Can a Solar Power Station Save My Family?

My FIRST off-grid battery: Jackery Explorer 1000 v2 First Impressions Review!

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What happens when you try to harvest free sunshine in the dregs of a UK winter? 

I'm unboxing the Jackery Explorer 1000 portable power station alongside the SolarSaga 100W solar panels. With headlines about power cuts, I think I'm starting some "gentle prepping" to make sure my family doesn't moan at me, I mean stays powered up during a blackout.

I walk you through the simple setup of the 100W bifacial solar panels, including how to use the clever sun-target indicator for maximum efficiency. And even try out direct USB phone charging, generating my first few watts of off-grid energy. If you are looking for a portable, reliable power solution for emergencies or garden office use, is this the right place to start? 

Can a Solar Power Station Save My Family?



TRANSCRIPT: (CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE)

THIS IS THE TRANSCRIPT - CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE!

What happens when I buy my very first portable power station and 100W, yes, 100 WATTS of solar panel? What's it like to unbox? Can I just plug it in for the first time? And more crucially, will this be the solution to put solar panels up on the Happy Hut in the background? Hello. Welcome back to Dad Delivers vlog. This is a a big day for me and my family. It's, how can I put this? It's very gentle prepping. There have been lots of really iffy headlines uh recently, especially here in the UK, of vital infrastructure just not working, just things just stopping very suddenly. And it's being presented to us as if it's completely normal. But if it were to happen uh on a bigger scale, I know the first problem for me as a dad would be the family would be moaning at me about I can't plug my phone in. Even though your phone probably doesn't work in a in a big infrastructure shutdown, but I've got to keep my back covered with this. It's the Jackery Explorer 1000. Okay, let's look at the specs, but keep it simple. Under the hood, we've got a 1,070W hour battery. In dad speak, that's enough juice for a portable fridge all day or charging your phone about 90 times, which for my knackered phone is about a day. It pumps out 1,500W of AC power, so could handle coffee makers and even some power tools. Though, I'm not sure I'll be doing that much DIY during a national catastrophe, but it's nice to have that option. I've even tested it by plugging in my Meaco DD8L desiccant dehumidifier in the hut and it seems to work just fine. It's got all the ports we actually use, including a 100W USB-C for the laptop. So, I could do some editing for when the internet comes back on. And when it's empty, it'll charge from zero to full from a wall outlet in under 2 hours. Plus, with this 100W solar panel, we're basically running on free sunshine. Up yours, power company, I'm going to bill my own family! All from a unit that's light enough to carry. Now, I can hold this with with one hand, which is amazing. I mean, it's really heavy. But what I really like about this is its size. And I like it kind of jolly shape and jolly colours as well. I'll be able to find it in the event of emergency in the darkness. So, I might be able to, you know, not trip up on it. But I've also bought these. Let me tilt the camera. The SolarSaga 100. These are 100W solar panels that are bifacial and which open up. So, they're easy to store, but more importantly, they're even easier to put up because they're very light. Let me tell you some more about the solar panels. They are shock resistant. They are waterproof to a rating of IP68 and dust resistant. Jackery explained they are made with the leading IBC technology bi-facial energy generation. I think that means that it can generate power from the sunlight and from reflected light. And they have two really handy carry handles as well. So, uh, that's nice. Makes them really portable. Now, I couldn't quite work out from the videos on YouTube how the solar panels work. of the solar saga 100W solar panels work. So basically this is what the 100W panel looks like and it's magnetic so it folds up really easy and snaps shut. And then on the back they have these two Velcro straps that act as stands. So, if I show you behind here, obviously it' be a lot easier to do this on the ground, but helpfully they're labelled "top" so you know that uh it's this way up and they prop up the panels on the ground. There are I don't know what you call this, cleated holes, so I could use rope, I guess, to hold that in place. Let me know in the comments if I'm uh wrong about any of this, but this is my first impressions having opened a solar panel for the very first time. And there's also this curious device here. It looks like a target with a spot on it. Now, I'm thinking that is some way of targeting the sun. So, the sun at the moment, I'm going to point the camera straight into the sun. Uh it's over there. So, the sun is that way. And I can see from the circle there's like a shadow. So, if I tilt it this way, I'm hoping, can you see there's a shadow cast by that dot? And then you can turn the panels to target the the sun. But I'm thinking if I turn the panels to face the sun. So, I'm assuming this is a clever way. There you go. That's that's bang centre there. That is getting maximum sun if the other half hadn't folded over. It's a lot easier to do this on soft ground. The panels themselves are are really light. It's kind of like if you can imagine this size in heavy cardboard. They really are light. So I think I really would have to chalk them down. If I were to put them up on the on the happy heart, I think I'd really have to kind of lash it to the roof so they wouldn't blow away in the stormy weather we're having at the moment. Now I think the solar panels are called bi-facial that they capture light as well as from the front. the light can pass through and I believe this means that it can pick up reflected light as well. So, it's supposed to pick up more solar to uh generate inter power. It also comes with this lead and I'm going to plug it in for the first time. I've never done this before. So, this really is a test to see how straightforward it is for someone who's new to solar. If I pull this rubber top off, it reveals this socket. On first glance, it has this box on it with two USB connections, USB-A, USB-C, and a light. So, I'm wondering if I could just plug that straight into my phone uh without the need for the power box. So, just to experiment, I've just got the uh the panels out loosely. So, we're going to see if this uh USB output works just by itself. offices panels. There's the output. You're about to plug it into your iPhone. Oh, yeah. Charging. Is it saying how much? And what's the what the number of watts? One watt. It is 3:00. It is an hour before sunset, late November. But we But look, I'm getting a free one watt. So, that works. The only plug that fits this socket is this one here. So, I'm just going to push it straight in. And it looks as if it has a particular way that it goes round. So, it's almost like a figure of eight cable, but there's this notch here. So, I'll make sure that the plug is that way round. I should push it in all the way. Bit difficult to check one handed. That's all the way in. Great. And then I'm assuming I plug this into the power station. And it looks as if there's some kind of adapter. I'll try this one. Right. That seems to look like it works. and so does that one. So, hmm, I don't know why there are two connections. Now, it doesn't actually say in the instruction manual which plug you're supposed to use. What I have found out is that one of these plugs is an 8.0mm plug and the other is an 8.1mm plug. And I can see on the side here it says DC8020. On the cable that goes to the solar panel, there's etched a DC number there, 8020. So, that is the plug that's meant to go into the power port. It would be really nice if that was explained a bit more clearly given the price of this thing. I do not want to wreck it. So, I push it in like that. It goes in okay. Let's see what happens if I stand out of the way of the solar panel so that the solar can reach it. And you can see because it's new out of the box - falling down one of Casper's holes. It likes to bend. So, I'm hoping over time that will open out a bit more so that both panels will face the sun. Only that panel is really super on target with the setting sun here in the UK. So, what I'm going to do now is see if anything is happening on the box. And oh my goodness, the the display has come to life, but it says input 5W. So, am I getting 5 watts from the uh last dregs of the sun? Now, the display's gone off. And I think that's to uh to save power. Let's try press the power button again. See if anything comes to life. Right. So, the the display has come to life. I'm going to try and open up the solar panels a bit further right next to the stinging nettles. Let's pull these back. I've got uh a tree in the distance kind of putting dappled sunlight onto the solar panels. If I just angle it a bit more aggressively towards the sun. Let's see if that improves things. It's gone down. Oh no, it's 6 Watts. I've increased my solar power generation to 6 Watts. This is pretty much the last week of November in the UK where traditionally the sun is probably nearing its weakest. Since I've been filming, the sun is setting behind these trees. There are no leaves on it, but it's enough to probably zap the power. I've got a bit of a shadow from my chair here. Let's move the chair. I got a clump of grass here that's probably not helping. Tread that down. All I need now is for Casper to run up and uh use it as a toilet. And then I think we've got the full set. Let me show you the the dot indicator. Almost bullseye. I won't move it anymore because it is really difficult to manhandle at the moment. It's a bit stiff. So I think that's the best I'm going to do. And I've managed to bring up if I press the power button, I've brought up the input to 7 Watts. This is my very first 5, 6, 7 watts that I've generated in my life. It feels like a a moment. This feels like a bit of a milestone for me. By the way, to charge this up like a regular power pack, you can get the the very nice power cord that comes with it. And I'll just plug the power cord in to the side here. And then let's see what happens. Wrong way. It's lit up. Now, this is completely empty, but you can see that the input is 347 Watts. I was going to put a power meter on. I didn't realize it would actually show it on the display. You can see a percentage and obviously the output's zero but it it looks as if it's giving a uh a rough time for charging. So it says 3.4 hours. There is even a symbol in the corner to show that the power cord is attached. And now we can see it has jumped to 1%. So I've got a while before this charges up. I... I... as I might have mentioned I've really... I'm really obsessed with solar power. Um, and it it just felt like such a expensive thing to to buy. But now that I've... I've got an ability to charge up a phone in an emergency, a phone that almost certainly wouldn't work if we've lost power. Um, I don't know if we'd still have mobile networks, but maybe we could charge up a... a tablet or a laptop to do some local work for local people. Even if the internet has gone down, it does feel good that I've finally provided power for my family and that in... in the unlikely event of a catastrophic uh scenario where infrastructure goes down, at least I won't have the family moaning at me, I'll be able to say, "No, I've got... I've got you 7 watts of power. Enjoy it. This is more than other people have. I feel like I'm providing. I feel like I'm uh creating here. I'm calling this a dad delivers success. Thank you for hitting the thumbs up or the subscribe button if this is helping. I'm now blocking the sun, just losing some vital watts, but at the end of the day, but what I did want to say was all my other videos are right here and this is what YouTube knows you want to be watching next.

