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Now that the first frosts are nearly here I am wondering what to do with my chilli plants.

Do I throw them away and start from seed again next year?
or
Bring them inside into the house - we can keep a few in the conservatory. (heating is kept on at night during the winter months)

Will they survive the winter and provide an early crop next year?

If you bring them in they will survive and fruit next year - perhaps less vigorously than in year 1, but earlier than if you were starting from scratch.  You don't say whether they are presently outside without protection, or under glass, but either way it sounds like your home may be hotter and drier than they are used to, in which case keep an eagle eye out for aphids and red spider mite.

That apart though, it is worthwhile, and I do it.

You should deffo bring at least a couple in. I've got one chilli that's going on for 3 years old, and last winter it never stopped fruiting. No rest, poor thing. They need to be kept somewhere fairly light and warm though, and you 'll need to help the flowers to fertilise. And hey, if they all die on you, there's always next year  :)

 My Sweet Aji are over 4' high, do I bring them in?

Not one has coloured yet.

I grew my firecracker chilli's last year and had a moderate crop during the summer. I brought them into my conservatory and by Christmas they were cropping like mad. They are still going, though one of them is looking a bit tired now. I would definately bring them in.

Mine are outside, perhaps if I dig them up ...

Derekthefox :D

I did last year, and will do again this.  So long as you can keep them pest free (kids as well as aphids in my conservatory), and keep them warm, they will be great.  I was harvesting chillis in early spring from the overwintered plants, then they slowed down just as the freshly grown plants started to produce, and now again they are going mad and producing hundreds!  I repotted the overwintered plants in springs as they started to look hungry, and started to feed them - I also cut them back by about half once the last of the fruits had been picked.

Tomorrow I will be making my 6th batch of chilli and various herb jellies!

I've brought my plants in from the mini greenhouse. They are covered in chilis - the little ones are ripe and producing more flowers, the big chili plant still has green chilis on it.

My question - they are a bit pot-bound now, with roots out the bottom - should I pot them up now or wait til spring?

hmmm, I would personally wait until spring otherwise the plant is going to grow new roots to fill the pot all winter long when really it could do with resting.  Then, in March time, get it in a slightly bigger pot with some new compost and start feeding and away it will romp!

As a rule chilli peppers will over winter inside,or even a frost free greenhouse to give an early crop-they can get a bit `woody` after a year or two though.

Much depends on variety I guess-Tim has mention Aji,-and what about those other big sods ?-the ones that grow to 5ft plus?-think I will stick to saving pot grown varieties like Apache

Two years ago I left two chilli plants(fuego) in my cold greenhouse over winter.Six panes of glass where lost in a gale,(not replaced till spring ::)),and we even had a sprinkling of snow.
  The result was the branches died back a bit so I pruned them to tidy it up,this left me with about a 12''-15'' stem with 4 or 5 small branches.Come spring and a bit of warmth,shoots started growing;to cut a long story short,they produced a lot more chilli's than  the one's grown from seed that season,probably because it had a lot more branch axils to grow fruit from due to the amount of shoots it produced when it came back to life!

Last winter due to various circumstances I left a two-year-old chilli plant on the windowsill through January with no water for nearly a month, along with an elderly tomato plant that I should have composted but the two of them were the only green things in the flat.

Both are still alive.