Everyday energy saving tips
Contents
- Energy saving ideas that cost nothing and save cash
- Simple and inexpensive fixes – under $60
- Energy saving measures that pay for themselves in 1-5 years
- Energy saving measures that cost more but pay for themselves in 3-15 years
- Appliance Tips
- Winter Power Saving Tips
Energy saving ideas that cost nothing and save cash
- Turn off lights when leaving a room.
- Use cold water for laundry and wash only full loads.
- Use the sun and wind to dry your laundry.
- Repair leaky taps.
- Close curtains and windows at sunset in the winter.
- When buying a new appliance, ask for an energy-efficient model. Look for the "Energy Star Rating" sticker.
- If you have a beer fridge, turn it off.
- Use a stuffed "snake" to exclude draughts under the door.
- Block off open fireplaces when not in use.
- Switch off TVs, DVD players, stereos, etc at the wall when not in use. Appliances on standby waste energy.
- Run heated towel rails for a few hours only.
- Switch cupboard heaters off during the day.
- Reduce your hot water cylinder temperature, but not less than 60°C.
Simple and inexpensive fixes – under $60
- Install a water-efficient showerhead.
- Fill gaps in your ceiling insulation.
- Plant a deciduous tree to shade your largest west-facing window in summer. You'll get shade in summer, sun in winter.
- Fit shields for draughts and rain on external doors.
- Insulate the first two metres of hot-water pipe nearest the hot-water cylinder.
- Put compact fluorescent bulbs in the light fittings you use the most. These use around a fifth the electricity of a standard bulb.
Energy saving measures that pay for themselves in 1-5 years
- Insulate the ceiling.
- Block draughty air gaps around plumbing pipes and electrical cables, windows and doors, with caulking and weather strips.
- Insulate remaining hot-water pipes.
- Insulate under timber floors.
- If your hot-water cylinder is not labelled A grade, install a cylinder wrap.
- If the ground underneath your house is wet, cover with polythene, taping the joints and ensuring a fit around the piles.
Energy saving measures that cost more but pay for themselves in 3-15 years
- Insulate the walls when renovating.
- Increase ceiling insulation.
- Convert to solar hot-water heating.
- Double-glaze windows.
- Install awnings or shades over windows that overheat your home in summer. This will reduce the need for cooling fans and air-conditioning.
- Consider installing a heat pump to replace conventional electric heaters.
Appliance Tips
Here are some of the most energy-hungry appliances around the house, and suggestions about how to run them more cheaply, or avoid using them entirely.
Heaters
Simply turning off heaters isn't a wise move, as prolonged cold room temperatures will result in ill effects for the house and its inhabitants! However, you can take care to choose the most appropriate heater for your needs.
A woodburner is also an option.
We don't recommend unflued (portable) gas heaters. Energy costs are slightly higher than electricity, but worse, they give off around a litre of water per hour on high settings. To remove this moisture you might be tempted to use a dehumidifier, at a cost of 3 to 4 cents per hour.
If you run two heated towel rails (80 watts each) and a cupboard heater continuously (180 watts), but decide to switch them off for 12 hours a day, that is an annual saving of $238.
Fridge/freezers
A mid-size (380-450L) modern fridge/freezer uses 25 percent less electricity than a 10-year old model – a saving of about $40 a year.
Faults make an old model even less efficient: insulation gives up, door seals wear, thermostats fail. Listen to the fridge: it should cycle on and off in a regular pattern when the door is closed. If it runs all the time it's not in good health.
Check the seals: they should be free from cracks or tears. If you can easily insert a piece of paper between the seal and the frame, the door is not fitting tightly enough. This can actually double the running costs! New seals can be fitted to most fridge/freezers, at a cost of $120 to $160.
Don't fix an old fridge if it's more cost-efficient to buy a new one.
Turning off that second beer fridge can save up to $120 per year – more if you include the reduced beer consumption!
Stoves
Stoves are not very efficient. To make the most of the heat, use close-fitting lids on pots. When possible, use a microwave instead – it's more than twice as efficient.
Dishwashers
The best dishwashers require about the same amount of energy as a hot hand wash – at a cost of around $40 per year. Older dishwashers can use over $130 of power per year.
If you own a dishwasher, run it only when full, or set half-loads, if you have that option. If your household relies on hand-washing, try not to pre-rinse using hot water – this can save up to $40 a year.
Dehumidifiers
A typical dehumidifier uses 3 to 4 cents per hour. In favourable circumstances (a warm room), the most efficient models will remove 1 litre of water every 4 hours. If you run a dehumidifier for 10 hours a day over winter (3 months), it will cost $35.
