9 Happy Ways To Cut Electricity Bills
This week, we're continuing on the theme of how to cut your household bills, with the focus on electricity bills. More specifically, on ways to cut your bills that will not cause any suffering what so ever. There's plenty of draconian notions out there like timing your shower with an egg timer (or even sharing it with someone) but these didn't make the cut. Everything on this page is low hanging fruit. It's about small changes that can add up to reasonable savings, but that won't hurt your quality of life in any way. In fact they might even improve it.
Electricians
Stephen O'Hara
Tom Collins
Barry Agar
1. Use the dishwasher
Many of us feel that washing up by hand always uses less hot water than a dishwasher but that is not necessarily true. It may well be true if you wash your dishes in a bowl but if you rinse dishes under a hot running tap, you could be burning through a total of 150 litres of hot water. A modern dishwasher can use as little as 10 litres of water per cycle. Just make sure it's fully loaded, or you'll lose the benefit.
2. Fill the fridge
I like this one. Apparently, it's good to have lots of stuff in your fridge. It keeps the fridge from warming up fast whenever the door is opened so it doesn't have to use a load of energy cooling down again. And just like your parents told you, don't keep opening the door.
3. Be Cool
Most of the energy your washing machine uses comes from heating the water. But why bother? Most modern detergents work just as well at lower temperatures. Washing your clothes in a cool wash could cut energy use by 30%. Think of hot washes as a relic from a different era and let them go!
4. Get Something For Nothing
Tumble dryers are electricity guzzlers. If you have space for a clothes line, you're lucky. Dry your clothes for free on the line. They'll feel nicer and last longer too.
5. Make Your Cuppa Quicker!
Boil only as much water as you need in the kettle. It's quicker anyway, so you spend less time standing around.
6. Open your eyes to the light!
According to the ESB, replacing an ordinary 100 watt light bulb with an equivalent CFL saves 80.0
kWh per year, or €13.21.. So, if you have 10 bulbs, that's €130 a year. Enough for a little break
maybe, if you get a nice deal. And you'll save even more if you keep turning those lights off.
7. Stand by your man (or woman), not your appliances!
Don't leave appliances in standby mode. It's adding about 5% to every electricity bill. The UK Energy Saving Trust.found that the average household has up to 12 gadgets left on standby or charging at any one time. My first reaction was well I don't but then I thought some more. Do any of the following common culprits lurk in your house: tvs, computers, mobile phone chargers, game console chargers, baby monitors, coffee machines, battery chargers, playstations, clock radios, night lights, dvd players, stereos. When you're not using them, disconnect or turn them off.
8. How to get out of hot water!
There's no point heating water above 60C. Set the thermostat on your immersion to 60C to save money and stop water getting dangerously hot.
9. Recharge your batteries
Buy a battery charger and switch to rechargeable batteries. The slightly higher cost of a rechargeable battery is recovered in the first five charges.
pickapro.ie would like to thank A Abbott Electrical, Agar Electrical and Alarms, Tom Collins Electrical, for their helpful advice and tips for this article.