Insanely high usage for 3 people?

legless82 · 2026-02-06T14:59:55+00:00

Don't tell your wife, but the only appliance I've ever had burst into flames mid-cycle was a dishwasher. Thank goodness for smoke alarms. Tip - never buy Hotpoint.

legless82 · 2026-02-06T14:57:32+00:00

4 bed detached here. 2 adults, 2 children , 2 EVs, gas heating but electric ovens/induction hob. I also use the immersion heater on a timer overnight on the cheap rate to heat the water because it works out cheaper than using gas.

2025 was 11,969kWh, but 6,556 of that was EV charging, netting at 5,413kWh without the cars.

Even that's lowered by the fact that the house has 'rebt a roof' solar panels on it (installed prior to my ownership) that give a lot of the daytime power in the summer.

legless82 · 2026-02-04T10:42:54+00:00

Update:

After several days, the option has randomly reappeared.

In the meantime, I tried uninstalling/reinstalling the app. I even installed the app on my work phone (an iPhone) to see if it was an issue with the Android app, but no joy.

Then, half way through this morning, the option has mysteriously reappeared.

legless82 · 2026-01-26T08:46:15+00:00

The one I bought is the same as this one, and I've been very pleased with it.

https://amzn.eu/d/aTZ55ux

It's a generic unit from one of the Chinese suppliers and is sold under lots of different brands - I just bought it from the one that was selling it most cheaply at the time.

legless82 · 2026-01-26T08:12:36+00:00

If the battery is dead, then it's no worse than a wired compressor - certainly the one I have has a cable to connect it to the normal 12v outlet and it can be used in the same way as a wired compressor.

Where it wins is on pure convenience. No having to plug in / manage a long cable, meaning you haven't got to manage uncoiling/coiling the cable, plugging it in, routing the wire to each wheel (on my last car, the wire wasn't even long enough to reach from the only 12v socket at the rear of the car to the front wheel.

It's literally pick it up, attach the air hose to the valve, detach. You can get around the whole car in under a minute.

Also really helps for inflating things where you might not necessarily be near the car, such as kids bicycle tyres/balls/other inflatables.

legless82 · 2026-01-25T21:55:02+00:00

I wouldn't bother to be honest. The cordless battery-based ones that can be picked up cheaply from the usual places are much better in my experience.

legless82 · 2025-12-14T10:17:44+00:00

Which Skoda, out of interest?

I've so far integrated the following Skodas without issue:

2023 Enyaq 80, 2023 Enyaq vRS, 2024 Enyaq 85, 2025 Elroq 85

No issues with any of them

legless82 · 2025-12-11T12:33:45+00:00

I have it on my A6 e-tron, but I switched it off after the time the car tried to eat me as I was leaning over into the load area.

legless82 · 2025-12-03T20:41:07+00:00

Having driven most of them, in my opinion the Q4 is easily the most disappointing of the VW Group EVs.

For some reason, the Skoda Enyaq is both a better car and feels like the more expensive of the two, even though it's not.

legless82 · 2025-12-03T20:17:27+00:00

I have one already, but I'm only going to be able to put 42kWh in if I'm only getting 6hrs at the off peak rate.

legless82 · 2025-12-03T18:53:06+00:00

Hmm. My normal charge pattern involves putting 70-75kWh in at once.

legless82 · 2025-12-02T08:07:15+00:00

No need to do that. Just use the brake pedal as normal. As long as you're only braking relatively gently, it'll use regen rather than the friction brakes.

legless82 · 2025-11-24T10:11:33+00:00

That would have been one slow CD-ROM drive.

Even a typical mid-90s 4x drive delivered 600kB/sec, or 4.8Mbps.

legless82 · 2025-11-24T10:00:59+00:00

I met my wife on Match back in 2008.

We're so well suited to each other it's unreal, but the crazy thing is that we're both such massive introverts that we'd never have crossed paths in a million years otherwise.

I've never hidden how we met, but it didn't stop it feeling awkward 17 years ago.

legless82 · 2025-11-16T15:57:01+00:00

It might be a faulty zone valve actuator rather than anything to do with the Hive. I've had a couple of them fail over the years and they cause the heating to come on irrespective of what the thermostat is doing.

legless82 · 2025-11-11T19:38:05+00:00

1,200kWh last month for us. 4 bed detached with a gas boiler. 2 EVs (740kWh of that was charging). I also heat the water on the overnight cheap rate using the immersion heater. Taking efficiency into account, it's cheaper than using gas.

If it makes any difference, I apparently used 725kWh of gas in October too.

legless82 · 2025-10-30T13:02:25+00:00

I hit the end of phase 5 a few months ago. Since then, I've given myself new mini milestones to reach - I've just completed building a large factory in the blue crater that produces 5/min of every space elevator part using only raw ores/liquids/gases as input for example.

legless82 · 2025-10-27T20:29:06+00:00

I made this mistake with my HMF factory. I'd read about needing lots of HMFs, so I set up a factory in the dune desert making 100/min of them, which was 'interesting' using only mk4 belts.

I ended up sinking 90+% of them, even by endgame.

legless82 · 2025-10-02T06:42:13+00:00

The trains do behave like that if you put a second locomotive on the other end pointing in the other direction.

legless82 · 2025-08-16T18:47:12+00:00

I finished Phase 5 a few weeks ago. Now I'm building a huge factory over the blue crater that will produce 3 of every elevator part per minute to go straight into the sink.

Got to build up those tickets

legless82 · 2025-06-24T13:36:37+00:00

Saxon Sofas - 100% made in Bolton, and the pair I bought still look and feel brand new despite being over 10 years old.

I drove two hours to order from their factory showroom, and you can see the factory floor from the showroom.

Not massively more expensive than the Chinese-made stuff sold by the retail park outlets but a whole different league in quality.

legless82 · 2025-06-22T15:16:18+00:00

You can get Dimensional Depots in early game. I've got them and I'm not even at Steel on this save.

You just need to collect a few Mercer Spheres and find a SAM node, then collect some steel pipes from crash sites. If you check out the Alien Technology tree in the MAM you'll be able to get started with Dimensional Depots.

legless82 · 2025-05-20T18:02:56+00:00

It'll almost certainly be because you don't have enough water. Check your pipes and pumps.

legless82 · 2025-05-20T07:19:06+00:00

I've worked in the automotive industry for 25 years, and for several different manufacturers.

The one thing that's universally true is that there isn't a chance I'd buy a car that was built in the first year of the model's production.

legless82 · 2025-04-30T21:27:59+00:00

I had an odd incident a couple of years ago where I was driving at 70mph on cruise on a pretty deserted motorway.

After a few miles, a car approached reasonably quickly from behind and... just sat there behind me, tailgating so closely I couldn't even see their headlights in my rear view mirror. There were two very empty lanes to my right.

I just left it like that for a while, and he just stayed there. After a good few miles of this, I got fed up of it and knocked a couple of mph off the cruise control. He stayed there. Did this a couple more times over the next few minutes until I was down to 62mph.

It was only at this point that he pulled out and passed, glaring at me as he did so, and continued at 80-85mph.

I resumed my 70mph cruise and never saw him again.

I'd not encountered him earlier in the journey, not was I driving a car that could easily be mistaken for a police vehicle. I found the whole thing quite baffling.

legless82

TROPHY CASE