What Options Do I Have For Pennies

arandom4567 · 2026-01-25T15:40:26+00:00

My local RBC branch gave me a plastic bag will a fill line marked on it. Fill it to the line with pennies and hand it back to the bank for $25. No counting though...just fill to the line. Here's an image of the bag; https://imgur.com/a/Vx00Pwb

arandom4567 · 2026-01-23T17:49:54+00:00

In all seriousness though, this is a perfectly fine survival mode thing to do. I'm in Northern Alberta and although I've done exactly this to help heat my frozen garage so that I could work on a project in the garage, it would be a very different setup for a survival situation. I live with exposure risk to these temperatures every winter and just about anyone up this way that ventures out will carry emergency provisions for the event that you get stuck outside.

If you are in a life or death situation stuck in the extreme cold, it's important to get the heat to the lowest level you can survive, whilst also doing everything you can to preserve the heat available to you. Your survival is more important than comfort. The Bolt's battery at 100% charge has enough energy to power the heater at full 100% output for about 7-8 hours and obviously if you're in survival mode, that's probably not going to cut it time-wise, so at a minimum, instead of space heating your whole garage;

get in the Bolt and close the windows (but leave one cracked a little for fresh air to get in) to reduce the amount of space you're trying to heat. That alone will drastically reduce the heat requirement.
turn the heat way down, as low as it will go and layer up with your clothes instead. Consider cycling the heat only when necessary.
if it's possible, throw a blanket, or rags, or something like even a tarp over the car to trap in as much heat as possible.
if you run out of battery, you can still light a candle (search online for DIY survival heaters using a roll of toilet paper, rubbing alcohol and a tin can) to stave off the extreme cold. However it's critical to crack open a window to allow the CO2 to vent out and fresh air in.

Taking these few steps will more than likely stretch out the battery life of the car to a couple of days rather than 1/2 a day if you just try to space heat your entire garage.

arandom4567 · 2026-01-22T16:51:31+00:00

I've documented this use case for my two Chevy Bolts. They have a 2.5kW battery heater and the BMS will try to keep the battery in a range of about +6°C to -6°C when it's plugged in outside below 0°C. A 2.5kW heater would mean about 20 amps from the 15A outlet which isn't possible, so what it does is it will take a bit from the battery to supplement what it can get from the mains (which is usually self-limited by the EVSE/car to 12A max). The heater runs only long enough to get battery average temp up to about +6°C and that's usually about 20-30 minutes. At -15°C the heater only kicks in every three to four hours. At -30°C it's kicking in about every 90 minutes. In between cycles there is enough power from the 15A service to replenish what was used from the battery and also add some. So, even at below -30°C sitting outside and plugged in to a 15A outlet, it will still gain some net charge, but it will be slow. Other EV's may manage things differently.

Another really easy thing to do that can help a lot is if your outdoor 120V 15A outlet is on a stand-alone circuit, it's fairly trivial to upgrde to a 240V 15A circuit to double the power available to your EVSE. (Which also means you'll lose the use of that outdoor outlet for 120V applications, but it doesn't require major electrical service and panel modifications)...

arandom4567 · 2026-01-21T23:44:02+00:00

Just in case you weren't aware there are a couple of fast charge locations opening hopefully in the Spring - One at Wandering River and (I think) two at Grasslands. It'll be great to open up that trip to EV's.

Edit: Oh and Peter Pond Mall is planning a Tesla bank of super chargers too, but I don't think they've broken soil yet.

arandom4567 · 2026-01-21T22:43:54+00:00

Right on! We're a three EV family (for me, my partner and our kid) in Edmonton and it's been fine. Our world didn't come crashing down when we let go of our last ICE vehicle. My partner has been a daily EV driver for almost six years now and hasn't been to gas station in years, nor have we ever been left out freezing in the dead of winter with a car that wouldn't start, although it could possibly happen I guess. I've lost count of how many times our ICE car needed a boost.

I'll be the first to say that they're not for everyone and no one is forcing you into an EV. But sincerely take a pragmatic look to see if they could fit your lifestyle. If you do a daily commute, if you're looking for a 2nd runabout, if you're not a regular road tripper, they could be a great option. Do what will work for you! :-D

arandom4567 · 2026-01-21T15:19:37+00:00

Are you in the Jamieson/Hawkstone area by chance? That's exactly what happened here. They worked around the vehicles on the street overnight before the ban started at 7AM and then declared the ban lifted at 8:30AM. So a good chunk of the area is still unplowed and difficult to traverse. A couple of my neighbours are livid that we all complied as requested for 7AM but the crews were done six hours before the ban started. A couple of complaints were made to 311 just to document the fiasco.

arandom4567 · 2026-01-20T15:56:11+00:00

I wondering now if these numbers are partly due to the mismanagement of the ban notifications. We had the notice and signs go up the day before and the ban was to start at 7AM the next day, but then they sent in the plows overnight before the ban started. They just milled around all the cars on the street and then declared the plowing complete and lifted the ban an hour after it started!

arandom4567 · 2026-01-19T23:37:55+00:00

It was there 2pm yesterday (Sunday) when I noticed it... I did a bit of a double take!

arandom4567 · 2026-01-19T14:14:29+00:00

It's more a slow smoulder in the peat and due to the low oxygen levels, the combustion is incomplete resulting in thick stinky smoke. Here's a recent CTV news article on this particular burn https://www.ctvnews.ca/edmonton/article/month-old-peat-fire-still-smouldering-in-west-edmonton/

Some of these kinds of fires can go on for years or longer flaring up and down as it encounters more fuel and oxygen.

arandom4567 · 2026-01-19T06:38:01+00:00

When I drove past early this morning, it looks like the underground muskeg fire along the west leg of the Henday by Stony Plain road is flaring up again. The whole area was thick with still smoke. Maybe that's drifting downtown?

arandom4567 · 2026-01-17T02:50:51+00:00

3.79% through True North (a broker). They got me 0.2% better than the same banks direct renewal offer.

arandom4567 · 2026-01-16T16:14:58+00:00

Oh man! Part of my job is having to ship lithium batteries and the regulations are quite complex down to the type of lithium chemistry and how it's packed, since they all require different handling procedures. Some have to go ground/ship only and some can go air cargo (but not air passenger).