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The reality of using a Jerry Can...

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The reality of using a Jerry Can...

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Is a jerry can the ultimate tool for "gentle prepping" or just a massive mess? 

I try to level up my family's resilience by using a 20L metal jerry can for the very first time. After a frustrating experience (thanks South East Water), I am focusing on storing backup water and fuel to get us ready for any minor infrastructure issues.

I walk you through the "idiot proof" classic jerry can design and show the exact moment where it goes wrong. 

The reality of using a Jerry Can...



TRANSCRIPT: (CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE)

THIS IS THE TRANSCRIPT - CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE!

It turns out I really didn't want to make this video. I bought this jerry can over a year ago. I've got it wrapped up for a reason. And this is the first time Oh, I thought there was a nozzle. This is the first time that I've bought and used a jerry can in my life. It feels like I've uh levelled up somehow. But I didn't want to make this video because it just feels so negative. It It doesn't feel good. And to me, it actually feels like you're actually inviting badness into your world. But anyway, I got it now and it's full of fuel. And I really want to walk you through uh what it's like buying and using this for the first time. I originally got this for water. It was to to just have some backup water storage. I've been in a situation where we've had our water cut off. Uh well, it wasn't cut off. It was actually turned disgusting by it turns out South East Water, our water supplier, it was coming out of the taps like this. And when I contacted South East Water, their reply was, "Oh, it's mild discoloration." And it wasn't.

Thanks, guys. Guess we just keep on paying for it then. It turns out, so I called the council, you know, the the the public health guy, and I said, "Look, I've got this problem with my water. this this isn't right, is it? And he said, "No, it's not." And I said, "Well, you know, can we get it tested independently?" And he said, "Well, no, because the water companies do the independent testing."

Do you want to go in the brown water? Yeah. Do you want to go in the brown water? Yeah. So, the water company, South East Water, in this case, would be judging whether or not it water was safe to drink and use or mild discoloration. So, it's been in the back of my mind for a few years, and I I think I really love this as an object, this jerry can. If you don't know about jerry cans, let me give you a quick tour. They're actually a thing of beauty where they're designed to be rigid but light. And they have this carry handle on the top, so two people could carry this or pass them along a row of people. They're stackable. And the lid here, if you pull out this pin, and this turns out, this is really crucial. I didn't appreciate how crucial it was until I was at the petrol station. And you'll see the aftermath of me not appreciating this, but it the pin comes out and it stays it stays attached, which is brilliant. And then when you open the the top, wa there's a bit of pressurization there. You can lift it off, but you don't lose the lid. and it has a pouring spout. And this jerry can comes with an even bigger pouring spout and another spout on top of that to help uh get it into your vehicle. And this spout latches on as well. It also has a rubber kind of grommets. Is that what you call it? Some kind of uh widget in there so that it will stay sealed up. And the same with this lid as well. It's got a protective rubber seal on so that when you do lock it, I know how to do this now because it went horribly wrong at the petrol station. I will show you. And that locks into place. And then I can push the pin in. And this is the bit I found really difficult when I had a big queue of traffic behind me because it it doesn't line up. So I need to line that up first and then that should all lock into place. See, even that that doesn't feel right now. I won't give it a shake. Should I give it a shake? But this is basically what won the Second World War. And it's called a jerry can because the Germans invented it. And uh we just stole the design, which I guess was another win for the Allies. It absolutely stinks. So I got it for some water storage, but it just didn't spark joy. The idea of putting water into this. It absolutely stank of a jerry can factory. And I... I think I probably could have cleaned it with boiling water or filling it with sterilizing fluid or something, but I still just didn't it just didn't feel right to use this for drinking water. So, I got these other bottles here. And by the way, I've got both of these items, the jerry can and the water bottles. I'll put links to them in the description, but I've got this water this pathetic water supply stored under the sofa just in case we need water in an emergency. though. I... I've got five of these plastic bottles and it's not nearly enough. That would that would last us about 20 minutes, I think. But it does feel good that we've got at least some kind of fluid resilience, some resilience for our drinking water. But if you're like me and you want to do just some kind of mild preparation so that you've got some little bit of fall back if something goes wrong in the world for a few days. I think that was the thinking behind it. The other trouble with with prepping, apart from feeling like you're inviting a problem to come to you, is that it's really expensive as well. It's not cheap. Buying all of these these items and then storing them somewhere. I wanted to start with this because just having uh a bit of fuel or access to a bit of fuel might be sensible in the unlikely event that we can't get some fuel or that we're caught short at any time. Then I decided to use this for fuel. And that's where my problems began. And you'll see it on this video now. I think I didn't want to be one of those idiots filling up with fuel at a petrol station at the time where it feels slightly heightened at the moment. And that is the exact time that I decided to to make this video. Uh, at time of recording, the world's oil supplies aren't in the they're not in the greatest place right now, but I really wanted to make this video. And also, I did want to get get some fuel. So, we went to Costco where the price of fuel is is really good. We're members. So, I pay enough per year for that. I might as well uh get the benefits of it. I got my son to to video this just to demonstrate filling up a jerry can for the very first time with fuel. This can is 20L and I'm saving about 20p per litre. This isn't why I did it, but it did mean that I'm actually saving about 4 quid by using uh using the jerry can. And then when it was full up, I thought, well, that's that's great. So, what I need to do now is seal it up properly. And I got a bit flustered because I've got you can't see it, but I've got this massive queue of traffic behind me, waiting to panic by at the petrol station. So, I'm trying to fill it up. I'm tearing the glove, my natty glove, to shreds on the pin, and I couldn't get this pin in. This pin was an absolute whatsit to get in. Um, even now I it it doesn't work. And I I think the problem is you have to you have to run it really dead straight, but when you close the lid, you can't actually run the pin straight. You have to sort of lift the lid up a bit so the pin locks and then you can latch the lid of the jerry can into place. I thought I'd done that. Uh but I hadn't. I was panicking. So I thought the lid's on. I'll get it into the back of the car. And I didn't I didn't check it. And I didn't think that you were able to close the lid with the pin not in place. Turns out you can. And you can actually see the moment where I load it into the car. Uh you can see this big splash there. It goes all over my moma... my moma oat milk is now covered in diesel. And I don't know why, but I know something bad's happened. Let's see an action replay. Uh I don't think you can see there's an actual moment where it splashes all over the car and all over my oat milk. Uh, let's do it again. Go even closer. Splash. There you go. I... I thought the whole point of a jerry can was that it locked and it didn't allow the fuel or the liquid to leak. This this idiot proof design that got us through the Second World War was too difficult even for me at the petrol station. My granddad literally fought in this war where these jerry cans did their thing. And I can't even cope with a bit of mild disapproval in the queues at Costco. So my son stopped the camera at this point. Just at the end of that video clip, you can hear someone from the next queue. So it wasn't someone behind me. She shouted at me quite helpfully. I think she just wanted me to know that the lid isn't on properly. And I said, "Isn't it?" And she said, "No, no, I... I definitely saw fuel coming out of it." And looking at the video, that's what she saw. So again, I was flustered because I just wanted I didn't want to hold up the line any more than I had to. So I thought, well, I'll just check. I couldn't see anything wrong with it. It looked like the lid was on. So I gave it a big shake. Big mistake. The diesel went all over me, the floor, the back of the car. And in this video clip, you can see me mopping up the aftermath. You can see it. Nice big splash on the floor that I've paid for. Lovely. Um, and I'm just I'm still trying to get this blooming lid locked and latched and I just can't do it. It's the pin. It's really great that you've got this inbuilt safety device, but for me it just absolutely flummox me. And the more I'm panicking, the more uh the longer it's taking. I think I've got it into place now and now I've got to deal with this diesel in the back of my car. I'm mopping it up with the the tissues that they kindly provide. I ended up tearing off the cardboard from the boxes because they were they were so soden with premium diesel. Um, and I've also got it all down the can as well. Uh, so I give that a wipe. And I think I've just about got it uh cleaned up. But my first time use with the jerry can was a lot harder than I thought it would be, even though it's designed to be the most simple liquid storage device ever, ever designed. So, here it is in place with the with the pin locked in. And I'm just having to clean it up just that little bit more. I could still see uh diesel glinting around. I thought I'd get into trouble. I think my biggest fear was the traffic getting angry at me, which maybe it did, but I was too busy trying to get this fixed. Or I thought that the people running the petrol station would tell me off. But I think it's okay. I think you're okay filling up these kind of metal containers. So, we went on to IKEA. Even though the boot was full of uh diesel and bits from Costco. So, I... I did think ahead though because I did future proof myself. I did know that there might be a small spillage or liquid on the outside. So, I did bring a bin liner with me. Funny enough, a Costco bin liner. So, I've got it all neatly wrapped up in the car, which sort of brought down the smell a bit, which was helpful. That bag sort of kept things under control, but I don't think it was leaking after that. And this is it. This is my very first I wasn't panic. I was panic buying, but I was only panicked because I was making a big pig's ear, not because we're especially in a uh emergency situation. Although it was difficult, it does feel really good that I've got 20 litres worth of fuel if we need it. Now the lid is on properly and secured that it is properly secure. We store it in the garage and this is where the negative stuff comes in because our nearest hospital is a 25 minute drive from here. And you know how it is sometimes you need assistance or you need to get somewhere but it isn't quite a situation where you'd have to call the emergency services. just having the ability to know that we've got a backup plan if we do run low at any time. The other thing we're doing at the moment is also we're making sure that we don't go under half a tank in the car. I mean, I've got ADHD brain, so I forget these things anyway. So, just making sure that we've got the the car full at all times. It is... it is a bit of a reassurance. There is a school of thought which is that you get what you devote your mind to. So if you focus on the thing that you don't want, more often than not, you will actually make that happen. You know, it's a bit like a motorcyclist turning a bend. If you concentrate on the lamp post, you're going to hit the lamp post. If you concentrate into the bend, which is where you want to go, then you'll take the turn safely. And I think I need to just hide this, keep it out of my eyeline, and know that it's there if it's if it's needed. But I don't like this this focus. So, I'm going to just try and take this in the spirit that I've got a bit of backup if I forget to fill the car up and I've got a bit of water if South East Water acts like classic South East Water. So, what do you think? Have you got anything like this in your home? Have you made any kind of backup plan? Or is there anything that you think you should be getting ready for? Or should we just look at the fact that we do have clean water? We've got electricity. We've got unlimited access to entertainment. We've got a family that loves us. We're in a country or an area that is generally really safe. We've got things pretty good. I'm calling this a Dad Delivers success. And if you've made it to this point in the video, thank you for hitting the thumbs up or the subscribe button. It really helps me to keep this channel going. And right here is what YouTube thinks you want to be watching next. Can you please help my daddy get 10,000 subscribers? Just click on his face. Thanks. Bye. All right. This is going to be the proper one.

