Going electric - part one
The other week the kitchen powerpoint where we boil the kettle broke. The plastic cracked and the switch no longer switched. This left us with one working power outlet in the kitchen including the one the fridge is plugged into. A suboptimal situation.
After frying two power boards trying to make breakfast, we called the sparky and they installed two double outlets, and we're now enjoying a kitchen with a luxurious four (4) power outlets.
This episode has prompted us to do something about the kitchen as a whole. It's very tired and a bit gross. Especially unspeakable is the gas stove—one of those cheap all-in-one enamelled Westinghouse units—because it's impossible to clean behind.
The stove is the only plumbed gas appliance we have. Gas cooking doesn't use much gas, so our gas bill is nearly all connection costs, amounting to about $1.20 a day. In fact, we use so little gas our last bill was 100% connection charges.
$1.20 a day is $438 a year, which is enough for about 14 small Swap-n-Go gas bottles. Our barbeque, which we use a lot, goes through one of those bottles about every three years. Conclusion: the gas connection is terrible value for money.
The reason we use so little gas is because a little while back we bought a portable induction cooker - a Breville which cost us about $120. We use it instead of the gas, occasionally turning on a gas hob if we want to, say, cook rice while something else is cooking on the Breville. Every now and then we use the gas oven to roast potatoes, too.
The Breville has given us a chance to familiarise with induction cooking and convince ourselves we would be happy with it. Unsurprisingly, yes we're all good with it. The real issue has been finding the brainspace to start the kitchen project (we have already saved up for it) and we also weren't sure if we could connect more electric things in, this being an old flat.
But then a solution presented itself: recently, someone bought the flat above ours and she replaced her kitchen before moving in. She kindly showed us and explained how the electrician extended her switchboard to accommodate the extra electric appliances she wanted, which were a four-zone induction stove, an electric oven, and a reverse cycle split system.
This is very useful because our flat is practically identical to hers. So now we have the same electrician quoting to expand our switchboard and disconnect the gas oven. From there we'll move forward on the kitchen itself and will be enjoying the extra $1.20 per day, plus whatever scrap value we can get for the gas oven.
Finally, while I apologise for making an energy dork post, I am me and this was inevitable. Stay tuned for part two.
