• I love to cook and have halved my cooking gas bill . . .
My new air fryer has halved my gas use & bill I received this week.
(In June I wrote about how I bought an air fryer this year when heavy rain leaked into the kitchen and broke the gas oven, here.)
Electricity for the air fryer is from my off-grid solar and costs me $nil.
Now, with the confidence of cooking so many different meals with it I'm disconnecting from gas this year.
With it I’m able to quickly cook such meals as: scrambled eggs, omelettes, chips, roasted and fried veggies, toast. Because just a tablespoon of olive oil or other liquid is needed there is less oil in the meals and the individual cooked elements - chips, veggies, etc - are more articulated or separated so the taste and health of the food is improved and heightened.
Dish washing and cleaning is about a quarter of what it used to be - no baking or other oven trays and dishes and saucepans to clean now.
Some questions and answers about this change:
Q What happens when I have 3 out of 7 days of stormy weather with no sunlight How do I power things - a generator?
A The batteries give the house (with three people there) enough power for about 7 rainy days
Q How much did the solar system and the air fryer cost
A The solar system cost $26,000 in 1996 and the same power size today costs about $900 to 1100. In 1996 no one had installed a solar system in the heart of Australian cities and the solar industry was tiny - solar was very expensive, but now with many houses installing solar the cost of solar is dramatically lower and affordable for most of us in Australia. The air fryer was on special at $209, reduced from $310. The batteries were installed in 2015 at a cost of $9,000. The solar and batteries are anticipated to last about 30 years depending on how they are used.
I love to cook and cook at least twice a day.
I use the air fryer at least 3 to 4 times a day depending on how many are at home. Cooking is now much cleaner, quicker and simpler and I enjoy it even more.
To disconnect from gas I need to replace the gas cooktop with an electric induction cooktop.
Thank you, lovely, generous sun.
Michael