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HOW TO SEARCH YOUTUBE COMMENTS and activity log history

All about me.

Do Viral Hotel Door Locks Actually Work? (Door Security Test on chains Premier Inn and Travelodge)

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You've seen the viral safety videos... but do those portable security products actually work on a real hotel door? I test two different hotel door locks/jammers on a chunky Premier Inn door. I demonstrate the correct way to install the tough metal door lock that provides a successful, jammed seal, and reveal why the other popular plastic portable lock is a complete fail for hotel rooms! I also test the famous towel trick for securing the handle. Which travel security lock is worth buying on Amazon for your next stay in chains like Travelodge or Premier Inn?

Do Viral Hotel Door Locks Actually Work? (Security Test on Premier Inn Door)



TRANSCRIPT: (CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE)

THIS IS THE TRANSCRIPT - CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE!

You can tell all the other people on this floor who've seen the same warning videos that I've seen. So, I'm going to put a do not disturb sign on the door. I've been busy on Amazon and I bought a couple of things to secure my hotel room. So, the first thing I've got is this hotel door lock and you jam this in the the hole that the [music] lock mechanism goes in and then you jam it up with this. I'm going to try this one first. I've already had a go and it's it's really difficult. So, I'll just let me bring you closer and I'll just show you how to do this on a Premier Inn door. The idea with this portable door lock or hotel door jammer is that you put that bit into the door frame. And it's tricky because look at this door mechanism. It's really chunky. It kind of fills the bit where I'm supposed to put the jammer. And also, there isn't that much room on the frame. I'm going to line it up with here like this. But there's [music] all of that is filled up with lock business. The way I'm going to line it up is to use the bottom of this catch. There's a [music] gap between that catch and that catch that's just wide enough for this. So I'm just going to line it up like that. But then I've got to get it into the door frame like that. So it is possible. It's tricky, but it but it is possible. [music] So it did take a bit of uh jiggling to work that out. It's almost as if that gap is the exact right gap as well. So, I think this has been designed with hotel door mechanisms in mind. There's this catch that goes into this catch here. And then I'm going to put this metal rod into this hole and lock it at the bottom here. So, I'll just slide it in the big area and push it down. And now that's it. [music] That is jammed. If you try to even kick the door, that jam is going to hold. So now I am [music] completely locked into the room. The other advice you're supposed to take is also to put on a do not disturb. So that the other advice I've been given from all the YouTube videos is to put a do not disturb sign on the door. So I've I've failed. I I need to unlock it all to do that. Let's take this one off so that I could try this. This is a Life Venture portable door lock. It's another hotel door jammer. But the difference with this is that it is plastic. It's made of nylon. And there's even like a stretchy instead of a chain that's difficult to clip, there's a nice stretchy kind of bungee [music] thing that that keeps the two parts together. So, if I take off this door lock and completely insecure my room, go. So, take that one off, throw it on the floor. With this one, I think it's much more simple. All I've got to do is find somewhere to jam that in the door frame. Now, obviously, my biggest [music] fear is that this will actually stop the lock happening, but let's let's give it a try.

Now, the problem with this one is that it's actually stopped the door from locking. So, this this one is completely useless. That does not work at all. And there's no way for it to work because the full hole in the door is filled with door lock. So, you can't actually put this catch in anywhere. This would be more useful for a planer door. I don't think [music] this is any use for a hotel room door. Oh, no. I thought I thought I'd lock myself [music] in there for a moment. It is necessary because you can see in the past, [music] maybe it's just a a scheduled refit, but I think that has seen some action in the past. God knows what's happened in this room. There is, of [music] course, this lock as well, but I'm assuming there's a master key that can open that. That's all part [music] of the mechanism. So, we've got to stop someone being able to just override that while I'm in here to the bathroom for the final tip. Well, first tip is this didn't really work. So, but worth taking because it's cheap and light. I'm going to try the tip with the towel. And the tip with the towel is really simple. It's just to roll it up and to jam [music] it under the the door handle like this. And this is to stop someone putting a wire underneath [music] the door and reaching up and pulling the door handle down from the inside. Now, if I had the portable travel door lock put in, that [music] would stop the door from from opening, but having someone reach in and pull that handle down is [music] absolutely terrifying. So, I love the idea of putting the towel in the door handle. Also, putting a belt or another towel. I won't do it now, but jamming that up as well will stop the door from opening in the night. Of course, all of that gets in the way of an evacuation if there's a fire. So, what are you supposed to do? What are you supposed to do? By the way, if you are interested in either of those products, I've got a link down in the description. Well, I've got a few links down in the description and you can see how much they cost wherever you are on Amazon. Amazon. Amazon. And thank you for hitting the thumbs up or the subscribe button. It really, really does help me to keep this channel going. So, I really [music] appreciate it. Thank you. And right here is what YouTube knows you want to be watching next.

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How to STOP avoiding your next YouTube video

All about me.

How to STOP avoiding your next YouTube video

Do you feel like your next YouTube video idea is a complete waste of time? 

I'm currently fighting "The Resistance," a creative block that makes every project feel either too "stupid" to make or too important to mess up. In this video, I explain why these conflicting thoughts are the exact sign that you are onto something worth filming.

I break down the psychological hurdles that stops you from hitting record, including the fear of negative comments and the trap of overthinking. Using ideas from Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art and Jerry Seinfeld, I show you why "wasting time" on a video is actually the best form of productivity for a creator. If you are struggling with creative procrastination or wondering if your video is "worth it," this might help you make your next video.

How to STOP avoiding your next YouTube video



TRANSCRIPT: (CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE)

THIS IS THE TRANSCRIPT - CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE!

