We were composting before it was cool, we take 1 bag of garbage a week to the dump actually thats not true any more now we wait till we have a full load in the truck before we go to the dump its a 20 min drive there and gas prices are very high. Therefore no trips in the gas guzzler unless its necessary, with myself getting hurt we had to really tighten our belt straps.

The garden started because now I had all this time I wasn't working 12 hours a day, My father In law did all the hard work as I could not use my arms we are slowly enlarging it so eventually most of our vegetables will be home grown enough for both of our families. We do have 2 apple trees but I don't know how to store apples except to make it apple sauce... I'm not much of a cook.

We are now used to living on 1 income and as now I'm capable of working part time I could work full time but as I can not do anything physical for extended periods so I had to take a job that was only part time otherwise I'll be back to square one with my injury. (Both my rotator cuffs were torn.) I'm working on making us as energy efficient as possible, still need a new furnace and a stove but with time.....These generators will be my heavy work for the day for a while once I have most of the parts I will begin putting them together Funny but my son has found some of the parts just laying in the ditches....

 Build interior "storm" window to reduce air leaks and add another layer of insulation.
put good curtains up to close at night,with top mounted air baffle, (basically a box around the top of a curtain),there's tons of ways to cut energy use.

 As far as heat, consider switching to either propane, or firewood as that will be a LOT cheaper for heating than producing electricity for heat.Solar air panels help out on a good southern exposure.

 Solar water heating is much cheaper long run than any other method of heating it, and has a decently quick "payoff"

 Look at reclaiming waste heat from water on your shower, easy and cheap in some applications.

 There are a lot of ways to conserve energy, rather than trying to make it. Payoff on PV solar electric or a windmill will be a long time, basically you're pre-paying your electric bill with them.

 A good site for energy saving ideas is : http://builditsolar.com/ there are a lot of useful ideas there, especially look at the "half plan".

 Large loads do require huge inverters, too. Welding and shop equipment have heavy loads.

The first thing is as said elsewhere to try not to rely on electric resistance heating.  It's bad for your bank balance and bad for the planet!

According to Hans Blix (of nuclear fame) 1kg of wood = 1kWh of electricity: imagine having to fell and prepare 100kg (220lb) of wood each day and then store it all for a couple of years to dry out.

Burn a fuel efficiently for heat if you can (eg wood!) or use a ground-source or air-source heat-pump designed for your climate (eg works down to -20C); that will give you 2 or 3 units of heat out for every one of electricity in.

But first revisit all the conservation methods mentioned above.

Rgds

maybe a properly placed fence or depending on view concerns a shipping container

anything you can put up that makes the wind lift up and over your house is going to help.

sounds like you are on the right track, just not sure you are going to save alot of cash each month,, but you will have peace of mind knowing that you have some control over your life and its costs.

also depending on what alternate fuels you have at your disposal, you might do some research into cogeneration. it might be something viable for you especially in the winter months.

Winning may be in dollar terms or it may be in green (Karma) terms, you chose, or look at the price rises of fuel.

Either way there will never be a more cost effective time to embrace Re.

Parent, I now have that list of books next time I drive into the city I will stop by the library and check them out. Thank you so much! like I did say I've not started anything on the wind mills I've got a dream but I need the facts and a solid plan I don't see any of these machines working on a large scale plan yet to start it may be just the lights in the garage then eventually the furnace running with it.

IRC, I have put in a wood burning fire place, however wood takes a long time to renew dead falls are good and they take us about 2 days to find and haul here, permits are required for everything that gets cut and collected. But not everyday is someone here all day long to keep the fire going. when its minus 40 (yes regularly minus 40 in January Feb things that are good in -20 just don't cut it here.)  pipes will break so we need to be grid tied so we can keep it from freezing. We have a programmable thermostat that keeps the house at 15.9 during the day and 17.5 when we are at home. This was an excellent purchase as it cut 50 dollars off our bill last year no sense keeping the house comfortably heated if no one is home especially if we are gone for a week I know some people will say that to heat it up cost more to just have it go those two degrees but Hydro says that its not more expensive and its one of there suggestions on being hydro smart. I am working on all the conservation that I can some things are more expensive than others but we are picking away at them most of the things for the smaller wind mills are free, or nickel dime things. where having a high efficiency furnace installed is thousands. pick away bit by bit I can only get what I have the money for, we just finished the doors and we still have two more windows to buy they are the priority at the moment.

