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47 walk around behind your OH turning off lights that he has left on muttering 'I dont want to hear the words photovoltaic or solar again until you learnt to turn some dang lights off'

48 make J artichoke and carrot soup and trump the evening away..

Stonehead wrote:45. Trip the mains off switch when no one is looking and pretend it's a very long blackout.

Ah so the truth outs about your time without electricity - cheers for info about the fridge I consider myself educated.

49. If you work in an office email all of your work address book and remind them to turn off lights and their monitors at night.
50. Don't tumble dry your clothes hand them up instead.

51. Double insulate your chest freezer (if you have the space and good DIY skills). You need a chest freezer with exposed coils at the back. You apply an extra layer of insulation on the bottom (leaving the condensor clear), on the back (carefully and gently bend the coils away a little to slide the insulation in), on the sides and on the top.

To be really cunning, mount the freezer on wooden blocks and extend the side insulation so it touches the wall behind the freezer, leaving a boxed in gap between the back of the freezer and the wall. Also extend the side insulation down past the bottom of the freezer to the floor. The extra insulation on the front should not touch the floor, nor should the top insulation block the top of the gap at the back. You've now created an air stack effect - as the hot air from the coils rises up through the boxed gap at the back of the freezer (with some velocity I should add), it will pull more air in under the front of the freezer and the extra air flow will increase the freezer's effectiveness as will the extra insulation.

You can use the hot air rising out of the gap for warming the room, duct it elsewhere in the house or just hang a clothes airer on the ceiling. Just make sure you do not impede the air flow.

You should be able to get a 20-30% improvement in efficiency. The best insulation for this would be foil backed boards, but don't try to fit too thick a piece between the coils and the back of the freezer.

You could get really fancy and build some sort of wooden box around the whole arrangement, leaving the air flow clear, so that it looks good as well.

This technique, which I use to see used on freezers out in hotter parts of Australia, will not work with freezers with enclosed coils.

Insulate all the hot water pipes from the boiler you can find without pulling the floors up, around the hot water tank and so on. Hot water tanks are usually insulated with foam but add to that, the more the merrier.

Passive solar, I glazed in an open south facing front porch, on a sunny winters day the front door can be opened and the free heat gained is surprising.

John

What are we up to now? 53?

Make sure your house is well ventilated. Warm, wet air is much harder to heat than cold, dry air. It also doesn't hold heat as well and cools faster (therefore you need to use the heater more to keep the room warm). By airing out your house as much as possible, you get rid of the moisture and make your home easier to heat, as well as preventing mould and mildew.

a full freezer will not start to defrost until it has been off for about 72 hours, we turn ours off at night (we are powered by solar)unless we've added fresh unfrozen foodstuffs. It generally goes off around 9pm and goes on at 5.30am. the fridge is the only thing on overnight.

Living here has made the kids really aware of elec' consumption, even the 4 yo turns off the tv and sat box when she's finished her allotted time

40. Get your kids to move out.

its actually the OH that wastes electricity can I get him to move out do u think?!

No idea what number we are up to but I shower in the half light (every other morning and am down to 2 mins!) I actually never turn on any lights until I get to the kitchen and am now an expert at dressing in the dar - there is a danger i put something on inside out tho lol

Move to Bhutan.