes indefinitely. Once something is out of business it's out of business and will either be outsourced or bought up by bigger fish. When industry dies the social safety net dies, it will happen when the Euro looses its value, in which case money printing will no longer be possible without hyperinflation. And a devalued Euro is only useful if there is still an industry left to export things. Once that happens people will actually freeze.
    • cpursley 4y ago
      A lot of people still don't grasp that de-industrialization is already happening. In Europe, major metal smelters, chemical manufactures, etc are already off line or shutting down soon. And the way factories work, you can just shut them down and fire them back up at a later date - they need to run continuously. Additionally, these are not only large employers, but greatly contribute to the tax revenue which support the generous welfare states. It's not looking pretty. https://www.ft.com/content/46d3c3fb-e79a-464c-afe1-7079d3e4f23c https://www.ft.com/content/46d3c3fb-e79a-464c-afe1-7079d3e4f... https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-09-17/energy-crisis-worsen-as-rally-hurts-europe-s-industrial-giants?leadSource=uverify%20wall https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-09-17/energy-cr...
  • johnchristopher 4y ago
    France has a plan and that plan has multiple steps and phases and the last one involves some electricity blackouts for citizens but it's the very last step. So far. France has the capability to selectively cut off some neighborhood from the grid and they plan to do 2 hours rotations if need arises. I don't know if they are going so far as moving people out of their house to gather them in a larger building that is easier to heat. Quite frankly, I don't expect to hear about the real plans before mid-october.
• gred 4y ago
  Realistically? Just steel myself to pay more for heating the house and everything else.
• atemerev 4y ago
  I have a fireplace at home. Perhaps I might want to go seek some wood for it. Everything will be fine though, unless there are widespread blackouts, which I doubt (Switzerland’s electric energy balance is sane enough).
  • fullstop 4y ago
    Most of the heat from a fireplace goes right up the chimney. I don't know what your options are in Switzerland, but a wood stove or a fireplace insert might be worth looking at. If you have a supply of wood, of course.
• dougmwne 4y ago
  It highly depends on the energy mix of your country, but some countries may actually be in for a difficult winter. You can store energy of course and even hoard it which increases the problem. Here in Poland first there were 2 week lines for coal and now there is none. Pellet has gone up in price 3x. Electric price has gone up 2-3x. Gas supply is in question. The government has said to burn anything for heat you can get your hands on which means low quality coal, peat and trash. Even if I have energy, my lungs would pay the price. Some people are running the numbers and realizing that they can temporarily move to a warm country for the price of their heating and electric bills.
• MattPalmer1086 4y ago
  Same as you really. Turned off an extra fridge we could live without. May turn off some other devices over night, but as they're all energy saving they probably won't make much difference. I did get a massively reduced bill last month though. The only thing I can really ascribe that to is only filling the kettle with minimal water, and getting my son to turn his gaming pc off when he's not using it!
  • mupuff1234 4y ago
    > and getting my son to turn his gaming pc off Can set a "Hibernate if idle after X minutes" instead.
    • MattPalmer1086 4y ago
      Good idea...
  • dougmwne 4y ago
    I have been seeing this meme about the kettle recently. I ran the numbers and you are talking a few cents per boil even at current energy prices. You’d have to be drinking truly epic amounts of tea to see it affect your electric bill.
    • dspillett 4y ago
      > You’d have to be drinking truly epic amounts of tea to see it affect your electric bill. That was based on comments from the outgoing UK PM. I don't drink the stuff myself, but “epic amounts of tea” is not an unusual concept amongst many of my friends over here.
    • MattPalmer1086 4y ago
      I do drink epic amounts of tea! But I'm sure it really isn't responsible for the vast majority of my energy usage. Its the only real change I made though over the last month, so not sure why my usage has dropped...
  • dspillett 4y ago
• delaaxe 4y ago
  For those of you that are location independent, where are you moving for the winter?
  • YesWeWill 4y ago
    Looking at Tenerife south...
• TheMerovingian 4y ago
  I no longer live in the EU, but one of the habits that I've taken with me is canning. Pickles, tomatoes, green beans, etc. It just requires salt, vinegar, the veggies, and some jars (and space, obviously). Solid addition to any meal. More on this, I grew potatoes recently in my garden and stocked them in my garage. A tote of potatoes can last a couple people for months. It requires potatoes, some sand and a cool, dark place to keep it all.