I am just about to make a a new video on my other YouTube channel, My Dad Delivers Vlog channel, and I really don't want to make this video. It's because I have two thoughts in my head, and I thought that this might be the reason why you're not making your next video. So, I thought, let's let's go through those two thoughts and see if you if if this happens to you, too. So, it works like this. I don't want to make this video because it feels like a complete waste of time. The video I'm making is is capricious nonsense and the amount of time that I'm about to spend on making this video isn't worth it because nobody's going to watch it and it doesn't really need to be made. And at the same time, I have this other thought which says I might get this wrong and actually this video is so important because I don't want to make it badly. Bad things will happen. People will think poorly of me because they care so much about what's in this video. And that's why I shouldn't make the video. And these two thoughts are happening at the same time. They are complete opposites. Both of these thoughts cannot be true. So why are we having these thoughts? And if they are equally working against each other, why would either of them be correct? There's a book called I'll put it on screen now. I'll put it in the description as well. There's a book called The War of Art by Steven Pressfield, and he calls this the resistance. And it's a lovely book. It's really short and it explains exactly what artists go through in these situations where you have these these thoughts, those two thoughts that work in complete opposites to each other. And he says that the resistance itself is the sign that you're on to something and that you're about to make something that is worth making. And the reason the resistance will fight you on this is that because you will be a completely different person as a result of going through with making this art. In this case, a video about how to set a poll on WhatsApp. There's also a really nice video. I'll put this down in the in the description as well. It's with Jerry Seinfeld and it it's just talking him talking about how he writes a joke, but there's this throwaway comment just towards the end of the video. He says something like, "It's a long time to spend on something that means absolutely nothing. But that's what I do. That's what people want me to do is spend a lot of time uh wastefully. You know, in my world, the wronger something feels, the righter it is. So to waste this much time on something this stupid is that's that felt good to me." The process, the thought process and the effort that goes into making the joke isn't worth the time that's devoted to it. It's a complete waste of time. That's why it's beautiful. That's why you're doing it. It's because it's a complete waste of time. It's because the resistance will cause people to start mowing their lawns when you're in the middle of a video. That... that in the background there, that's the resistance. That's something stopping me from making this video. I'm sure your brain will come up because you're creative. You will come up with all kinds of reasons to not make the next video and to put it off. And I just wanted to be that voice to remind you that that's a brilliant thing. That's good because that resistance is the sign for why you should be making this video. So, I hope this helps you to waste some time, deliberately kill some time, and devote too much time to something that clearly does not deserve it. That's that's why we watch YouTube videos. Someone has spent the time in a way that it doesn't deserve. It just does not deserve that amount of time. And that's why we enjoy watching it. And investing that time in the thing, the video that you want to make... That puts you ahead of all of those people who haven't wasted their time on that video you're about to make. And the same goes for for negative comments as well. I... I was talking to someone recently and they were saying they're a bit worried about the reaction that they would get online to putting out videos. That's probably the biggest reason why they weren't making videos. You have wasted the time. They haven't. You outrank them already. The fact that they are commenting on your work means that you've created something worth commenting on. You know that. You know it. You know it in your bones. But we we're wired by biology, by evolution to avoid these threats. But we know the prize that wasting our time on this will change us and make us better YouTubers, better artists. Does this help? Uh, making this video has helped me at least get to the point where I might actually record this video today cuz the sun's out. It's nice. I've just got to wait now for this moment to stop. If if these videos are helpful, thank you for hitting the thumbs up or the subscribe button. If you do either of those things, it really helps me to keep this channel going. But say hi in the comments as well because uh it really helped for me to see where everyone else is at with their journey. And right here on screen now, I'll put the playlist to all my tips for creators on YouTube. And here's what YouTube thinks you want to be watching next. Do it. Just do it. Waste some time.

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How to make a vote in WhatsApp Group Chats

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How to make a vote in WhatsApp Group Chats

Do you need to settle a family vote or organize a group decision? 

How do you make a poll for voting in a group chat on WhatsApp? 

It's really easy but slightly hidden in WhatsApp: I show you how to set up a poll and check the votes.

Here's how to make a WhatsApp poll in your group chat for both Android and iPhone.

The step by step process of setting up your question, adding up to 12 options, and managing settings like multiple answers. Plus how to rearrange your choices with grab handles, and how to check the final results to see who voted for what. 

WhatsApp Poll: How to make a vote in WhatsApp Group Chats



TRANSCRIPT: (CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE)

THIS IS THE TRANSCRIPT - CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE!

You know how it goes. I don't know if my eyebrows are too bushy. So, there's only one way to sort this out and that is with a poll on WhatsApp. We are going to create a vote right now just using your phone on WhatsApp. And you might want to do this if you want to have a vote on certain options within your group. So, the first thing we need to do is to go into the group chat. Now, down here on my WhatsApp app, I have a paperclip. I'm going to click on that. That's because I have an Android phone. If you have an iPhone, you just click on the plus icon and that opens up these options here for things to attach to your WhatsApp message to the group. But obviously, we want this option here, poll. At the top here, we can type in our question, but you have to make your question less than 255 characters. Now, we can type in our options. You can have up to 12 different options for your vote. Obviously, for this one, I only need two. "No, keep them and grow them long", or "Yes, shave and trim them." It's really easy to add extra options. Just click on the add sign in the next box down. And you can even use these grab handles on the right hand side to rearrange the options into a different order. If you want to get rid of one of the options, just delete the text in the box and it should disappear. Now, this is really crucial. There's an option down here to allow multiple options. Obviously, I want a vote on my eyebrows. So, I don't want my kids to be able to vote more than one way. So, I've turned multiple answers off. Now, I have my question and my two options ready. All I need to do is to click down here on the send button, and it then puts the poll into your WhatsApp group chat. And already my poll is ruined because my daughter has now answered this by text. This might happen to you. Please just click on the poll. I don't know which way this is going to go. This could go either way. Oh, we've got a vote in. So, you can see my daughter has already cast her vote. I... I knew it would go this way. She has voted towards shaving my eyebrows off. Oh, we've got a second vote here as well. So, if you want to see who voted which way, it's not anonymous. Just click on the faces here and it shows who voted for which option. I am calling this a dad delivers success! Congratulations. We can now set polls and votes on our WhatsApp group chats. If this video is helping, thank you for hitting the thumbs up or the subscribe button. It really helps me to keep this channel going. So, thank you. And right here are all my other WhatsApp tips and tricks.


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Stop Talking While Filming! Try This Voiceover Technique

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Stop Talking While Filming! Try This Voiceover Technique

Are you struggling to talk and film at the same time? In this behind the scenes vlog, I share my "vamping" technique for recording professional voiceovers. I show you exactly how I use the DJI Mic 2 and DaVinci Resolve to narrate a 9-hour LEGO build in just a few minutes.

I explain why recording a separate soundtrack is a massive boost for your YouTube SEO, as it provides the algorithm with a clear transcript of your keywords and phrases. I walk you through my voiceover workflow and show you how to keep your energy high while speaking to a microphone.

Stop Talking While Filming! Try This Voiceover Technique



TRANSCRIPT: (CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE)

THIS IS THE TRANSCRIPT - CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE!