I'll look into the solar panel idea you may be correct and we do have loads of roof they are east west orientated which by thought actually makes alot of sense! thank you.and we do gets tons of sun summer and winter, do you have to store the power from those? or just direct feed it?

Randy, solar heater? as in a solar furnace? I'll Google it! another thing on my list wow I should have posted a long time ago you all have such great advice!

Norm, your right I've never learned how to can, I don't know anyone that does know how to and truth be told hey I can freeze my veggies all winter long if I just keep them in a coldbox out side, your right I don't need a freezer for them!during the summer they are fresh, the only months to worry about would be May and June before they are grown and they would not be keeping well in the heat. but I remember hearing about cold cellars do I just dig down under the house? we have a crawl space below the house not a basement as the water line is to high for basements here. Another great suggestion well at least for this year I'll just build a box with scrap wood and put them outside come the warmer months when its not cold enough to keep them frozen Ill put them in the freezer. I can save the freezers cost of running for about 7 months as once its -10 they can go out side. Wow this site its the best for suggestions!

Yes I'm working on the conserving, we are working on the appliances as per there use  I had the kids unplug each item and watches the hydro for its drop in spin, we made a list and the ones we could afford we did right away the furnace is the big ticket item however we will apparently not be saving very much by upgrading it so its at the bottom of the list. My walls are all 9 inches thick they are all pink insulated we have 2 feet of insulation in the attic. have completely re caulked the windows and doors have been tested for leaks, we are still going to be upgrading 2 more windows but we still re caulked the old ones till we can buy the new ones.

The window box thing is something I've never heard of why and how does that work? Yes we will have to remain grid tied, we cant afford to have a pipe break!

electrondady1,
 Its semi modern I would guess its ranch style single story nope no icicles,we have a couple of feet of insulation in the attic, walls are 9 inches thick all are insulated with pink , we were losing heat through windows and doors.

we put bales of straw along the foundation and over the septic tank and well every September.

never thought of a berm, would need some help with that.....how do you calculate how far awy to put it how high does it need to be?

Yes we have a mud room,

yes I'm wide open prairie, with tons of wind I don't remember ever having a day when there was a dead calm... one thing I have tons of is wind. Everyone comments about it when they visit it could be plus 30 but its cool because of the wind. I didn't realize that I could run it directly to the heater...., All I ever read is you need this type or that type of batteries to store the energy and then you need to invert it etc. you catch my drift. If I could feed it directly I would be a happy camper.

Daman, Im willing to look into any conservation methods I hear about some are feasible some are not, some things can be done right away some take time but yes if you have any ideas that you have found that work for you I'd be really happy to hear about them. I'll be visiting build it solar when I get my chores done for the day,

yes this year we have so far saved 400.00 in energy costs its a huge amount for us. its like one month of money back in our pockets. i've have been tracking our hydro bills for 3 years and its slowly going down each year.

Today for example its 17 degrees which is great as its not cold but even yesterday the high was 13 and its the middle of summer. I'm going to borrow one of those trackers maybe it will be more effective than me visually watching and counting the spin rate on our hydro meter. We don't have a stereo that has a constant drain but the T.v , and DVD player even when they are not on they still take electricity I heard that if it has a remote control even when they are not on they still draw power, as I can not afford to buy new tv etc, I'll see weather the kids and husband are willing to unplug after they watch or use them, we only watch 2 hours a day at the most as i prefer them to be outside or doing other things and whats the difference between plugging it in or pushing the power button..... any suggestions on how to sell this to them?

