THE blinking green lights in the corner of the kitchen catch the energy doctor’s eye.

“That microwave’s on,” she says. “Why?”

She’s right. It’s been on day and night since it was bought a couple of years ago. Why? Well, it’s because no one has ever got round to reading the instructions and setting the clock, so it just blinks “zero, zero, zero, zero” all the time. It serves no purpose whatsoever, except draining power.

“Just switch it off at the plug,” she says. “When you accumulate that over the whole year, it’ll be a saving of about ten per cent of its running costs.

“People have twigged about standbys on TVs, but things like microwaves and cookers haven’t registered yet.”

She looks suspiciously down to the far end of the galley kitchen.

There the cooker blinks quite happily to itself. “Zero, zero, zero, zero,” it says.

It used to tell the time, but we had a power cut and no one quite got round to re-setting it. So night and day, it drains away.

The energy doctor sighs.

She is Sue Vickers, an advice manager with the North-East Energy Saving Trust. The trust is funded by the Government and it gives impartial and free information and advice about how householders can save energy and money.

She rips through the kitchen.

“Dishwashers,” she says. “Make sure they are full. They are coldfill, so there’s a big heating element in there.

“Tumble-driers are big users – something like three kilowatts, which is 3,000 units – so, if it’s a windy day, a good drying day, you are going to save about 50p by taking them outside. Work that out over a year..”

Fridges, she says, should not be stationed next to the cooker.

“I did one house and the woman couldn’t understand why her fridge was always working,” says Sue. “It was next to the oven which was on at 200 degrees.”

Next is the freezer. “Freezers,” she says, “need to be full. The emptier one is, the more power it will use because it’s got nothing for the cold to hold on to. Put some empty tupperware boxes in there, some cheap bread, milk cartons filled with water, anything to fill the void, so it doesn’t have to keep working to keep it at minus 18 degrees.

“And, again, it’s no cost.”

Ours is a mid-Victorian terrace. It’s solid brick and so can’t be insulated. But the kitchen extension, which was clagged on in the Seventies, could be. It’s a large expanse of brick, flat roof and single-paned glass which radiates heat.

“And there’s the bathroom above it,” says Sue. “The bathroom is never carpeted and probably has no curtains, and it’s where condensation forms with warm air hitting the cold walls. Insulation would help.”

THE Energy Saving Trust will give us with free advice on the availability of grants, locally and nationally, and a list of suitable firms.

As she sweeps around the house, the energy doctor is disappointed by our lack of energy saving bulbs. She’s even more disappointed when I say that only the weekend before her visit, I’d removed one from the main light in the high ceilinged dining room because it didn’t cast any light – only shadows.

“You can get them in all shapes and sizes, and the savings are dramatic,” she says, urging us to choose bulbs with the blue energy saving logo on them to show they have been accredited.

“Curtains,” she asks, “do you pull them at night?”

Well, no. It’s too much effort.

They only knock all the things off the windowsill. And then you’ve got to pull them back again in the morning.

At least she’s happy with the attic, which is well insulated and all gadgets are turned off. She peers out of the rooflight and dismisses solar panels as an option, as we don’t face south.

“Turbines are lovely in the middle of a field,” she says, “but you’ve got trees, and a church tower so you would never get maximum exposure to the wind.

“But you’ve got quite a lot of garden that could be suitable for ground source heat pumps.”

So the energy doctor’s diagnosis is that there are plenty of easy, small ways to save energy and money, and a couple of big ones that’ll require more thought. The consultation has lasted an hour – but it has flown by in the blink of a microwave.

■ For free advice, information and consultation, call the Energy Saving Trust on 0800-512012