On Fri, Sep 09, 2011 at 10:33:45PM +0530, ss wrote: > On Friday 09 Sep 2011 10:55:03 am Kragen Javier Sitaker wrote: > > Maybe you should share a generator with them as well as a vacuum cleaner. > > <http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_12605_SPM125101348P?prdNo=14&blockN > > o=14&blockType=G14> advertises an 800-watt generator for US$128, which > > should be enough to run one small vacuum cleaner at a time, or light up > > several houses at once. I think those are cheaper here in Argentina but I > > can't point you at websites. How much do they cost in India? > > Nearly 18 years ago I bought a 900 VA (750 Watt?) generator for about 20,000 > Rupees. That is about US $ 400. It still costs about that much. At full load > it uses up 1 liter of petrol an hour
200% is a pretty stiff markup. Maybe it's better quality than the Sears generator? Or maybe some government agency thinks it's more important to foster the local generator industry than for people to be able to run a refrigerator during power outages, so they've imposed a 200% import tariff? Or maybe that's a retail price from a hardware store whose stock of generators dates from 1992? I guess at full load it consumes its own cost in petrol every 100 hours or so, so maybe the cost of the generator is not the main issue. > I can get a desktop computer and fridge plus a few lights to run on it - but > "several houses" would get only about a couple of bulbs each. It depends on the bulbs. 1 watt of LEDs is plenty to read by. A 12-watt compact fluorescent bulb (US$10) lights a six-square-meter room pretty brightly, more than enough for me to find and kill the mosquitoes before I go to sleep. (I don't know why we have mosquitoes in the winter.) 800 watts is 64 12-watt bulbs or so. > >Cleaning rugs with a vacuum cleaner is a lot easier than beating your rugs > >periodically, and the rugs last longer. > > Rugs are exceedingly uncommon in hot, dusty South India. they make homes and > floors hotter. Bare floors are cleaned with brooms and swabbed with a mop. Aha, thanks. I almost never use my vacuum cleaner because of not having many rugs myself. (And consequently I ought to find people to share it with.) Kragen
