I remember as a child we used to turn off the main switch for the power supply when we went on holiday. I cannot imagine anyone doing that any more (or unplugging the TV from the wall (as we were advised to do).
I have been known to switch various circuit breakers off, but that has become more difficult over the years as more devices need to be kept powered.
Boiler - fed from upstairs ring, needs to be left on (with timer in holiday mode) for hot water on our return and for living room heating (for our cats) and frost protection, if we are away over Christmas.
Home server, satellite box, answerphone - fed from downstairs ring, need to be left on for access to our email (and files), recording pre-set programmes and receiving phone messages while we are away.
Fridge/freezer - fed from kitchen ring.
Upstairs and downstairs lights - fed from two lighting circuits and needed for whoever is feeding our cats and keeping an eye on the house.
Burglar alarm - on its own breaker.
Garage and shed alarms, security lights, kit-car battery trickle charger
- fed from a garage feed.
All in all, it hardly seems worth turning what's left off!
People used to do the latter every night, as a result of fires from "instant start" TVs that left a lot of circuitry on when they appeared to be off. And continued when the practice was discontinued. (The first colour TV I bought was a Sony 18" in 1978. That didn't need instant start as the picture came on in 5 seconds or so.)
People used to unplug the aerial in thunderstorms too. I don't know how necessary that was either.
That's because everybody now has a refrigerator/freezer. I don't know how old you are but in my day very few people had either.
Another Dave
Dangerous to unplug during the storm. Tne aerial might get struck while you were doing it. My inlaw's aerial was struck, tv a right off and also the
13 A into which it was plugged.
I tend to unplug PCs and other "sensitive" equipment during a storm that is less than a mile (5 seconds) away. I started after I lost the PSU in my PC due (presumably) to a power surge from a lighting strike somewhere in the area - there was a big flash and bang from down the road and the lights went out for a second. No sign of burning at the PSU - just wouldn't turn on any more. I was quite proud that I had a spare and was able to remove the old one (unplug several leads to motherboard and one to each disc drive) and fit the new one, and have the PC going again within 10 minutes - I know it was
10 mins because I have a weather station that logs data every 10 mins to software on the PC, and I didn't miss any of the 10-min data points.
I turned of the gas and burnt the gas in the pipe and when I came back and turned the gas on the slam valve tripped....stupid or what? ...
do you remember the thrill of the first ice lollies from the tiny freezer in the new 'fridge?...
I can trump that with a direct strike to the phone line just outside the house.
Modem fried. Replaced under 'lifetime warranty' Answering machine fried. Junked Serial parallel card in computer fried. trivial to replace Laserjet attached to serial parallel card also fried. repaired 'under warranty' when I told the HP man I had no insurance..
then into the mains and
- unearthed socket blown out of the wall.
- colour TV fried - scrapped as BER. It was a cheap ex rental set.
- parallel tracking turntable damaged, but repaired
- holes burnt in carpets where mains cables under the carpet crossed mains cables above the carpets.
and finally
- insurance invalidated until the landlord completely rewired the place (on the insurance).
Thankfully I wasn't at home. My Irish neighbour said 'he had heard a wee bang'
I got away pretty lightly all things considered
In the 50s and 60s we had a gas-powered fridge! It was very reliable.
Anyone know how efficient they were compared to an electric fridge of the same era?
If my memory serves me right gas fridges are/were horribly inefficient compared with electric ones.
Probably because TVs are far less likely to burst into flames these days :-)
I suspect no more inefficient that generating electricity for an electric fridge? And they warmed the kitchen in the winter.
I think, even then (50s, 60s, ?) they were significantly more expensive to run than an electric fridge. ... and "warmed the kitchen in the winter" also means made it very hot in summer.
Well, it all depends on what you mean by isolating. As most people in them old days had videos, I doubt anyone has done it for many years. Sadly there are many reasons for fire breaking out in unattended properties and only one of them is faulty electronics. Brian
Most caravans have a tri-fuel fridge.
Powered by the car's 12V when in transit.
Powered by a mains hook-up when available.
Gas-powered when a hook-up isn't available.
Hook-ups are expensive even when available so efficiency isn't important in a caravan. In addition even when on electric they don't use a pump but operate the same as on gas.
Another Dave
Given that LPG is used for heat in either a cooking or hot water or central heating context, I am actually curious to know how does a fridge manage to cool its contents on a gas thats meant to be burnt and releases thermal energy?
S.
Chris
About a factor of 7 worse.
Compressors really are the way to go, if you're paying premium rates for your energy source.
Paul
How much do you pay for gas and electric in Canada ?
I had an Electrolux fridge that could run on any source of heat. Very handy in those parts of the world remote from electricity where they could run on Kerosene and keep drugs, snake anti-venom and other stuff cool.
They were very popular here in the UK until about 30 years ago. Dead quiet, which was their selling point. It could have run on gas (electrolux sold a kit for that) and all the houses on this estate (1971 to 1978) had an extra 1/2 inch gas point for a fridge.
When I was a Lab technician in a LOndon hospital we had one and it leaked all the ammonia one weekend. We had to call the fire brigade to go in and remove it with breathing apparatus. Good job the lab block was archaic and had no air-con of any sort.
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