Appliances That Consume The Most Electricity & Increase Your Energy Bills
Which Appliances Are At Fault For Most of Your Power Bills?
We all have them – from dishwashers to computers, lights and television, clothes dryers and coffee makers. What we don’t realize is how much power these appliances use in making our lives easier, and usually waste a good amount of electricity unknowingly, increasing our power bill for no good reason and making us wish for cheap electricity. So, what are most power expensive appliances in your house?
Small appliances like the toaster or vacuum cleaner both use a lot of energy relatively to their size, and so coffee machines and hair dryers. But most of these appliances are used only on occasion. While perhaps using a relatively large amount of power as much in total as the appliances we leave running for hours, days, weeks, months, even years on end. Which brings us to our first large power consumer – the refrigerator/cooler.
The most common energy measurement unit is 1kWh, which is equal to using a thousand watts for an hour. Refrigerators, especially the older models, use from 40kW/h and up to 150kW/h, meaning that they in turn use hundreds or even thousands of kWh yearly. There are few precautions you can take to reduce this consumption. Defrost, as the ice buildup hurts efficiency, check if the seals still hold tight and set the temperature to one you need instead of the most cooling power. The refrigerator’s brother, the separate cooler, is also on the expense-makers list, and can be dealt with in the same manner as the fridge. If either your cooler or refrigerator is older than 10 years, your best solution (if you can afford it) would be to buy new ones, as the energy consumption has been greatly reduced in newer models.
If you live in a more humid part of the world, chances are you own a dehumidifier. These devices have consumption between 60kW/h and 1000kW/h, depending on the capacity. Most people keep them running day and night, at the end making them one of the largest power consumers in their household. This can be helped in two ways – set the humidistat to a reasonable level (for example 50% for basements), or else it will probably stay on all the time. In addition, make sure the room it’s running in is closed off, as a one-room dehumidifier cannot dehumidify your whole house but it will try to – costing you further money.
Use Your Heaters Efficiently
Next on this list is your water heater. This appliance is running day and night no end, making sure you have hot water when you need it. Long showers will cause it work overtime, consuming a lot of electricity. Having set it to a too high temperature will also do that, as well as make it waste more energy through its hull. This can be helped by wrapping it in an insulating blanket, further increasing its efficiency, lowering the energy losses and the costs. In addition to that, you may want to use hot water in bulk instead of in smaller amounts, as the water in the pipes gets cold gradually, which means most of the water gets heated for no good reason each time you need just a little on your tap. All three methods mentioned above will save you some money, but as you probably still need most of these running as they are, perhaps consider and alternative like cheap electricity which should further reduce your power bills. And now for the most costly of all your power users – house temperature regulation.
Yes, the most power goes to your heating/cooling systems (nearly half of the total power consumption). You might be surprised, but most of that power is lost without reason. Regulating the temperature in the whole house while you may only be using a few rooms is a waste of power. Running your systems at full speed all of the time is also a waste. To prevent wasting precious power, we suggest investing in separate thermometers linked to a digital thermostat. You can regulate each room in the house to your wishes, preventing the use of power when nobody needs it.
Insulating your outer walls will also help keep your cool/warmth, as it will greatly reduce outer influences on your household. While these expenses may seem a bit radical and costly, they will pay for themselves in a couple of years, giving you and the ones closest to you a more pleasant living environment for the future. To add to the savings, have a professional to check your temperature regulating systems yearly.