Hello. Welcome back to the Happy Hut. Uh, I've not made a video for a while because I've been making lots of videos for my other channels. Uh, this one is for the Dad Delivers vlog channel. And I'm just about to record a voice over for a video over on that channel. And I thought, well, why don't I share with you how I record my voiceovers because it might be something you've not tried for your videos. I found it's a really good technique to actually get videos done. Sometimes if you're trying to walk and talk or film and talk at the same time, you're trying to think about what you're saying while you're actually doing the thing that you're commentating on. And many times it just gets in the way because you're worrying about or you're thinking about what you're trying to say as well as doing what you need to do, you know, on the topic that you're filming. So, I wanted to show this just as another way of getting videos out on your YouTube channel. So, it works like this. Instead of filming something and talking at the same time, you just film yourself doing the thing. And it just completely takes the weight off your shoulders having to think of something interesting or even calling out all the steps that you want to commentate on. It also means that you can just enjoy doing the thing that you do that you're filming and worry about how you're going to explain that to the viewer just some other time in the future. This video is about me building a really complicated Lego train station. I knew it would take me 9 hours to build, so I just went ahead and did it and filmed everything. And then I thought, well, what if I sped up the footage? So, it's like a time lapse, nine hours worth of building into just a couple of minutes, and you'll just see it come together. And it it worked really well. It looked really good. But looking at the footage now, it just feels a bit a bit plain. So, I'm going to record uh a voice over at the beginning to explain what I'm doing and point out some of the things that I want to point out. And I'm doing that with this. It's a DJI Mic 2 and it actually comes with the DJI Pocket 3 camera that I'm filming this on. I I just thought, why don't I turn the camera on and then you can see how I do this because it might be something that you want to do for your videos. So, I've got the edit up here. I've moved to DaVinci Resolve. Tell me in the comments if you want me to talk about moving to DaVinci Resolve. It's very similar to Final Cut Pro, which is what I've been using for the last 5 years. And I was on iMovie before that. And then I got worried that I was locked into the Apple ecosystem and if my my MacBook died then my editing stopped. So I wanted DaVinci Resolve because you can use that on a Mac and a PC. So I've edited the footage here and I've actually got it playing out on my laptop down here. So I've got a big screen version while the edit is playing through. So, I can have the footage playing here while I'm commentating and I'll just commentate on the footage. The other reason that I wanted to do this, YouTube takes all kinds of cues to decide what your video is about, what you write in the description. For a long time, it's been really good at analyzing the footage and being able to tell what the subject matter is just by looking at the visuals. It also takes cues from the thumbnail. Some people reckon there are other bits of metadata that might also go into that mix, that soup, where YouTube decides what the video is about. Some people reckon the file names are taken into account or tags that you put in underneath the description. For me, I think YouTube takes all kinds of cues, as much data as possible to analyze your video to decide who to show it to. One of those very very strong uh influences is the soundtrack. It's the transcription. It creates a transcript of your video pretty much within minutes of uploading. And I think it then analyzes that transcript to decide what your video is about. It makes sense. It's obvious that if you're talking about something, it will want to know what you're saying. So, if I had a video that's just a time-lapse footage of me building a Lego building, I reckon it could tell pretty quickly on first analysis that it's about Lego. But with a soundtrack on top of that, it has extra data to go on and keywords and buzzwords and phrases. So, I think recording a voice on something that is just essentially B-roll footage will help bump up its Google juice. This technique, I've done it also within videos where I might do a piece to camera. So, I'll talk to camera like this and then I'll cut to footage and I'll voice that over later on so I don't have to worry about thinking of something to say. You don't have to do this, but I've made little notes just to just to help guide me. I don't need to get it right first time. I can edit this voice over. So, I'm going to vamp. In the in the industry, we call it vamping. I'm going to vamp on these key words, these key phrases. I don't if you can see them. And I've got uh two Post-it notes worth here. Feel I feel slightly self-conscious that you're here watching it, but um I just wanted to show this process because this is another way of making videos that you might not have considered. And you can just watch over my shoulder. Maybe I'll put it in the the footage on screen, but I'll leave the fluffs in so you can see how this goes, how this rolls. When I do voice over, I like to smile. The emotion that your body is carrying will definitely come out in your voice. Or just raising my eyebrows just to uh it just gives you a bit of energy. I've got a really creaky chair as well. I always want to belch just before I start.

This is Brickester station. It's also known as the meeting point. I want to call this Lego station brick cross, but that's a whole other Lego design. See, I've gone wrong there. So, I'll go back. I want to call this model Brick Cross, but that is an actual name of another model in the world of Lego compatible railway models. But look at it. It's absolutely massive. It looks like a really major mainline station. And I think it's beautiful. I would. This is actually an originally This is originally a Lego ideas design, but now it's a Jie Star set. I've not heard of that brand either, but they're pretty big in the world of construction bricks that are compatible with LEGO. And this set is the 89154.

It has 2,50.

It has 2,850 pieces and it lights up. There's a lighting kit that comes with the set, which is fantastic. Now, I'm going to speed build this for you right now in a moment. I'm going to go back to the beginning and we're going to speed build this in just under a couple of minutes. This model is the centerpiece of my Lego city railway.

I've built a whole subway layout around my uh garden office, and I think this is going to take pride of place on one of the curves. There's a playlist in the description for all of my hidden Lego City Railway videos. And to this model, I'll be adding some Blue Bricks modern platforms. I have a a build video for you down in the description. And also some TrixBrix track automation. So, I've got some points and uh signals that will be built around this station. I really enjoyed this build. It comes with a really nice book. You can probably just see it on the on screen there. The printed instructions are great and really super clear. All of the pieces were there, which was a bit of a worry when you're buying something on AliExpress that isn't branded by like the Danish company, but the all the pieces were there and the price is absolutely fantastic for how big this model is and how impressive it is. So much detail. You can see me building the bookshop, the WH Smith news agents. Uh, I'm going to call this station Camden Road when it goes onto my layout. And I'm actually going to turn it on its side so that it will act as a terminus. And there'll be one through platform down the side, but I'm going to twist the station round so that the platform that you see in this model will actually be the concourse for the platforms joining it, if that makes sense. This set took me 9 hours to build. I've seen from the video footage. I've added it up. I did it over a number of days and it was just so much fun. There's so many little interesting techniques here. And I think the intricate detail of some of these rooms, I'm not even going to see them because it's just going to be on the corner of my layouts, but you can see it from a distance, but through the windows you can see it's got a nice restaurant area,

a station cafe, a piano, a little uh piano that anyone can play, stairs, ticket machine, and I really like the destination boards as well. I think they look really uh really impressive and really authentic as well. It comes with some it comes with some figures too so that uh you can populate your station. And I'm going to just let this build run now so you can see how easily it came together over the nine hours.

If you like videos like this, give me a thumbs up. If you like videos like this, feel free to put a thumbs up or hit the subscribe button because my videos on my LEGO builds just get no views whatsoever. So, I do appreciate you you watching along and say hi in the comments. It' be great to hear from you. But, I'll just be quiet now and just let the building commence. But I'll just be quiet now and let the building continue.

So that's it. I'm just going to let that run at the beginning of the of the video. You could hear the stumbles. That's I'm in voice over speak now. You could probably hear some of the stumbles. Um it doesn't matter because I can edit those out. In the TV industry, we call it vamping. uh where you have a rough script, but it's just down to you to vamp what's in your head. What's interesting is that I find that if you speak naturally, so you don't script it to the word. Your brain tends to edit what you what you say, people don't really mind. I obviously you'll critique this, but I think when you're watching videos and there's a voice over, the visuals are so compelling. It's almost like this audio wallpaper where it's it's nice to have someone chatting along. I don't think there's that much pressure on you to say something uh hugely insightful. Just explaining your thought process and also how you felt while you're doing the thing that you're commentating. Those kind of things really help. I think people find that interesting. What do you think? Is this something you might want to try for your videos? Is it something you do already? Do you have any tips for anyone watching this video? Is this something that you think you might try for yours? Thank you for hitting the thumbs up or the subscribe button if you've reached this point of the video. And all my tips for you, you YouTube creators for YouTube creators, they're down in the description. And right here is what YouTube knows you want to be watching next.

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Dehumidifier Running Costs: How Much Electricity Does it Use?

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Dehumidifier Running Costs: How Much Electricity Does it Use?

BUY Meaco 6L Arete One Room Dehumidifier HERE! (commissions earned)

👉 (Amazon UK) https://amzn.to/43ZglMo

👉 (Amazon US/World) https://amzn.to/4izme8P

BUY Meaco 12L Arete Two Room Dehumidifier HERE! 

👉 (Amazon) https://amzn.to/4fe8XzJ 

Are you worried about your energy bills when running a dehumidifier? In this video, I use a plug-in power monitor to show you the exact wattage of three different models: the Meaco Arete Two 12L, the Meaco Arete One 6L compressor model, and the Meaco DD8L desiccant dehumidifier. I break down the cost per hour based on current UK electricity prices (24p to 28p per kWh) and explain why a dehumidifier is significantly cheaper than using a tumble dryer for your laundry. Whether you are in a student flat or a family home, these real-world dehumidifier tests will help you decide which model is the most budget-friendly for your space.

Dehumidifier Running Costs: How Much Electricity Does it Use?



TRANSCRIPT: (CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE)

THIS IS THE TRANSCRIPT - CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE!

This isn't hugely scientific, but I've got this device that measures how much power a device uses. Should be able to see how many watts it draws. Now, this is going to be different depending on all kinds of different situations. And you've seen the relative humidity is about 64%. And you can see that it's drawing about 5 watt. To me, that's incredible. I actually think it's sampling at the moment. I don't think it is uh five watts. Oh, here we go. I just heard the compressor kick in. Let's have a look now. There we go. 113W. So, I can hear that the compressor is working. The fan is going and it's on it's on normal dehumidifier mode and that is running at about 114W. If we want to translate that into a cost, I'll put this on screen. My energy bills at the moment are 24p per kilowatt hour. So if I ran this at 100 watts for 10 hours, that would cost me 24p. Uh but it wouldn't be running all the time because you might hit the target humidity. Um there might be time in there where it's sampling. I might even put it into uh a higher mode to dry some laundry. But just to give you a rough ballpark figure, it's about 24p for about half a day. I have got all the dehumidifiers in the house in this room. Let's move the camera back because over here I've got my Arete Two 12L. So, should we compare? Should we see how that compares? And instantly you can see the number of watts that my 12L Arete Two dehumidifier uses is 142W. Your circumstances will definitely vary, but the 12L, the much bigger 12L dehumidifier uses 143W when it's first plugged in. So, this dehumidifier, the 12L, is double the dehumidifying power of the 6L one, but it only uses 40 to 50% more electricity.

