people have commented about the hit their electricity bill gets in the summer - due to having a fan on

well I looked at the manufacturers plate on a couple of fans here and although probably almost 10 years old they are rated at 60w
this means that having one on for 10 hours = 600w
or if on for 24hrs = 1440w = 1.44 units of electricity
if the unit is say 20c (have no idea at time of writing) then that fan
has "spent" approx 30c

so the bill is being hit by something else other than a fan
but if you have 10 fans running 24hrs a day then that is something else.


so if you were to convert to donkey power and have a treadmill or a similar device then you could put a donkey to generate at those times most needed - such as when Coronation Street is on.
unless you are from the Posh thread when you would get the chauffeur to use it along with the household keepfit program for employees.

The fridge and freezer struggling in the summer heat ?

Sadly I have no space to keep a donkey, although I suppose at a pinch we could keep it in the living room which is where a lot of our Spanish neighbours park their motos.

I have a fan on in the bedroom most nights in summer, certainly this year (last year and the one before must have been cooler as I probably needed a fan on no more than 10 nights) and it hardly seems to make any difference at all to my electricity bill. Thankfully.

tried moving them away from the wall and putting a fan to blow at the back?

also check how often they are opened, it makes a huge difference if you are continually opening for the G&T (or whatever) ice.

We could try bu11sh1t-fired power stations, there is plenty of that around.

most of the bulls are in the Middle and North of Spain

I asked you once nicely - now get back on topic please.

Unfortunately Coronation St. coincides with the Donkeys evening mealtime and I'm damned if I'm going on the treadmill, so if er indoors wants to watch it she'll have to get her own ass into gear.



to create electricity of course.

all those who have tried to run from the high electricery bills by installing photo-voltaic, wind, heat pump or even water forms of energy generation
have seen their payback eroded because the high payback for feeding to the grid has been drastically cut.

it costs alot to buy in the infrastructure and it has to be maintained or the replacement cost is high.

perhaps instead of becoming budding donkey entrepreneurs, after all the donkeys need to be fed, watered and checked by expensive vets, we should find some way of become power generators, get investors and shareholders and start making real money

Heating water for showers and baths costs a lot of electricity.
Has anyone installed a low-tech solar boiler?
(I don't mean one equipped with solar panels.)

My last old boiler was very low tech, though it did blow quite a lot of hot air around the house.




I was pleased when she left though.

At this time of year our water is always warm

I've never heard of them, but I am intrigued. How do they work without panels?

I'm not sure what you're referring to, but around here some people just toss a hundred metres of black plastic pipe on the roof, and hook it up to an old electric boiler (without the electricity plugged in) and then using some sort of small pump gizmo to pump the hot water into the boiler. We have some neighbours that do this and it seems to work.

That's like a mega version of those old camping showers - a black plastic "pillow" filled with water and hung out in the sun.

I know of people who heat their pool that way. It's easy if you have plenty of land - it doesn't look too tidy spread over the roof!