• jotm 4y ago
  I already use as little as possible, so I don't prepare. I do want a solar installation for myself though.
• Tenoke 4y ago
  I bought an electric blanket so I can warm myself in a cheaper way at least part of the time.
  • dougmwne 4y ago
    This is a good idea. Also you can do things like use a radiative electric heat dish and point it at a high backed chair to create a little heat bubble in a room and not heat the whole room.
• hprotagonist 4y ago
  Beyond your personal life space preparations -- build out your literal social network. Who do you know who is old and frail and might need looking in on? Who do you know who has very young children? Who do you know who is good at cooking? Who might need food? Who can coordinate getting it to them? Who do you know who has a big enough house to host a warm potluck meal over the winter every week or so? Do you have enough people to rotate houses? Look for what in the US is sometimes called a mutual aid group. If you don't have one: pick two friends, make one.
• teekert 4y ago
  My country (Netherlands) has 80% of it's gas supplies ready to go if I can trust the news. I have just moved into a poorly insulated house but I'm not too worried. We can always move into our caravan which we can heat on 600W if really necessary but you know, perhaps some thermo underwear? I already always had the temp at 19 deg C so 17-18 should be ok with a blanket on the couch? In bed I don't mind 10 deg C. So far, until December gas has gone up for me about 2x (now 1.67 eur/m3 or so? Whereas electricity is at 0.48/kWh, so up about 2.4 fold compared to 2 years ago), meaning about 300 eur/month for gas, ~150 for electricity which is not a real problem for us... yet... I guess for January 2023 the price may go up much higher...
  • me_me_me 4y ago
    There is some hope for gas prices, as other countries are steeping in to replace russias' (hopefully permanently)
    • teekert 4y ago
      The Netherlands is sitting on a big gas field [0], but we were in the process of winding down production because of houses getting damaged in the area. A time will come when production will be ramped up again I think, perhaps when it has become economic to just compensate all damages. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groningen_gas_field https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groningen_gas_field
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
• out_of_protocol 4y ago
  If you plan to use electric heater, switch to AC - regular heater or whatever have efficiency of mere 100%, while AC is a heat pump and can transfer heat at 200-500+% efficiency
  • dougmwne 4y ago
    This is quite good advice. The trick that that the portable AC units most people have in EU require an open window for the vent tube and create a positive or negative pressure which can push all your savings right out the window. If you have a split wall unit with a heat exchanger outside then you are in good shape.
  • dijit 4y ago
    Could you elaborate a little on this? I have a free-standing air-conditioner that I got because temperatures hit records this year, are you saying I should put the cold side of it outside and pipe the tube into my home? Split A/C units (like ceiling mounted ones) are uncommon in most of Northern Europe residential buildings..
    • dougmwne 4y ago
      Unfortunately those free standing units create a pressure differential and you will see all your hot air pushed outside. The split units use a fluid line to the outside to exchange temperature, so you would need one of those.
      • Brometheus 4y ago
        They are awesome and in Germany you can get up to 45% installation cost help
• throw_a_grenade 4y ago
  I'll probably be playing https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frostpunk https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frostpunk.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• m00dy 4y ago
  just booked my tickets for Turkey, will stay there for couple of months
• bartmika 4y ago
  Awesome website I discovered on HN a while back. Here's the link to the heating tag to checkout various articles that could help you. https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/tag/heating-and-cooling.html https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/tag/heating-and-cooling.ht...
• giuliomagnifico 4y ago
  I don’t (in Italy). Since I’m a bit forward looking and exactly one years ago (August 2021) I switched my electrical and gas contracts to fixed prices (for 4 years, another 3). So I’m paying the same as one year ago. Obviously I’m always thinking about saving for others, but I don’t necessarily need it! Funny thing is that one year ago always was saying me “a fixed price will cost you more, font do it”. Now I’m laughing, there were all the signals of the rising of energy prices.