Yes, quite impressively it is now 700W. So just bear this in mind that it does use a lot more power. Just to give you a comparison, my 12L Arete Two uses about 145W. So this is quite a lot more than 140 watts, but this is full power. Let's put it onto uh the gentle mode. So, I'm manually putting it onto the the one drip there, and it's a much more modest 261W. So, you can see how these different settings really affect how much power this uses. On the upside, the air coming out of here is nice and gently warming. If you think of it almost as a cheap heater, I was obsessed with the the cost of this thing to to run when I first got my big dehumidifier. And we were really careful to only just leave it running at night on the landing or in the main kitchen area. On the second year, because our bills hadn't gone up that much, we just left it running. We left it running pretty much all the way through the winter. And we also used it for our washing. So we stopped using the tumble dryer. So if you're in a say student flat, maybe you're in some kind of bedsit and you're thinking about should I get one of these or one of these, whichever you choose will cost a lot less than the tumble dryer or tumble dry function on your washing machine. This is just a fraction of the cost. We've stopped using our tumble dryer altogether. We only use it for towels now, and our electricity bill really came down. So that was unexpected. And also the thing dehumidifies the house at the same time.

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THIS dehumidifier is DIFFERENT! (Meaco DD8L desiccant dehumidifier review...)

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How to Stop a Dog Digging: The Rotting Apple Garden Hack

Is your garden full of rotting fruit and dog tunnels? In this winter garden vlog, I tackle two problems at once: a massive surplus of windfall apples and Casper the dog's relentless digging. After harvesting buckets of fresh fruit for homemade chutney, we're left with wheelbarrows of "landfill" that needs a home.

I'm filling Casper’s deep trench along the fence line to create a makeshift compost patch. It’s a race against the winter weather and the sewer smell of fermenting fruit... If you are looking for a practical way to manage garden waste while outsmarting a digging dog, this "Dad Delivers" experiment is for you.

How to Stop a Dog Digging: The Rotting Apple Garden Hack



TRANSCRIPT: (CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE)

THIS IS THE TRANSCRIPT - CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE!

Winter is coming. We've got a new job in the garden today. I thought I'd take you along for the ride. It's not a particularly interesting vlog, but basically I've got apple tree and a pear tree and uh it just causes this mess. We have picked, believe it or not, we have picked bucket loads of apples, but the rest of them have fallen off the tree. Casper loves chasing these, though, so they're fun dog toys. But uh I've got to I've got to I've got to dump them somewhere, which I know is criminal that I've got all this food in the garden. But um we have harvested absolutely tons of these. So I've got I've got a load of apples that I need to put somewhere. I've got some more over here. And it's uh it's a wheelbarrow load. It is so heavy. But I've I've thought of killing two birds with one stone. And that is to deal with finally Casper's trench. I'm not sure it comes across on camera quite how deep this is. Is deeper than his body. Um, and we've we've put concrete blocks down. I've put bricks down. He just keeps coming back to it and uh uh coming through to next door. So, the idea is I'm just going to empty this into the hole and then hopefully turn it into a nice compost uh what do you call it? Compost Patch? Compost corner. I don't like compost corners. I just think they're disgusting and rank. But I think with this at least it's going to all mulch down and when I cover it with earth, you know, basically I'm going to use the apples as landfill. I need to put this camera somewhere so you can see this.

Whoa.

Well, I I think that went quite well. I didn't know how how much it would it would fill. But that is almost coming up to the fence. So I'm maybe I can put some other stuff down on top of it and mulch it will mulch down. It absolutely stinks though. Who thought apples would I mean we have my wife has turned our pears and apples into some lovely chutney. So we've got enough of that for 2 years. But uh I think I need to put some earth down or something just to cover up the smell if nothing else. Smells like a sewer down there. Plus, I think I've got another two wheelbarrow loads uh waiting for me. Try and get the kids to do that as some kind of game. When they're teenagers, they kind of see through the brazen attempt to get help and then they go beyond it because they know that they can use that as leverage. So, I will say it was a fun game picking up the apples. I'm... I'm calling this... I am calling this a Dad delivers success! Thank you if you're coming along with me for the vlogs. Thanks for hitting the thumbs up or the subscribe button. It really helps me to uh keep going with this the capricious videos and the more useful ones. And right here is what YouTube knows you want to be watching next.

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Can a Solar Power Station Save My Family?

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THIS dehumidifier is DIFFERENT! (Meaco DD8L desiccant dehumidifier review...)

BUY ONE HERE! (commissions earned)

👉 (Amazon UK) https://amzn.to/3LcwY0W

👉 (Amazon US/World) https://amzn.to/45NgOlr

Is the Meaco DD8L desiccant dehumidifier better than the popular Arete One or Arete Two compressor models? In this unboxing and first impressions review, I explain why desiccant technology is the secret to removing moisture in cold rooms, garages, and conservatories. I walk you through the entire control panel, demonstrating the automatic louvre, laundry mode, and the ionizer feature. Crucially, I perform a real-time wattage and power consumption test to show exactly how much electricity the DD8L uses compared to compressor units. If you're struggling with winter condensation or damp in unheated spaces, this dehumidifier might be your "keeper."

THIS dehumidifier is DIFFERENT! (Meaco DD8L desiccant dehumidifier review...)



TRANSCRIPT: (CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE)

THIS IS THE TRANSCRIPT - CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE!

