I was looking back at reddit posts (while deleting them), and I realized I’d written a book worth of stuff about this topic. I would write it all again, if it is helpful. But for a brief synopsis of “how it works”, here is what one does:
Assess power needs - look at your living standard and catalog all the devices you power, and estimate the time they operate - power is measured in watts, and time in hours. Multiply to get watt-hours; then divide by 1000 to get kilowatt hours. Compare with your utility bill.
The main appliance-economization we used was to not have an upright refrigerator. Chest-type freezers work on the same principles and with the same machinery, but because they are made to be colder, they tend to be better insulated. Also, when you open them, the cold air does not spill out (and be replaced with warm, tropical air). Of course we don’t want everything to be frozen, so we replaced the freezer thermostat with a refrigerator thermostat ($20). Unfortunately refrigerator thermostats come with a different knob-shaft to keep idiotic repairmen from installing the wrong type, I suppose. So that required a bit of “customization” to make the factory knob fit the “wrong” thermostat. One must be flexible! I like the low-form look it gives the kitchen.
left (smaller) unit is a chest freezer unmodified. right (larger) unit is modified to refrigerate but not freeze.
Excellent idea with the freezer to fridge conversion.
I thought of hooking up the washing-machine directly to my solar-thermal hot-water system to save energy, but apparently that is very difficult to control and the washing-machines made for it are indeed very rare and super expensive. But I guess that is only a problem in the slightly colder climates.