• senko 4y ago
  In the process of installing roof solar (which I would've done this or next year even if the energy prices didn't spike). Also, expect to allocate larger budget for gas & electricity bill. I do expect the govt. to cushion the blow for consumers tho, so I'd be surprised if my bill ended up 600% up, but it won't break the bank.
• BurningPenguin 4y ago
  I'm not that worried. My flat is heated by a gas heater, that is supplied by a tank somewhere outside. That thing only has to be filled up occasionally (idk how often, maybe once a year or so?), so i'm usually just paying for the price the landlady paid for it. Also, my flat is properly insulated and loses very little heat. Power might be a bit of a problem. I don't think it's going to go out, of course, because my little corner of Germany is connected to a bunch of hydro and solar power plants and there is the nuclear power plant "Isar" only a 100 km from here, which probably will be running if things go bad. But it's the price i'm worried about. There is some legislation coming up, that may help with that, though.
• obayesshelton 4y ago
  Buy a small reactor from Rolls Royce.
• fullstop 4y ago
  How is your insulation? If you want to live with something slightly dangerous, one candle is about 80 watts of heat, and enough of them will heat a room. Moist air heats better than dry air, so be mindful of the humidity and maybe add a humidifier. Not one of the ultrasonic ones, they are garbage -- especially if you have hard water. You want an evaporative one with a wick and fan(s). With that being said, it's easier to heat yourself than it is to heat the living space, so bundle up!
  • ajross 4y ago
    > Moist air heats better than dry air This is sort of true, but only because the density of humid air is lower, and thus the heat capacity (though IIRC the specific heat of gaseous water is actually quite a bit higher than N2/O2, which takes back a lot of that benefit). There is no meaningful change in heat conductivity given that the medium is a (highly convective) gas, obviously. The overwhelming majority of the energy used to heat your "living space" doesn't go into the air anyway, it's used to heat the walls and floors and furniture which make up the bulk of your home's mass. Being able to heat the air around your candle rapidly doesn't change anything, because that air will just cool down when it hits the ceiling.
    • fullstop 4y ago
      Dry 18°C air _feels_ significantly colder than humid 18°C air. Doesn't humid air also retain the heat longer than dry air? As for the air cooling down when it hits the ceiling, this is true.. for a period of time. In an ideal situation you have a significant amount of insulation on the other side of the ceiling which inhibits thermal loss. In my case, I have a heat pump and electric resistance backup. A few years ago I added a whole-house humidifier, which made my home feel significantly warmer at the same set-point and reduced the amount of electricity that I used each month under similar weather conditions.
• ubik_ 4y ago
  While Gas heating may be rationed, I doubt electricity as a whole will be so: - Move to more energy efficient dwellings - Get good insulating windows - Get an AC/heat pump - Substitute old appliances with more modern and efficient ones - Get an induction stove, much more efficient than a gas stove - Thermal clothing does wonder. - You can easily sleep in a cold room if your bed is properly insulated, if you are still cold consider heating your bed with an electric heater. - If you take frequent showers/baths, consider doing some of them with cold water (which has a lot of health/cognitive benefits btw), for baths you can easily install a filtering/reflow device like the one used for small pool, insulate the bathtub, for showers simply use less hot water / less water in general. - Almost all EU states should have programs in place to ease these sort of upgrades
  • YesWeWill 4y ago
    My state has published plans for electricity usage limits just today. It would be really weird if we were the only ones.
  • fknorangesite 4y ago
    > if you are still cold consider heating your bed with an electric heater. Even just a hot water bottle would go a long way.
• dougmwne 4y ago
  I stayed in an unheated apartment this weekend in the mountains and it was truly cold. We ended up building a little tent over the bed with blankets. This make me realize that the curtained canopy bed may be making a comeback.
  • ajross 4y ago
    Yeah, this is miserable by modern standards, but it's not really that big a deal. Wear a ton of layers. Get a space heater or equivalent, close the door, and heat one room to something tolerable (10C/50F, say). You can do that in typical winter weather with just a few hundred watts, so even a gaming PC will probably work.
  • zeroth32 4y ago
    Electric heating blanket works pretty well.
    • dougmwne 4y ago
      Oh how I wish the Airbnb had one! We will be taking our space heater with us on trips from now on.