Hello. This is the Meaco DD8L desiccant dehumidifier. And oh my goodness, it sounds like a character from Star Wars. And it it looks a bit like one, too. If you're new to dehumidifiers, this might be something worth considering. If you've watched my channel before, you'll know that. Oh, by the way, it's 8.7 kg, so I can carry it unlike my other dehumidifiers. But I started on this by actually buying a Meaco Arete One 18L dehumidifier from Costco. And it changed my life. It changed the house. And it to some extent it changed this YouTube channel as well because Meaco got in touch and sent me another dehumidifier, the Arete Two. These two dehumidifiers are compressor dehumidifiers. This one is different. It's called the DD8L because the DD stands for desiccant dehumidifier. And the 8L refers to how much water extracts in a day at a certain temperature or certain humidity. It's just a way of us being able to compare different models. And the thing with this one, I believe, is that because it's a desiccant dehumidifier, it means you can put it in colder places. And while the other dehumidifiers can cope with cold rooms, this one's really built for it, it removes water more efficiently, apparently at lower temperatures. The tradeoff, I think, if you're trying to decide which one to go for is that this one uses more energy, more electricity than the other compressor dehumidifiers like the Arete One and Two. But on the upside, it copes with colder conditions more efficiently. And it also blows out nice warm air from the top from this louvre, this automatic louvre that opens up to protect the the little grille here where the air comes out. So, I have bought dehumidifiers and made videos about them on this channel. Meaco have very kindly supplied this DD8L, but they've asked for nothing in return. This pretty much as unbiased as it can get because I'm comparing this against something I actually paid money for. Let's open up the box and see how the dehumidifier is presented. It's all nice and cardboard. There's a a UK plug. What's this? Oh, what's this? A mystery filler thing, which I'm sure will be clear in a moment. And inside is the DD8L dehumidifier all wrapped up in cloth. How nice. Now, I think I need to be careful in lifting the dehumidifier out of the box. It's not like the compressor dehumidifier where you had to be really super careful and let it settle I think for 8 hours. I still want to be careful with getting it out of the box. So, I'm just lifting it carefully onto the table. And just look at it in the shroud. Let's lift the shroud. Let's big reveal of the Meaco D8L Pro desiccant dehumidifier. Welcome to the Dad Delivers vlog home. Let me give you a closer look. Go to the side. So, we've got some packing tape that holds the water tank in place for transit. So, I'll take those off. And another one for the air filter at the back. Now, if you haven't used a dehumidifier before, I'll give you a... a tour of all the bits and pieces, but we've got a water tank here. It stores 2L. And this is where the first bit of confusion comes with dehumidifiers because it says 8 litres, but that 8L refers to how many litres of water it removes in a day under certain temperature and humidity. It's a way of comparing dehumidifiers. The storage tank holds 2L. And I think the way you empty it is you can just you just pour it. And that just slides in like that. Clunk. At the back it comes with a filter. This grille slides out to reveal the fan is obviously is inside there. And this filter just blocks particles from getting into the fan. There's no removable filter, which is actually good news for me cuz it means I don't have to buy any in the future. But what is good is that you can just hoover this filter from time to time as dust particles will block it up. So the way it works is that damp air, the humid air is drawn in through the filter. Okay, this is pushing my dehumidifier knowledge to to the limit. Uh but it's there's a desiccant inside rather than uh just a compressor and that desiccant takes moisture out of the air. That air is then heated up and condensed and goes into the water bucket and dry air is blown out of the output, the extract fan there. And there's a louvre to direct the air as well. And I think this is automatic. We'll see when we turn it on. And we've got Oh, satisfying moment. There we go. Got the protective film. It's mine. And there's a really stylish uh flat touch screen display there, which will appear when we turn it on. Around the back, this thing that came with the packaging is a cable tidy. And I think all I need to do is push it in. And then when you're not using it or you want to wrap up the excess cable, you can wrap it around here. And if you don't want it, you can easily just push the clips and it comes out, which is really handy. So actually that would be really good for my other dehumidifiers. So I'm pleased with that. There's also this uh outlet here if you wanted to run it for continuous operation. So not using water tank. There's a hose attachment that comes with the water tank. And I think you put that in here and you can... you can attach a hose and just have it pump out into a sink or a bigger place to take the water. I don't do that. I just empty the the water tank. But this is a really good option to have if you want to just leave it running somewhere like a garage. Do you want to see it in action? I think you want to see it in action, don't you? I'm going to turn it on outdoors. The dehumidifier is plugged in and let's bring you closer to the control panel. I think to turn it on you have to touch it on the touchpad in a very particular place and it's the uh there is a power switch here uh but you can't see it obviously because it's off but you can see uh kind of a highlight there and look the louvre is opening and closing. I don't know if you can see that it's saying feed me or give me water Seymour! I think I can control the louvre though with this button here. Let's try out... So, I've got greasy fingers from my lunchtime gyoza. Hey, there we go. Is it opening? Look at that. You... You can control the louvre. And it opens and closes. And I think this causes nice waves of warm air that might help to dry laundry. I'll press it one more step again. It goes three steps. Oh, my fingers. Look at that. There we go. Right. So, now I've got it in laundry mode with louvre opening to the maximum. You can see it just opening. Casper's not sure about this. What do you think? Oh, you brought me a shoe. Thank you. That's really helpful. This is just a first impressions unboxing video. We'll get a better idea of how it sounds indoors. Let me give you a full tour of the control panel of the DD8L. So, to get started, we have the power button right there. Press it once to turn the machine on. You'll hear that beep and the louvre, which is this flap thing on here, will open up automatically. Working our way from the left hand side of the control panel, we have the fan speed button, and you can toggle this between three settings. So, it's this button here. Low for quiet operation, which is great for night time and sleeping. We could put it on medium. So that's two drips on the fan speed indicator there. That's for normal daily use. And then I could put it on to high for maximum extraction. That's good for when we have laundry or a really serious damp problem. The big button, I'm going to turn this down to low because that will make it a lot quieter for me to speak. The target humidity button is this big water drop here. And this sets our target level. So instead of numbers, Meaco uses this kind of grid here. And it it goes from high to low. That kind of hurts my brain slightly because I'm used to going left to right... from low to high. But 95% humidity is at this end of the scale and 35% humidity is at this side of the scale. So humidity is measured as a percentage. And when my room, my house is really damp, it's usually up in the... the mid to high 80s here. Now, helpfully, Meaco have given us a target level. You can see the little heart symbol here of 55. So, 55% is a good level of humidity. We can see in the room right now, my poor daughter's bedroom is running at about 67%. It's roughly between the 65 and the 70 there. And as the room gets drier, these bars will start to fill up and show a lower level towards the 55 mark. We can change the target humidity. So the target humidity has been set for 55% because it's got that ring around it. If I press the big water droplet target humidity button, it's put it into... So it's put it into auto. If I press it again, it's changed the target humidity from 55 to 50. If I press it again, it works its way all the way down. And if I press it again, the ring goes to this infinity sign, which means it's just going to run and run and run. So, there isn't a target humidity for it to aim for. It's a bit like a thermostat, isn't it? So, 70%, well, we're under 70%. So, it will stop dehumidifying because we're under the target. I'm going to press it again just to take it back to a target of 55%. I hope that makes sense. It is a bit confusing at first, but you'll see over time that the indicator will show that the room is getting drier and it reminds you... it says wet and dry at each end of the scale. Here, the timer button is here. You can set this to turn the machine off automatically. And this is great if you want to dry some laundry while you're out, but don't want it running all day. Next up is the ionizer button. This button here. And pressing this turns on the air cleaning feature, which releases negative ions to help trap dust and allergens in the air while it dehumidifies. So, it doesn't have an air filter, but it does have the ionizer feature. A nice safety feature uh which isn't showing here at the moment is that there is an indicator that comes on when the tank is full of water. What happens is the machine will just stop working automatically until the water tank is emptied. We also have a dedicated louvre button. So louvre is a very uh posh word for the flap that's here. You can choose how you want the flap to to cycle through. So setting one is wide swing for press it once.

I'm not sure you can even see it on camera, but the louvre... the flap is opening up and down on a... a much lower setting than it can go. If I press it again, it opens up to a medium setting. The fan went down there. That's nice. And then I'll press it again and the flap, the louvre will open all the way and it will close again. There is a laundry button. I never use the laundry button on my other dehumidifiers, but let me press it anyway to show you. So, it instantly goes into high power. You can see the t-shirt button, the t-shirt icon is circled here. So, that's 35% target humidity, I believe. And you can see the flap is going all the way open and closed. And it set the timer automatically for 6 hours. I don't really use it. I just set the dehumidifier to a low target humidity like 40 or 45 and just leave it running. And the dehumidifier then dehumidifies the room as well. It has a night mode. So we can press the the night button here, the moon icon, and that turns the display off. So, if you want it to run quietly in the room, it's a lower fan speed. The louvre still opens, which is very nice. Let's put it permanently open there. So, it just leaves the flap open. You can probably hear it's still running at that lower fan speed. This question always comes up on all of my dehumidifier videos. I always get a comment saying, "How much power does it use?" I'm going to plug in this monitor that measures how many watts a device is using. This is really unscientific. Your mileage will definitely vary. And it's showing 46W. Now, obviously, this is going to be different for every setting on the dehumidifier. And it's also going to be different what temperature your room is, what you want the target humidity to be. So, let's take that down low. I'll put it on full power. Wow, that's quite impressive. There you go. 488 watts. Let's manually set it on to the highest level. Let's see if that changes the number of watts. Yes, quite impressively, it is now 700 W. So, just bear this in mind that it does use a lot more power. Just to give you a comparison, my 12L Arete Two uses about 145 watts. So, this is quite a lot more than 140W, but this is full power. Let's put it onto uh the gentle mode. So, I'm manually putting it onto the... the one drip there, and it's a much more modest 261W. So, you can see how these different settings really affect how much power this uses. On the upside, the air coming out of here is nice and gently warming. If you think of it almost as a cheap heater, that's good. If you're drying laundry, it's going to be much cheaper than using a tumble dryer. And that's what we've found. So, some other things to take into account. This is just first impressions from having just opened it. I might put it down because it is much lighter than my other dehumidifiers, but it's still 8kg. You can get casters for the bottom to slide it around the room. I think those are optional and you can get them from Meaco. The feature that I like the most is the most understated one, and that's this handle under here. The other dehumidifiers I have... have a... a handle that pops up out of the top. Because this unit is lighter, you can actually lift it up with this special hand grip lip at the back. And you can do it one-handed as well. I am calling this a dad delivers success! What do you think? Say hi in the comments. And also, there's a link down in the description to where you can buy one of these, plus links to all my other videos about dehumidifiers. Thank you for saying hi and hitting the thumbs up or the subscribe button. It really helps me to keep this channel going and help people to find these videos. So, thank you. And right here are all my other dehumidifier videos, so you can see how this compares with everything else.

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My BEST Ever Gear Bag! (HP Creator backpack review...)

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My BEST Ever Gear Bag! (HP Creator backpack review...)

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I have been looking for the ultimate rucksack for three years, and I finally found it by chance. The HP Creator Backpack (16.1 inch) is a game changer for anyone who hates piling their gear in a heap. I review the customizable Velcro shelf system that makes this the perfect budget camera bag, plus the hidden anti-theft clips, RFID pocket, and the built-in waterproof rain cover. I also do a real world packing test for a weekend trip to show you how much gear actually fits. If you want a professional layout without the "camera bag" price tag, this might be your new backpack!

My BEST Ever Gear Bag! (HP Creator backpack review...)



