About Me

We moved out to Portugal to live a frugal but better , simpler and peaceful life, our house is a very basic, semi ruin, up in the hills outside Figueiro Dos Vinhos, where we work our land, enjoy life with each other and our dogs, and hope to make the smallest carbon footprint we can,

Saturday 6 December 2008

Lightbulbs

Well after reading Alan's blog at (Tales from the edge of town ) and his exploits in bringing down his power bills, Ive been inspired to work on ours, our electric bill is just about the only bill we get, and to us its huge, a bi monthly continual worry... So we made a (for us large investment in low energy lightbulbs, you know those ugly looking things that dont actually fit in a lampshade...)
We paid 13 euros for 6, and those are the 11watt bulbs, we've ftted them in all our sockets except the strip light in the kitchen work area, and the place is like a black hole now.... Hmmmm the good points are that they last for years, and the whole damn lot only add up to the equivelent of one of our old high power bulbs.. which must save us a lot ... The downside is, they are bloody ugly to look at, and they are only equivelent to 55 watts, which means the place is a tad on the gloomy side, plus the light they give is a whiter light which is harsher than normal too. But hell we just have to get used to it...
Also, I unplugged the fridge.... yep we are now fridgeless.... I took a long look at what was actually kept in it and it wasnt much... our fridge is in what we call the cubby, which is kinda like an entrance hall, utility space, and it's stone built, with concrete floor, which makes it cold...
There is a store cupboard where I keep most of the veg, and the milk (its long life so doesnt need the fridge), so actually in the fridge was.... a lump of cheese, some olives, a handfull of carrots, and a couple of opened jars of mayo and pickle.... believe you me that fridge was off in a trice.... not to be switched on again till its hot.... very hot.... and even then I have a cooler box ... heheheheh
Alan, you dont knowwhat you've started.... The cry of 'switch that light off' echo's right across our valley now....