• Havoc 4y ago
  Nothing really. My apartment is quite warm for reasons unclear to me. Maybe residual heat from neighbours
  • dspillett 4y ago
    > residual heat from neighbours I miss the old lady who used to live under me. My winter heating bill increased when she left for hospice care and a skint young'n' moved in!
  • endorphine 4y ago
    Which means that if they turn off their heating, you'll be affected too.
• MaxPengwing 4y ago
  Scandic Northerner here. I've made sure I have rice several kilos, a couple of bags of dried legumes like lentils, and beans for proteins, and a few boxes with crushed tomatos. For lights everything is LED, and I have bought 20+ camping gas stove cartridges for my itawani stove. A 100+ of candles for power outages (3-5 boxes of 30 normal Duni long candles) and about 400+ paraffin tea candles. Live in an old thick stone blrick building with insulation, but still buy thermal underwear if you font have it and get used to wearing layers of clothing.
• motohagiography 4y ago
  If you can get access to a consumer grade FLIR camera (I have an old Cat s60 phone, but there are standalone devices you can connect to phones available), you can find areas in your house or apartment that are leaking heat and then apply additional insulation material to those areas with some heat reflecting material on them.
• reacharavindh 4y ago
  Writing from Netherlands that has one of the highest Gas/power/fuel prices in the EU. 1. I live in a large three story townhouse. Admittedly too big for my family of 3. I’m going to leave the top floor unheated (I have under floor heating, so I can turn it off on a per room/floor basis). 2. Turn off my PC when not in use, and most other appliances. 3. Switch to a shower for my little one that enjoys the bathtub and hot water :-( and shorter showers for us adults. 4. Generally keep the temps lower than what we used to. 5. This summer I already replaced the radiators with under floor heating. I could not get hold of a air to water heat pump yet because eod the supply chain. At some point that will help close off Gas at home. Switched from Gas stove top to induction. 6. Solar panels will be installed in December/January(earliest I could get someone to install on the roof)! Not sure what else I can do..
  • drukenemo 4y ago
    Also in the Netherlands in a similar-sized house. I like your idea of turning off an entire floor (in my case the top floor where we sleep), as heat goes up anyway. Just not sure if this is possible to set up with a heat/water unit (warmtepomp).
• MaxPengwing 4y ago
  You actually can store energy. But it depends on if you have a house or an apartment, but you can get a Goal Zero or Jackery "off grid power station" which is basically a large power bank. That can keep your most essential tools like phones, or small camping coolers cold for days if you have medicin that needs to be kept at a stable temperature (certain proteinbased medicines or like just noraml insuline are temperature dependant). for heating energy, you can just get like i did several camping stove gas cartriges or just go off and buy a Propane tank, which will last very very long.
• peckrob 4y ago
  Disclaimer: not in the EU, but have lived through some natural disasters that involved power loss for extended periods of time. So this is some kind of general advice. If you own your home and you haven't already, do an energy audit [0]. Pay especially close attention to window and door seals. These wear out over time. You can lose a surprising amount of heat through these, and they are very inexpensive to fix. If you have ducted HVAC, check the ducts for leaks as well. Adding additional insulation if possible will also help. Figure out what your biggest energy sinks are. In most homes the HVAC is the biggest power draw. After that you're looking at major appliances like stoves, washers and dryers, refrigerators, water heater and the like. If you can replace these with more energy efficient versions, it may be worth considering. For ones you can't, figure out ways to use them less. Close off areas you aren't using. If you have rooms in your home/apartment that are largely unoccupied or only occasionally occupied (like a home office), close them off and consolidate into fewer rooms. If it gets especially cold, close the vents if you have ducted HVAC, seal the doors with tape and put a blanket at the bottom of the door. This will help further seal the heat into the occupied areas. But be careful that you don't cause pipes to freeze by doing this. Stock up on foods you don't need power to cook. Shelf-stable canned goods are a good bet. It won't be gourmet, but it will keep you alive. If you are in an area that stays suitably cold throughout the winter you could use a cooler outside for food storage instead of a refrigerator. If you have alternative means of heating (like a fireplace) go ahead and prepare to start using that a lot more. Get supplies like firewood or pellets now and, if possible, be sure you have enough to last you through the winter with increased usage. Find the lowest temperature you can tolerate at home, even if that means you may have to wear a light coat inside. Monitor your usage regularly. If your utility provides realtime or near realtime usage information, find that now and get in the habit of checking it often. If not, figure out how to read your meter and check it at least daily. And finally, just try to find ways to not be at home. If you can go work in an office or even a coffee shop, that's a few hours you won't have to keep your home as warm. Try to make your home just for sleeping and adjust the temperature in the home when you are away accordingly. Having a programmable/remote thermostat helps here. [0] https://www.energy.gov/energysaver/do-it-yourself-home-energy-assessments https://www.energy.gov/energysaver/do-it-yourself-home-energ...