TRANSCRIPT: (CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE)

THIS IS THE TRANSCRIPT - CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE!
I think I have found the Oh, that's a bit high, isn't it? I think I have found the ultimate rucksack. I've been looking for a backpack for about 3 years with all of these features. I found it by chance by wandering through a store in the UK called John Lewis. It's the HP Creator backpack. This is it. This is the one I've been looking for. This is the keeper. I'm getting a bit too excited about it. I have been looking for a rucksack where there are shelves, there are compartments, and actually this could be the ultimate camera bag as well. The price is, I think, insane for a camera bag. But even if you're just looking for a regular just a regular backpack, this could be the one. I've paid for this with my own money. This is completely self-bought. This hasn't been sponsored or gifted in any way. Uh, I've paid cold cold hard cash for this, but the price I think is really reasonable for what you get. I'm not the world's biggest HP fan, which is a bit of an understatement. Um, not a big fan of their computers, so I was quite surprised when I saw this bag and I thought, well, it's just a laptop bag, isn't it? And then I opened it up and the colour and the layout and the quality of the materials are just exquisite. This just makes me smile when I open when I open the bag. It just makes me smile. And it has these removable compartments. They velcro on to the soft cloth inner lining. So, you can make these shelves whatever shape you want them, which is ideal. And that's how a camera bag works. But if you just want a regular rucksack and you don't want all your stuff to get crushed when you pile everything in, this is absolutely I hate using this word. I never use this word. It's game changing. I think this could be my game changer keeper rucksack. Before I get too giddy, let me take you through the unboxing and I'll just show you completely every feature that I love about this bag. This is how the HP Creator backpack arrives. And oh my goodness, I think this is going to be my ultimate rucksack. I don't want to pre-empt this, but I've got a really, really good feeling about this. This is what it looks like all around. Let's just open it up because I think that is where it excels. Oh, it just looks bright. It looks really inviting and it's customizable. Inside we have an area for your 16.1 inch laptop, but also crucially, it has two pouches, which is one of the things on my list because I do uh morning pages every day on my yellow pad, and I can really see my laptop fitting in there and there. I'll pack it later. so you can see what it's like full. There have been some really odd comments on the John Lewis website, which is where I bought mine, saying that it's not usable as a rucksack. And it's absolute nonsense because these these shelves I don't want to move the shelves because I do actually like the layout. But just to demonstrate, they're attached by Velcro. You can completely configure this to whatever shape you want. But I really like how they've done it here. even though I don't have a camera with a traditional big lens, but you can move these, take them out, and have them whichever way you want to to run the boxes. The Velcro is really nice and wide. If you are looking for a general purpose rucksack, do not be put off by these. And actually, I see these as a feature, and I'll explain that as I go because this is what I've been looking for for about 3 years now. At the top, we have this dangly pouch, and it's on a Carabinier. I can never pronounce it. Carabinier uh hook that latches there. That'll be great for my keys. But in here there's a waterproof jacket for the rucksack. It sits in the bag and it's got a little dongle that it hangs on. Let's open it up and make this completely waterproof. And the case stays attached. So that's good. I won't lose it. It opens up like this. It's elasticated. So I think it just goes over like this. Oh, that's really handy. That would be really handy on the bike, but again, no high viz. No high viz. Now, the rucksack and my precious technical contents are going to be completely waterproof, completely dry, whatever the British weather or any other place I go to throws at it. There's a really cool stretchy elasticated fabric for putting in knickknacks in there. I'm really attracted to the colour. It is really bright. Orange isn't really my thing, but this just looks really jolly when you open it. And you can see instantly what is in here. I'll just do this strap up here. Let's give you a tour of the outside. The zips look fairly They look fairly rugged. These zipper clips are actually anti- theft clips. Look, I can uh clip them into each other. So, you can't get a pickpocket just dipping dipping your bag very easily. you'd have to fiddle around with opening the clips, which is a nice touch. Let me show you my old rucksack just to show you what I'm moving on from and why I'm raving about this. I had to fit my own clips to put that anti- theft device in. And the the zips are absolutely destroyed, which is why I'm looking for a new rucksack. The next feature that I absolutely love are the handles. So, there's one handle on the top and one on the side, so you can hold it in either orientation, which is going to be really handy. We also have the straps at the back. This feels like it's elasticated. There's a waist strap there that I can unclip here. There's only a tiny bit of high viz. It's I'm glad that it's catching the light for the camera. So, we've got two tiny bits of high viz, which is probably the only downside with this, which is a really tiny niggle. We have a strap at the back here so you can put it onto a suitcase, you know, an extendable suitcase. The back, it doesn't really come across on camera, but we've got a mesh and foam. This looks really comfortable and really protective, but also really good at dissipating heat and sweat, so you don't get a sweaty back. And there's a zipper pouch in here, which I believe is RFID. Yeah, there we go. Can you see that says RFID? So, every rucksack does not have a silver lining, but this one does. I don't... It's not silver. It's silver coloured. It's supposed to block RFID signals. We have a water bottle. I've got a water bottle over here. I use quite a big half litre water bottle. It's what, 18 oz. If you're not in the UK, that fits so comfortably. And there's also a strap here. So, if you have a tripod, you could just put the tripod in there. Let's open up the zip on the front. Nice orange flash there. And I just wish that there was something on here that was uh high viz. But that would that's obviously a huge design choice, isn't it? They want it to be sleek. My crucial pocket. And I think this is what's guided me through rucksack purchases for the last three rucksacks is being able to access stuff from the side. Look at that. You go straight into the pouch on the inside. So, you could have things that you need quick access to in that area of the adjustable customizable sections. Let's open it up. I'll show you how that works. Open it up. It's like a little trap door here. You can just put whatever you need there. And you could configure these customizable areas to uh to serve this this pouch. So maybe you want to turn it into two shelves. A couple of years ago, I bought my very first camera bag. I've got footage of it here. Absolutely gorgeous, but it's huge. It's enormous. And it really is just a camera bag. It would be really difficult to use this as a general purpose rucksack. The problem with rucksacks is that everything is piled up. It's just everything. It goes into a heap, even without creator material. So without cameras, microphones, batteries, any rucksack is just going to pile everything on top of each other. And I... I don't like that. And it doesn't seem very respectful for the stuff that I put into the rucksack. It is 2 days later. I've... I've taken the rucksack, the backpack on its first trip. Have a look. This is what I've got in here. So, in the in the zip section, I've got pens and earphones, that kind of thing. And then in here, I've managed to get all my clothing for a weekend. Into the top section, I've got my vitamins, uh, supplements there. I've got, uh, battery power pack and accessory for my camera. I've got the DJI Nano. I've got a whole list of videos on that, a whole playlist. I've got two pairs of glasses and my headphones. I've... I've taken out the laptop. Hang on a sec. Jump cut. And I mean, here I've got my my notebook and my laptop. What is interesting about this is on every rucks sack I've ever owned, the laptop has actually been in a pocket at the top here. And it is really strange having the laptop in the front, cuz I didn't think I'd like it, but I've grown to love it because this strap, as well as holding it in, it stops you from being dipped. So, you can't just like put your hand in and and pull it up. You've got to really reach in to disconnect the Velcro to get the laptop out. So, actually, I think that might be a more secure solution overall and more Yeah, just more secure. I think I will leave the the compartments exactly as they arrived out of the box, but I'm really pleased with how much stuff I could get in. I've got so much more room as well, even for my minimal weekend packing. This does feel like a very generous rucksack. So, time to put it on. I think I've got a frozen arm here cuz I've hit that age and I'm doing osteopath work. But you can adjust it really easy. Just flip up this this catch here and that loosens it and then you can get your arm into the other into the other strap. Took me years to work that out there and it it goes on really easily. And then we have the the waist straps. My uh girth is a little uh more generous than out of the box. Perfect. Perfect fit. And then you can tighten the straps. I'm running for the train. I'm running for the shot. If you want, there's also a chest strap here. This one is elasticated as well, so it's got some give in it. So, I don't want to hit the the microphone. And you can loosen and tighten this as well. That is absolutely rock solid. It feels really good. I'm getting I can't tell you how long I've spent trying to find a rucksack where I don't pile everything in, which also doesn't cost more than £100 or $100 to do it at 40. I'm just I still can't believe I found this. But if you are looking for a bag for your gear for your YouTube channel or your, you know, your other Instagram or Tik Tok equipment, this is absolutely something that I think could really work for you. The price is perfect. The size, the weight is perfect. The look is perfect. The only downside with this, I mentioned it during the unboxing. I do like having just a little little bit of colour, little bit of high viz, and I'm going to have to work out a way to destroy the aesthetic beautiful sleek look of this bag somehow. I don't know, maybe I could have like some kind of neon flashing water bottle. If you have any recommendations for high viz flare or clip-on lights, say hi in the comments. I'd really appreciate any any tips there. I've got a link to this bag down in the description below so you can see the latest price. If you've reached this point of the video, thank you for hitting the thumbs up or the subscribe button. It really helps me to keep this channel going. And right here is what YouTube knows you want to be watching next.


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IPAD: How to SCREEN RECORD!

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