Don't let the surprise expressed by the americans on this board get you down.  They've never lived through a week solid of -30C, followed by a refreshing break at -20C for the next month.  Electricity in Canada has been so cheap for so long that nobody thinks about it when building over-sized houses, and people moving into them don't know what they're in for, either.  I was in the same boat when I moved into my beautiful country home outside of Calgary, and then I saw the electric bills!  I believe the number you quote, though I dearly hope it's much lower in summertime.  My house is heated with natural gas and my winter expense is mostly due to heating water for the livestock over the winter, and lights all over this labyrinthine house.  Correct that, the extension of the house also has electric baseboard heaters (easy to forget about that in the summer).  Pretty chilly in there if you don't turn those on when the nights go below -10C.

My personal goal is more modest: to get the windmill to supply enough juice to take the livestock water heat off the grid and run some barn lights.  Didn't quite achieve that last winter, but there's bigger and better in the works.

My house has a shelter belt of poplars which are 30-40 feet tall, barely 12 years old.  Helps a lot with the heating and resisting storm damage, but I'm dammed if I have a clear area for a windmill withing 200 meters of the house!  Your pines will take another 2 decades, but you need to cut the wind down over the house sooner than that.

I'm thinking gee what am I doing wrong perhaps a little explanation, to those who think I have an excessive use? hey I have to have the furnace running in the summer.... I'm northern Manitoba wide open. Imagine those picture you see of a lone farm house with snow up to the windows nothing in sight from horizon to horizon well thats us all winter. I understand a lot of people did say they are in a warmer climate but at least I was honest and said exactly how much we do use I'm not claiming we are angles I'm up for any information hints clues Idea's to reduce I'm reading up on anything I can find, Implementing what I can. I'm working on switching over 1 thing at a time the worst is my heat if I can get that happening for a start I'll be a happy camper. to date in the last couple of years we have reduced our hydro bill by 450.00 per year, I did not bother calculating in the increases that they have been allowed so its actually more than 450 I'm just concerned about rough figures I would love my hydro to be budgeted at 200 per month that is my goal one day some how I will make that happen. this year they were allowed another 5% increase I don't get it they had a profit of over 1 Billion dollars. On the days that the furnace does not run in a 24 hour period we use 1,400 Watts thats like anyone that has 2 100 watt light bulbs going for 7 hours. I'm actually truly happy with that, that is with nothing going to heater for the water, no furnace that is just the fridge all those little power suckers that suck up even when they don't run, normal use of t.v and water pump for toilet, dishes etc..

Placing a 'tempering tank' before the electrically heated tank and using sun or wind to raise the supply ANYWHERE above ground water temps is a good place to save.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_heating <--- read the "thermodynamics and economics" section.

1 Kilowatt = 1000 watts so if I use 1.4 kWh as measured on  the meter in 24hours that means I have used 1.4 *1000 = 1400 watts

on an average colder summer day we use approx 33.4 kWh in 24 hours which would have the family home for the full 24 hours I'm looking at my weekend measurements. now these measurements would include the welder,compressor, washing machine and the water pump.

now I have one of my November - December bills in front of me from 2007 there were 29 days now the house used 5,694.000 KWh which means in Watts  is 5,694,000W so divide that by 29 days its 194793.1034 Watts in 24 hours,granted its dark and the lights are on all the time if someone is home yes just in the room we are in, the heat even with the fire place does run nearly 24 7 just to keep the house at 15.9 during the day and 17.5 in the evening this was the first full month we had installed the variable thermostat so we could conserve on those times when we were not home by letting the temperature drop by 2 degrees.

Last months bill May to June 1,313.000 kWh times 1000 divided by 30 days equals an average of 43,766 watts per day or 43.8 Kwh per day yes may to June was still cold enough to have the furnace running occasionally as a few of the nights still went below 0 degrees and if we were lucky it went above 10 degrees during the day, but the north winds were kind winds.

Here's some inspiration for you, from a fellow Canadian (southern Sask).

http://www.fieldlines.com/story/2007/1/24/155533/620

Thank you Steve for the inspiration. Seeing it being done and hearing about it being done are two very different animals.

A question about the earth berm, does anyone have any suggestions as to what I should do with the hole that will come from the scooped up earth?

Before a solution gets too complex, a description of what is in use would be good.

Plastic drums are not usually an answer to anything concerning potable water unless it is a truly primitive area.