EVERY night on television, just after the only worthwhile part of the main news bulletin of the day, the weather, there is now an item called The Power Bulletin. Basically, the message is always the same, switch off everything except your television. If I were a social columnist that would be another subject entirely. However, I need to speak about energy saving and its effect on the environment.
The need to save power is obvious. Apart from the actual cost to us, the consumer, there is the cost to the environment – less power means less power generation, which means less coal, which means less…you get the message. Eskom tells us that by switching off your hot water geyser at appropriate times you can save up to 40 percent on your power bill. We’ve experimented and it seems that having the geyser on for just two hours a day is sufficient for our needs (there’s just the two of us) and saves about 20 percent in monthly usage. Try it.
One sure way to save power is to use a little invention that has been around for ever, the hay box or slow cooker. We’ve used one for years on an almost daily basis, and all it is really is one large cushion filled with polystyrene chips covered with another such cushion. Our current one is called a songimalilo and was bought locally. The idea is that you get your food going on the stove, stew, veggies, whatever, give it a good, quick boil then snuggle the pot into the bottom cushion and cover it with the top one. It will now keep slowly cooking for hours until you are ready for it. No fuss, no bother, no electricity.
Well, we’ve just come across something similar called a peka dome which is very much the same idea. The dome is a foil-lined fabric frame tent under which one places your boiling pot and it all behaves exactly the same way as our songimalilo. They come in different sizes, or on order if you need something special (I was told about one charity kitchen that saved 40 percent on their electricity bill by using huge peka domes). They also fold up for convenient storage, something our songimalilo does not do. If you are interested contact Tegwyn at 083 4227415.
On a completely different note, a reader tells me that he had the surprise of his life the other day when he flicked open the power box of a friend’s swimming pool. A snake popped out, bounced off his sandalled foot and disappeared into the garden. He didn’t identify it, but he did describe it as ‘just as surprised’ as he was. He went on to say that one night a while back he went to switch on the outside light in their garden, slid open the little trap door, felt something very ‘juby’ inside, and it too turned out to be a snake. It would seem that electricity needs to be avoided, unless really needed. Cheers!