Although a dehumidifier will usually succeed in drying a house, it only removes the symptoms, not the cause of the problem. This is why we don't generally recommend dehumidifiers, at least not on their own. Removing moisture at the source is cheaper.
Fit extractor fans in the bathroom (around $100 to $500), and an externally-vented rangehood in the kitchen. Vent the dryer to the outside. Warm the air, to lower the relative humidity, and don't use unflued gas heaters, as these release up to a litre of water into the air, every hour.
Washing machines
Hot or warm washes in a typical top-loading washing machine use a lot of energy. You can cut this right back by using cold washes. It's just as hygienic, and modern detergents work very well. It costs nothing to make the change, but will reduce the running costs by a massive 90 percent.
Clothes dryers
Dryers are costly to run: expect to pay around 60 cents per (5kg) load. The obvious strategy is to avoid using dryers wherever possible. Also, cut back on moisture infiltrating your house by venting your dryer to the outside. If that's not possible, use it in the laundry with the outside door/window open and the door to inside the house shut.
Computers
A computer costs about 3 cents per hour, depending on age, monitor size and efficiency.
When your computer is switched on, make the most of any in-built energy saving features, such as low power modes, and monitor/hard-drive power-off settings.
When not in use, it goes without saying that you should turn your computer off. But be wary of leaving it unplugged for very long periods, especially if it's elderly. If left for a few months without being able to draw any electricity, there's a risk the internal battery may run down, resulting in the computer "losing its memory".
Standby power
Standby power is that little bit of energy required to keep some appliances warm, with clocks going, and batteries charged. In some cases, this is handy. VCRs need to be kept on standby, or you'll have to reset the clock every time you want to record. Ditto with clock/radios!
But standby is a luxury for many other appliances. Stereos don't require a functioning clock, and neither do CD players, games machines, TVs, set-top boxes and the like. Most of them only use around 10 watts. Some inefficient appliances use up to 20W; very good ones less than 1W. It's not much, but if you have several appliances permanently on standby, your costs can add up to nearly $100 a year.
Where practicable, turn appliances off at the wall. When you buy, ask about models with low standby costs. Some can run for less than a dollar a year. Note that energy labels don't give standby information.
Winter Power Saving Tips
Water heating
Water heating uses 30% of household energy
- Check your hot water temperature at the tap – it should be at 55 degrees Celcius. An extra 10 degrees, for example, could cost you up to $140 a year.
- Make sure your dishwasher is full – try the eco feature if you have one and make sure you wait until you have a full load before switiching your dishwasher on. If you have gas hot water and your dishwasher heats its own water,.wash your dishes by hand.
- Rinse dishes with cold water instead of rinsing them under the hot tap.
- Stop hot taps dripping – fix any dripping hot taps by replacing the washer or fitting.
- Save water and energy – install an energy efficient, low-flow shower head. This could save you up to $500 a year if you use a lot of hot water.
- Wash the clothes in cold water. By doing a cold wash instead of a warm wash you could save about $50 a year.
- Take a shorter shower. If a family of four each spent a minute less in the shower they’d save $63 a year.
- Wrap the heat in. If your electric hot water cylinder and/or pipes feel warm to the touch, they are losing heat. Insulate them by wrapping – you can get wraps from hardware stores.
- Shower rather than bath and keep the shower short.
Home heating
Heating our homes uses 30% of household energy
- Hang curtains – use good quality thermal or close-woven fabrics and close them before dark to keep the heat in.
- Use the wood burner or wood pellet burner
- Stop draughts sneaking in and out under doors with a draught stopper.
- Use thermostats and timers so your heaters, including heat pumps, only come on when you need them and automatically turn off once the right temperature is reached.
- Check your insulation – even small gaps mean you’re paying for heat that’s going straight out of your house.
- Make use of the sun by keeping windows clean and free from overhanging trees it’s another way of taking advantage of sunlight to warm your home.
Check your appliances and lighting
Appliance and lighting consumes 40% of household energy
- Switch it off – turn appliances off at the wall instead of leaving them on standby and remember to unplug mobile phone chargers too when you’ve finished using them. This could save you up to $100 a year.
- Switch off your heated towel rail – instead of having your heated towel rail on continuously, use it for only a few hours per day. You can save $70-$140 a year by doing this.
- Pull the plug on your second fridge – you can save up to $300 a year by getting rid of your old inefficient beer fridge or freezer.
- Use the right sized saucepan for the element when you are cooking, so heat doesn’t escape around the sides. And use a lid to keep the heat in.
- Buy bright – replace your four home’s most-used bulbs with energy efficient ones. They cost around $6 each but last up to 10 times longer. Doing this can save around $65 a year.
- Use a clothesline rather than a dryer.