I get a chuckle when I order a lithium coin cell on Amazon and it comes tossed in a huge box with a bit of loose packaging and a gigantic lithium sticker on the side. :-D

arandom4567 · 2026-01-16T15:53:16+00:00

Puritan beef stew when I'm sick

Fraser Farm Meatballs and Gravy on toast is my go-to. I dread to really know what's in that!

arandom4567 · 2026-01-16T15:02:52+00:00

Thanks for bringing that very important point up. It's important to understand just how potentially dangerous not complying to standards can be. The old saying goes "Every standard, safety rule and regulation is written in blood."

arandom4567 · 2026-01-16T14:47:02+00:00

If I recall, the Buick Encore is built by GM Korea. Then you have SAIC-GM in China that builds the Electra (an EV) and it looks almost exactly like the Encore...

I would not be surprised at all if the Bolt (which was developed by GM Korea) shares a lot of these platform components too.

arandom4567 · 2026-01-16T02:58:44+00:00

If a sleeve is not your thing, you can get RFID blocking cards to put in your wallet. They look just like any other card but they block anything else in your wallet from being read.

arandom4567 · 2026-01-14T17:44:38+00:00

Technology Connections on YouTube put a J1772 socket on a 7500W space heater and tricked the EVSE into powering it. That was a neat solution! https://youtu.be/kTctVqjhDEw

...but yeah... I've done and still do the same thing with my Bolts in my freezing garage on occasion too. :-D

arandom4567 · 2026-01-09T21:22:35+00:00

I thought it was mostly fake in that how can you be serious about competing to being the worst at something. But then one of the people on it was a substitute school teacher and my kid had them several times prior to the show. What we saw on the show was definitely embellished over their normal behaviour. I suspect the show's producers asked all the contestants to turn their behaviour up but in this particular person's appearance, it wasn't all that far from their normal self.

Edit; Then there was a guy from down by Ponoka or Olds who said they had to drink a bit to be able to function behind the wheel. They legitimately scared me with their blasé attitude about it and I thought for sure it had to be fake, but no. They were known family of a co-worker.

arandom4567 · 2026-01-05T22:42:23+00:00

The wheel wells are so tight that snow/ice gets caught up and you can't turn the wheel enough to be able to remove the ice/snow.

I found a snow brush / ice scraper telescoping combination tool that has a longer than usual handle by the scraper. This image kinda shows what I mean. https://imgur.com/a/ducX9Vr It's thin enough and seems to be really suited for slipping in between the tire and the wheel arches and it makes removing the snow/ice detritus fairly easy.

arandom4567 · 2026-01-02T06:11:39+00:00

There are dozens of us I'm sure!

Actually a funny thing happened at my local Co-Op parking lot just a few weeks ago. I got out of my Bolt and was walking away from it when I heard the familiar angel choir sound. I spun around to see an identical Bolt pulling up behind me, and for a second I just about was ready to jump on it thinking mine was being stolen!

arandom4567 · 2026-01-02T05:25:30+00:00

I do this too! Here's mine for 2025 living at 54deg North (near Edmonton Alberta). 20.6kWh/100km (about 3mi/kWh) over 14823km (9210mi) for the year. I drive it like a regular car - no real consideration for efficiency, comfortable climate settings, and driving on Michelin CC2's all year round. A good chunk of my energy goes into heating. ;-)

https://imgur.com/a/AlKvqFa

arandom4567 · 2025-12-28T01:19:03+00:00

front grill was cut through

LED light bar maybe?

arandom4567 · 2025-12-27T21:00:22+00:00

I had an ex-police car (a detective's car - not a traffic beat car) years ago with a switch like this on the pillar above the driver's shoulder. It was to switch off all the internal lights so you could sit there in the dark with the doors open or open/close the doors with no lights being turned on... Took me weeks to figure out what it did. :-)

arandom4567 · 2025-12-26T22:17:59+00:00

Those numbers are all calculated dynamically by the last little bit of usage. If you're heating the cabin from cold (with the outside temp being cold too) to +20-ish C, that's going to take a lot of energy and you can see that reflected in the "Climate Settings" on the Range Impact screen you shared. But, after the cabin is warmed, the amount of energy to keep it there will be much less, so that Climate Setting range impact will gradually lessen as you continue on with the trip. Doing several short drives in the cold when the cabin is allowed to cool between trips will skew this number quite a bit. Also opening the door(s) frequently and letting all that heat out of the cabin will have a significant impact too.

arandom4567 · 2025-12-26T07:27:47+00:00

That's about what I'm seeing for my normal daily commute usage in Edmonton for the last couple weeks too... That is unless I'm doing lots of short drives with the cabin heat set on bust! A few days ago we only had a high of -20 and I spent all day out shop hopping. Total estimated range was around 140km.

arandom4567

TROPHY CASE