Energy Saving

I had solar panels on my old house which reduced my electricity bill by half, to about 20/month average. We have panels here in the new house too, but they're not connected to the grid so we don't get any cash from that. They do feed a whole load of batteries in the garage though, but we can't figure out what we can use them for. We charge all our electrical tools there, but we can't think of any other uses.

We have fairly new appliances that use very little water, and we have electric shower that also doesn't use too much water.

We have an extraordinary amount of water butts in the garden, so always use that for the chickens, the dogs and all the plants outside. Even water that gathers in pots doesn't get wasted - it's used for watering plants. I compost everything that can - cardboard, egg shells, envelopes, you name it. Everything I can't use gets recycled, including bags that can only be deposited at large supermarkets. I have an ikea bag collector that is wall mounted in one of the cupboards, which I just take with me when I go shopping and empty it every now and again.

I couldn't live any other way, but I would quite like an air to air heat pump, but I would buy it in Sweden - they're so much cheaper there. My sister has one, and one pump easily keeps her log cabin at 15 degrees all year around, even when it's -30 outside. It's cheap base heating, but you'd still need central heating to top it up.