I think I've seen used lighting a total of once on CL. I don't think I live in a large enough metro area, because I tend to see them from larger metropolis areas more often.
There are probably a whopping 35,000 people around me - if I count the two counties my town sets on the border of. Try browsing the "materials" section if your search terms don't show anything useful on the entire sales area.
Just how limited are you electricity wise with that old knob and tube setup? I have the glass style fuses, but at least it's still a 30 amp service box.
I've got a 30-amp fuse box, too. Don't you just love them?[/SARCASM]
So... 30 ampere total house capacity.
When new. I can tell that a lot of the wiring is "a bit" corroded. I'm sure that does wonderful things to the resistance along those wire runs. And, since my wiring type has not been to code for at least 50 and probably 75 or more years, I wouldn't be surprised if any repairs/splices were half-@ssed. You don't exactly see electricians carrying solder pots these days.
It's been a while since I thought about it, but doesn't that reduce the actual capacity, in practical terms? I've also checked my voltage here and there, now and then... And seen figures as low as 104VAC, if I remember correctly. Hmm... I don't remember. If amps equals watts divided by volts... And 120V electrical devices' amperage figures are calculated based on actually seeing 120VAC at the outlet... Am I actually looking at higher amp loads when my voltage takes a sh!t, lol? I'm pretty sure that's a "yes," since switching ballasts from 120VAC to 240VAC effectively
halves the amperage.
Anyway, not counting any of the above... IIRC, my refrigerator tag lists 11.something or 12.something amp load. It's decades old. Great at... not much at all, really. Milk never makes it to the sell by date, lofl. But it works, more or less - and works quite often
. I've got a sump pump, don't remember if it's 1/2 or 3/4 horsepower. But it runs A LOT because the genius that built my house wanted a basement so bad he didn't seem to be bothered by the fact that there's a @#%^ing
spring (barely) under it. A buddy told me that the way you set up a sump pump is to dig a little hole, pour some concrete so it's basically a basin, slope the floor a bit so that water in your basement drains into the pit, then the pump eventually kicks on (eventually... LMFAO) and pumps it out. Mine... It's like 50" or 52" deep, some kind of metal walls, cylindrical - and a dirt floor. This pit fills up (and it holds a boatload of water) around once per half hour. From the looks of the floor and two basement walls, someone put it in after the floor was burst by water pressure (but that's a guess). I know when the power is off, I have water coming in all along the three big cracks in the concrete floor. Anyway, sump pump - necessity, can't do without that.
I really don't like to run at over 80% capacity. That's just an unwritten rule for me. However, I would not be terribly surprised if the above hits that figure (24 amps).
Laptop = 93 watts. When the battery worked, I'd charge it and then unplug the cord. A working battery would be real handy now that I've tripped over that cord and broken something inside the power port. If I'm not gentle when I place my hands on the keyboard, the power connection <BLINKS> - and my laptop is now off. That was a bit of a pain in the @ss when the previous forum software was in use. Now that it has been ????-graded to one that does not seem to have a PM/post auto-save function, I lose four or more posts (that I am working on) per week. But anyway...
I have a forced-air furnace. IDK how many amps the blower uses. It is, of course, 120VAC, so more than I'd like (at this point, one would be more than I'd like, lol). Now I don't run my furnace any more than I need to do in order to keep the pipes from freezing in the Winter. And it's pretty much warmer than that now, even when it drops to mid-30s at night (and the nights when that happen are almost done until Autumn at least). But I probably ought to count its load, just in case.
Microwave... IDFK. 1,200 watts, I
think. 10 amps, rated, I suppose. Higher when the voltage is tanking (although, come to think of it, I have seen my voltage be as high as 113V a couple of times). I do try to eat once in a while. With the raging toothache (and not being rich), it really is "once in a while." But, yeah, I use the microwave from time to time.
I have had fuse-blowing incidents with just the above going. Grow room...?
I saved up for almost three years so I could buy one of those front-loading washing machines. But that SOB died like a week after the warranty did, so that's not currently a factor.
I like to see after dark. I think the CFL where I spend most of the time after dark is a 13-watt one, but it might be a 23- or 24-watt one. I try to use the LED flash on my cell phone when I'm doing stuff in other parts of the house. However, as you can imagine, this is not always extremely convenient. Plus, it's battery is technically not user removable. And the phone is... three years old, I think? Regardless, I worry every time I charge the thing that this will be the time that I remove it from the charger and the battery is pooched. So I've been trying to not use it all that often. <SIGH> but I tend to go just a little(?) bit insane if I cannot read on a daily basis. I can't really see to read actual books any more, so I read eBooks... on my phone. What can ya do, lol?
So let's see... Deduct the above from 30. Now add grow light(s), fan(s), at least one air pump and one aquarium power head (low wattage, I suppose, but must still be counted) if I run DWC instead of that hated soil. Oh, yeah, and since it easily gets into the 90s here if it's nice outside
without running any kind of grow lights, I'd really like to run the window AC, too. Only if I'm home, of course, because that way I can play "haul big buckets full of water" all freaking day long instead of having the sump pump plugged in. I actually wouldn't mind doing that if my shoulders, one arm, and one leg weren't in such poor condition. I could be dumping some of that into my toilet tank and saving a dollar or two each month, probably. As it is, though, it's a wonder I'm not crying half the time
.
That's about it. I actually have a television, but rarely watch the thing. If company comes over... I hope they don't want to see something on it. Or arrive when the sun is going down. Or want something to eat, for that matter (for multiple reasons). But sometimes we cannot always get what we want. Otherwise I wouldn't have had to walk all over town the other night to...
scavage when I ran out of food after I had already ran out of money... I could have taken a cab to do it. (That is supposed to be a joke. Ha. Ha.)
I do occasionally run a vacuum cleaner. Once upon a time I ran an electric coffee grinder now and then - but I burned that up grinding pellatized lime into powder. But I always try to remember to unplug my sump pump AND refrigerator when running something extra, just in case. Because the corner where my fuse box is, well, the floor is one big puddle most of the time. Shame they hadn't placed the sump pump pit over there, huh? So I have HIGH anxiety if I have to go change a fuse. Plus I don't currently own and spares. I've thought about unscrewing them, placing a penny in each socket, and screwing them back in. But, you know... right now my house isn't
on fire - and that seems like a state that I would like to maintain for as long as possible.
The question is fast becoming an academic one anyway. Lately, the thought of growing - or even smoking - cannabis just depresses the <BLEEP> out of me. So IDK if I'm even going to bother again at this point. Besides, if there's anything that I've touched that I haven't screwed up in the last... the last... ever, IDFK what it would have been.
Life. It eventually kills ya - but it likes to kick the sh!t out of you as much and as often as possible for a while, first. I guess it's doing you a favor, lol. That way, when a person finally heads off to take that big dirt nap, it's not like they're wishing they could stick around or anything.
EDIT: From the looks of my service (entry? whatever the thing before the meter is called) cable, though, someone will probably be nice enough to shut my electricity off the next time a lineman comes through the neighborhood.
- and striking up conversations with people at building sites can be productive. It helps to be... Now I don't want to "sound" prejudiced here, or like a hypocrite (you'd have to see me on a good day to get that, ha ha) - but it helps to be dressed in reasonably decent clothes and such. Probably because there are more job-site thefts than there used to be. Anyway, they often end up throwing away the remainder of things like wire, flexible water line, duct wrap, and little bits of wood. Not much per job, just what they'd consider scrap - or an annoyance to have to haul around and keep track of.
. I'm probably the worst offender out of the entire forum user base. I should put "If my off-topic rambling offends you, feel free to let me know!" in my .SIG.