• dagw 4y ago
  Following some basic energy saving tips, but most cutting down on other expenses so that I can afford any energy bill that might come my way.
• dspillett 4y ago
  Not a lot really. I've arranged so machines I left running 24/7 previously are off a lot of the time and that I can power them on remotely if needed. One of those boxes used to host backups, those have moved to a single SSD (lower power) in the low-power box that acts as my router and the external copies are still on RAIDed drives. One of the things powered off is the media array (its RAIDed volume is where those backups lived, they still do but are only updated when it is on obviously). I've toyed with the idea of moving more out external hosts, but with their prices going up too and announcements that for the next while UK residential fuel prices will be capped I need to find a little time to run some calculations to see if that would save anything and if that anything is enough to be worth the hassle. I might have the heating on less (mainly by setting the thermostat defaults lower, partly by hitting the boost button less) over winter. Maybe I'll finally replace the old oven. Partly because a new one might be more efficient, though mainly because I've been thinking of doing that for ages as it is ancient and possibly on its last legs. Might get the gas fire that hasn't been turned on for years serviced, so I can heat just the living room at times instead of the whole flat via central heating, though without taking time to work out the maths I don't know if that is likely to make much difference to a small place like mine. Though I do really have to do much, having the luxury of being comfortable enough that the extra cost is only an irritation, not a life changing problem that it might be for people who are struggling financially already, and my place is pretty well insulated.
  • fullstop 4y ago
    I looked into things like that before, but you really need to look at your overall consumption first. For me, it would be like removing a crumb (PC) while the loaf of bread (heating) is still there. The PC is a rounding error compared to the heating, so I would be better off focusing on insulation and preventing heat loss. I am 100% electric, though.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• caeril 4y ago
  > It's not like we can just store energy right? Yes, you can purchase lithium-ion-phosphate batteries, charger/inverters, and high-gauge conductors readily on Amazon and Aliexpress. > Stocking up on foods if the prices increase too much? I mean, you should already have a chest freezer stocked with meats, 500 gallons of water, and 400lbs of dry rice/wheat/beans, as a bare minimum, right? Or are you one of those people who considered preppers "crazy", and deserve exactly what's coming for not procuring basic insurance whilst denigrating the people who did for their "insanity"?
• dzhiurgis 4y ago
  Thinking of getting heat pump washer/dryer and heat pump hot water cylinder.
• moistly 4y ago
  Layering. I live in Canada, where it gets quite cold. I live in an old, drafty house. Like, the wind literally whistles through it. The temperature is kept at 18°C during the day. We wear our wool socks, fleece-lined pants, and several layers of shirts. It absolutely sucks — but it isn’t the end of the world. Edit: TIL that 18°C is positively balmy compared to how some run their houses!
• lamontcg 4y ago
  Central Banks are hiking rates in a panic and that will likely crash economic activity and energy prices will fall again. The current conditions are unlikely to be future conditions in a perfectly straight line. None of the advice in this thread around conservation and solar/etc is bad, though, since reducing your energy bill also helps if you lose your job, but i'd be concerned if you decided to go into large amounts of debt right now. You'll probably get a better deal on that solar conversion in a year or two (provided that you've still got a job and the funds to do it).
• freedom2099 4y ago
  I live in the French Riviera… I don’t remember the last time I wore a jacket…
• t0bia_s 4y ago
  Last winter we switched from gas to wood for heating - average temperature in flat was around 20°C. And we stay with wood this year and next. It's fun, kids love it. And it's relaxing to stare at fireplace with crackling. And that's it. We are used to be economical with energy.