It really poured down this New Year’s Eve. A good test of my drain. And the result is a big FAIL.

I even dreamed about house renovations. On waking up I went and checked downstairs to find the water slowly seeping in through the floor. I don’t think the water is coming in from the side from where I’m trying to drain it away from. The bottom of the drain doesn’t seem to have much water at all. I think it is just the water table rising on my section and the downstairs room is the lowest part, so not much the drain can do.

Not much water in there

I made a homemade drainage pump from the bits of my old dishwasher. I wanted it to pump right out of the room. The hose reached and I knocked a hole in the wall for it, but the pump was just not capable of pumping all the way up to ground level. So, instead I used my empty garden clippings wheelie bin as a reservoir and used buckets to keep that from overflowing.

That’s a 240 litre wheelie bin, and I had to keep taking bucket loads out to stop it overflowing, so that would have been easily over 250 litres.

Isn’t it dangerous mixing water and 240 volts? You bet!!! Notice I was using an RCD, but still I don’t recommend doing this at home. Especially when the drain hose comes off and water starts going everywhere. Fortunately I didn’t electrocute myself.

I think my plan now is to cut a hole in the floor, dig a sump, and get a more powerful drainage pump installed permanently.

That’s a good crop of cat growing there.

I finished my ditch. This runs along the side of my house and (I hope) redirects the water away from flooding my downstairs room. Originally I planned to dig down 1.3m, but soon realized that is a epic amount of work and wouldn’t have led anywhere for the water to drain away. So instead I have a 0.5m ditch which slopes down to the front lawn. I recommend Avondale Central Landscape & Garden Supplies. They delivered my 1m³ of scoria and my drainage coil for a reasonable price hassle free. Wheel barrowing it in of course was a back aching job.

Brian brought this mouse inside to play with under my bed at 6am this morning. After chasing it all round the house I caught it with a rubbish bin and killed it with the Michelle-approved technique.

About three months ago I had a look at the Consumer Powerswitch website and compared the electricity prices for my (fairly low) usage. My old power company, Genesis, was in the middle of the pack, although I was on their “Household” plan when I would have been better off on their “Classic” plan.

According to Powerswitch I would save $158/year by changing to Energy Online or $130/year changing to Powershop.

I choose Powershop mostly because Energy Online is not able to read my “smart meter” remotely. Powershop can, and now it is doing this daily I can easily get an up-to-date accurate idea of how much electricity I’ve been using. Also, Powershop accepts payments by online banking which I prefer over paying by credit card; it has the highest Consumer customer service rating of all the power retailers at 92%; and finally I was intrigued by Powershop’s “power market” pricing model and it’s open API for developers.

By “power market” I mean Powershop does not have fixed tariffs for the electricity it sells. Instead the price per unit changes during the year. Power products can be bought in arrears or in advance for specific months. It is cheaper to buy it in advance, and there are also limited special deals which are even cheaper and worth watching out for. This is not the wholesale electricity market that the big players buy their power from, though the prices should reflect what’s happening there. Powershop provides “Standard Power” products and other partners provide products with carbon-offset or rugby-supporting extras.

To keep track of changing power tarrifs and usage Powershop has a pretty cool website, and iPhone and Android apps. It has an API for developers which I have been using to develop my own PowerMonitor tool. When I was asking around about Powershop before switching it was called “the power company for geeks”.

But, has Powershop been cheaper than Genesis? Just doing a rough calculation based on April/May last year and April/May this year, Powershop is about 2 cents/unit cheaper than what I was paying last year, but I’ve used more electricity this year.

These figures really are very rough: they don’t cover exactly the same periods; May’s bill last year was an estimate; Genesis has put its prices up since then; Powershop has cheaper power in summer and more expensive in winter. But at least I think it shows I’m not paying more since having made the change over.

Give the Consumer Powerswitch comparison a go and see what it recommends for you.

If you’re interested in switching to Powershop let me know. There’s a promotion running until 31 July where I (or any Powershop customer) can send you an invite which will give us both a $50 discount.