Hi and welcome to Electrify Everything Oz – EEO. This is a place where (hopefully) you’ll find information about and connections to electrifying as much of your life as possible. The more appliances and old technology we can convert to electric the better for the planet and us.
The intention at the outset is to be a place where you can find information on electrifying everything. We’d also like this to be a place where you can recommend what’s worked for you and others on your electrifying everything journey.
Everyone’s journey to electrification will be different, but there are common themes that will be of help to many.
This is my electrify everything journey so far…
2014 ish – Installed a 4.5 kw solar system on our roof
2020 – Installed another 24kw solar system with two 10kw batteries. Yes, he was a very good salesman. I talked to a couple of other homeowners who had installed large domestic system to verify the effectiveness. One of these people was an accountant who crunched the numbers. The other was a builder. They both agreed that the more panels they installed, the better the numbers got. It makes sense as all the trades are already there. Then installing any extra panels is much more cost effective at that time and I’ve never heard anyone tell me they regret how much solar they have latter.
2020 – Replaced our gas hot water service with 3 heat pumps. 2 mid sided for our home and an extra for our granny flat.
2023 – Bought a new electric car. We looked at buying a second-hand Japanese electric one and did some number crunching. Eventuality we decided it was worth the extra cash and took possession of a new Red MG ZS EV in late January 2023. We haven’t installed a fast charger at home. Instead, we rely on trickle charge during the day to utilise our solar panels. After 4 months we’ve travelled 5000kms. We’ve only needed to find a fast charger once when we took a road trip to country Victoria. We are lucky that I can plug the car in at work if needed, but that’s usually only once a week.
2023 – Started using our spilt-system air-con (heat pump) for home heating. We missed an opportunity 4 or 5 years ago when our gas heating unit failed, and we replaced it with another gas unit. I’m still kicking myself about this. These days we use the air-con for heating when we can. Sometimes I’ll put the gas heating on for 10-20 minutes to heat the house up and then switch over to the air-con. Especially if there’s only 1 or 2 people at home. We can shut off the living area and be nice and warm in there with only the heat pump / air-con.
That’s our electrify everything journey so far. Hit me up if you want to know any more about our experience and we can chat.