What's the elephant in your room?

In my ideal dream world I would love to live an off grid existence, I know it isn't likely to happen but it sometimes makes me look at things with a view to how I would manage if I ever reached that aim.I've been looking around the house at the electricity usage of different appliances and weighing up whether they justify their current existence in the home.

These are all the things that are used in each room.


Living room   

• 17" combined tv/dvd player tv for playing dvd's (used a couple of hours some nights)
• mini hi fi system ( this could go as I can play cd's on laptop or tv and it is not used daily)
• laptop (currently used on battery during the day and charged at off peak time)
• (black and white) laser printer (could live without if I had to)
• lamp (could live without if I had to as have oil lamps and hurricane candles)
• broadband modem (would hate to lose this!!!!!! but currently I could always use free wi-fi in town)
• battery charger (need this for our rechargeables - although could look into a solar one,if we had any sun)

Bedroom 1

• Sole electrical gadget in here is a lamp which I could do without if needed.I like my bedroom to be peaceful so no gadgets.

Bedroom 2 (Sophie's room)

• small tv/dvd player 
• lamp
• hair straighteners
• hair dryer
• laptop/wireless printer
• phone charger
• digi photo frame

Everything except the lamp will be leaving with her shortly, when she gets her own place.

Bathroom

• electric shower (we use this several times daily as I do not heat the hot water)
• small wall mounted heater we don't use

Hallway, front and back porches

No appliances used in these areas

Kitchen 

This is where all the baddies hang out, although to be fair I have reduced my gadget stash considerably over the past couple of years.I still need to work on it though. If I had a Rayburn or Aga I could get rid of several more regularly used appliances, like the slowcooker, remoska, oven,kettle,breadmaker,dehydrator  etc as it would be able to do all those tasks as well as heat the kitchen and possibly the hot water.This is a rented property though so that isn't going to happen either.

• Oven/cooker (I maximise use of this)  
• A plus rated fridge (the elephant in the room!!)
• A plus rated washing machine (would hate to do without this)
• A rated dishwasher (use this every other day on cheap rate electric,and for sterilising jars and seed trays lol,would have to heat the hot water several times daily otherwise)
• Food processor (use this a lot) 
• Slow cookers x 2 (would not want to do without)
• Remoska (very useful and economical)
• Hand blender (would not want to do without this)
• Mincing machine (could do without)
• Panini press/ grill (could do without,have promised to Sophie when she moves out)
• Bread maker (could do without, and probably won't replace when it breaks)
• Slicing machine (could do without)
• Iron (handy for ironing quilting blocks :)  )
• Kettle (could do without as also have a stove top one)
• Toaster (could do without)
• Combi microwave (could really do without but do find it useful)
• dehydrator (could do without but do use)
• hand whisk (could do without but do use)
• yoghurt maker (could do without but do use)

I will include the two chest freezers and the hoover in the kitchen list as they live in the shed but are really household items.

• chest freezers ( would not want to do without)
• steamer /hoover (could live without if we got rid of the dog..... or the carpets)

Funnily enough of all the large appliances in the house the one I could probably easily live without right now is the fridge. I have a built in larder cupboard in the kitchen which is well cold enough to chill things and most of the things I do keep in the fridge don't really need to be kept in there.It really is just a handy well lit preserves cupboard  with cheese and butter in it  :(   Might have to give that one some thought, I feel quite narked now that it is sitting there using electricity 24 hours a day and not really performing much of a service, I could just unplug it......

The other kitchen gadgets are only used for short periods of time occasionally or are very economical like the slow cooker and remoska.Whilst I am not living off grid they can stay for now but when I find they are not being used regularly I will declutter them, and I will try and not bring any more gadgets in..............


In an off grid life I would probably only be able to run a fraction of these appliances from some sort of generator,whether it was petrol,wind or solar powered, so what would be my priorities?


For me, presuming I would then aquire an Aga type cook stove/woodburner, it would be the following in order of preference;

1. Freezer
2. washing machine
3. laptop/modem
4. handblender
5. battery charger

Everything else can be got around in another way, by using hand powered tools and more labour intensive routines. At a push I would forego the freezer and washing machine but I really wouldn't want to. I would also have to invest in many more canning jars if I had no freezer to store our produce in.

So what electrical appliances do you have just now that you could happily do without if you had to? What would be your top five for keeping?