After some discussion on power-hungry low-voltage halogen downlights in the comments section of my We Now Have Solar Power post, I thought it was high time I did something about them.

A while ago I measured that our 50W halogen lights are actually drawing 65W each – the extra 15W is lost in the transformer. So [...]

I finally got the chance to set up my chest freezer as a fridge a couple of weeks ago, and I’ve been testing it out so I could write up this post.

You may recall I mentioned that we had an old fridge/freezer running in our garage as a second fridge. With three young kids in [...]

OK, our solar power system actually got installed a week ago, but I wanted some photos so I had to wait until the weekend.

Anyway, we now have solar power!

We got a 1 kW grid-connected solar power system from Earth Utility. Once again (we previously got solar hot water from them), their service was great and [...]

My FridgeMate Mk II digital temperature controller arrived in the post today.

If you are thinking of a similar project, or just looking for home brew supplies, I highly recommend MashMaster.

I left a question about the FridgeMate for them via their web site, and they answered it within a few hours (and this was outside of [...]

One of the big energy hogs in our house is our clunky old second fridge in the garage. I measured its energy consumption with the MS6115 power meter, and it uses a whopping 2.5 kWh/day!

Many Aussie houses have one of these beasts, which is a big reason why the NSW State Government is now offering [...]

If you want to reduce your energy bills, you need to know what it is in your house that’s using all the electricity. An Efergy energy meter is a great way to do that.

The Efergy meter is installed inside your electricity meter box, and transmits real-time energy usage information to a display panel inside your [...]

The NSW Government has been trialling their Fridge Buyback Scheme in Sydney for a while now, and starting next month the scheme will be broadened to include the Illawarra. At this stage it will only encompass the Wollongong and Shellharbour Council areas, but hopefully it will extend to Kiama in the near future.

The scheme aims [...]

Are you interested in learning more about getting grid-connected solar power for your home?

You may be able to take advantage of the $8000 means-tested Government rebate which ends 30th June 2009, or the new non-means-tested solar credit scheme starting from 1st July 2009!

Jamberoo FutureCare will be hosting two information sessions, in association with Solar Shop [...]

We had our solar hot water system installed about 4 weeks ago now. I wanted to wait a little while for it to settle in before writing up our experiences.

We got a Chromagen system – they’ve been around for a long time, and seem pretty well-made and reliable. We bought through Earth Utility, one of [...]

If you live in Australia, did you know that you can now access green retrofits for your house for free?

Check out all the sustainable retrofit rebates available here in Australia. Make sure you scroll to the bottom and find your state ones, too.

You could get a rainwater tank, a solar hot water system, solar electricity, [...]