Storm Éowyn

Delphin said:
Now we as photographer know about a trick of the lens, so I'm pretty sure the BBC website image is not accurate, I highly doubt the coast is being hit by waves that big

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It probably is accurate but it won’t be just a wave on its own. It will be a wave crashing against a wall. Images like this are shot at Porthcawl lighthouse all the time.

Using a long lens compresses the scene making the person appear close to the wave than he/she really is. It also makes the wave look a lot bigger than it actually is.
 
Just realised, we've not heard of @lindsay, as far as I can tell, since last night.

Hope he's ok, I know that part of the world got battered.
 
I live in West Cumbria and it's been a bit blustery all day.... Spotted a couple of tiles that had blown off roofs when I went to buy a paper this morning.... Went to town before heading up to my mothers with her shopping and have never seen the town centre so quiet on a weekday. Walking up to her house I spotted a couple of trees where big branches had fallen down and some wooden fence panels that had collapsed, but no real major damage....
 
We survived the tempest but have been without power since 4am yesterday, we got mobile signal back about 9pm yesterday. Limited signal though so not worth tethering a laptop to the phone.

It is pretty cold but no snow here, we have the log burner going full blast!
 
We finally got our power back about 2pm Sunday, so were cut off for about 54 hours. We had heat in a couple pof rooms courtesy of Calor and logs, but it was head torches and candles throughout and not too comfortable. Many trees down in the area but thankfully none of our own this time, and only one more roof slate lost. I really need that roofer to get round to us!
Back to normal now and catching up.
 
lindsay said:
We finally got our power back about 2pm Sunday, so were cut off for about 54 hours.
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More than 2 days without leccy is a long time. We used to get a lot of (2-5 hour) power cuts, and I seriously considered a generator at one point. Might be worth having one in the garage if your area is susceptible to storm damage.
 
ancient_mariner said:
More than 2 days without leccy is a long time. We used to get a lot of (2-5 hour) power cuts, and I seriously considered a generator at one point. Might be worth having one in the garage if your area is susceptible to storm damage.
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I'm considering a portable power station. It would serve 2 purposes for us, one at our summerhouse/hide the other for powercuts, which we seem to be getting more of here.

I do see a caveat with a powerstation though and that is that it might not provide power for as long as a generator.

I'm looking at the Anker Solix C800 but not fully decided yet.
 
Home battery storage is probably a good idea. It's seemless and can be combined with solar to maximise savings. Not that cheap but it's quiet and doesn't need much in the way of attention.
 
I'm considering similar, I was thinking more like a Tesla PowerWall although that would cost £7-8000, but there are slightly cheaper similar things, all depending on the consumption you might need to cater for. At present a UPS for the router, with a backup UPS to cater for longer outages, these to power the router and "landline" phone base station plus a laptop. I need something wired in for the oil burner igniter and pump and one of the fridge/freezers (we can potentially move stuff from the house one to the garage one). I'm not planning a solar installation as I'm concerned about the RF noise their inverters often generate (as I'm a radio ham) but there's no doubt it would be helpful. I can't afford it in the near future though, and wonder whether it will be value for money given the amortisation period of the investment and us not being spring chickens. But I may get a couple of quotes to see - we get a lot of sunshine (contrary to general belief) in NI, and climate change will increase that.
 
lindsay said:
I'm considering similar, I was thinking more like a Tesla PowerWall although that would cost £7-8000, but there are slightly cheaper similar things, all depending on the consumption you might need to cater for. At present a UPS for the router, with a backup UPS to cater for longer outages, these to power the router and "landline" phone base station plus a laptop. I need something wired in for the oil burner igniter and pump and one of the fridge/freezers (we can potentially move stuff from the house one to the garage one). I'm not planning a solar installation as I'm concerned about the RF noise their inverters often generate (as I'm a radio ham) but there's no doubt it would be helpful. I can't afford it in the near future though, and wonder whether it will be value for money given the amortisation period of the investment and us not being spring chickens. But I may get a couple of quotes to see - we get a lot of sunshine (contrary to general belief) in NI, and climate change will increase that.
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Most of the battery systems seem to start at 13kWh now. In the old days they were about 4 or 5 which wasn't very much at all. Power wall 3 is coming out so maybe an older 2 might be had for less?
 
Well this one seemed pretty mind for me, maybe better sheltered from the wind direction? Anywant no more trees done (not thats theres many left).
All I need to do now is figure out what to do with 36 loaves of bread and 48 pints of milk......
 
swanseamale47 said:
Well this one seemed pretty mind for me, maybe better sheltered from the wind direction? Anywant no more trees done (not thats theres many left).
All I need to do now is figure out what to do with 36 loaves of bread and 48 pints of milk......
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Bread and butter pudding?
 
lindsay said:
I'm considering similar, I was thinking more like a Tesla PowerWall although that would cost £7-8000, but there are slightly cheaper similar things, all depending on the consumption you might need to cater for. At present a UPS for the router, with a backup UPS to cater for longer outages, these to power the router and "landline" phone base station plus a laptop. I need something wired in for the oil burner igniter and pump and one of the fridge/freezers (we can potentially move stuff from the house one to the garage one). I'm not planning a solar installation as I'm concerned about the RF noise their inverters often generate (as I'm a radio ham) but there's no doubt it would be helpful. I can't afford it in the near future though, and wonder whether it will be value for money given the amortisation period of the investment and us not being spring chickens. But I may get a couple of quotes to see - we get a lot of sunshine (contrary to general belief) in NI, and climate change will increase that.
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We are in our early 60's and decided that the investment of a solar/battery system of around £15K would mean we wouldn't see any return. If we were younger then maybe....
 
I think the question for us is around two things - amortisation period and resilience in storms. We do get a lot of windy storms here and fairly regular power losses, so I want to do something to keep the lights on anyway so to speak. If a £15k investment gives us that peace of mind, and repays half of the cost in 5 years, I'll be happy. The latest cut cost me a day's pay and a couple of takeaways and about £20 of logs, but saved me about £8 in electricity. On that basis, and with the frequency of power loss, I would estimate payback in 15 years, without any reduction in my normal electricity charges. If we had a midweek outage, it loses me pay which I really don't want.
 
I'd be making a trip to Screwfix (only because I couldn't see any Toolstation branches in NI!) if I were you, Lindsay. Payback could be within a few hours if it kept you working during a cut!
 
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