When we first moved to the island place compound, it was stunningly dark. There are ways in which that’s a good thing — the view of the stars in the night sky was (and still is) amazing. There is also something primal about the deep dark after having grown up in a populous state where the sky glows from light pollution even when hiking in wilderness areas miles away from population centers.
There were practical problems, though. Just getting up at night to use the bathroom was a challenge; I had to keep a battery-powered lantern by the bed. When HA arrived, she had similar challenges. The one source of nighttime light, my internet router, didn’t provide any useful light but would sometimes create startling blinking reflections in the windows. Forget about going outside at night without a flashlight unless there was a bright moon. Even Luna was sometimes reluctant to go out at night. Arriving home after dark was eerie, as the car headlights would usually turn off about halfway to the front door leaving us to find the steps and the doorknob in utter darkness.
Gradually, things changed. We had enough power to run a small LED nightlight, which helped a lot. I started installing networking gear, with its own prodigious collection of blinkenlights.
I got some rechargeable motion-activated nightlights for the bathroom, front steps, and closet.
When our ship came in, we got the refrigerator which had lights for the icemaker and water dispenser. After we got the solar plant running, even though we only had a single outlet on the new system, things really started to proliferate. We got a microwave oven and toaster oven with illuminated displays. The television and its motorized mount and set-top box all had pilot lights. Every power strip we installed had a pilot light. We were having to run dehumidifiers, each of which had a pilot light and color-changing disco lighting to show the accumulated water levels (this, fortunately, could be disabled). My printer has a pilot light as does the paper shredder. The controller for the landscape lighting has a pilot light.
When the rewire of the house was done, we had another thirteen pilot lights because (anticipating my all-electric dream) the kitchen and bathroom were filled with GFCI outlets, each of which had a pilot light (see photo at the top). Then we added the electric bidet seat, the bathroom’s instant hot water heater, multiple phone chargers, then the robovac and its charger, all with their own pilot lights. I just installed a bathroom mirror, which we desperately needed and which also provides light for the bathroom beyond the bidet seat nightlight and motion light. I’m very happy to have it but, yes, it adds another always-on pilot light — or two.
The hot tub has a pilot light, as does the wifi plug I use to control it.
We did get rid of some OG pilot lights that used propane, notably in the old gas refrigerator and the old gas range, which we still have but have disconnected from the gas supply in favor of our induction burners (which also have pilot lights!) and our extra-large toaster oven which, thankfully, is pilot-light free.
So now, even in the dead of night during a new moon, there’s light everywhere in the house. Not a lot of it, but it’s quite a change from the total darkness of a few months ago.
—2p