by James Jones

Created on: September 23, 2008

Saving money on electricity can be easier and more effective than you might think. These are some quick and easy fixes. The five low hanging fruit if you like:

1) Have an electric boiler and still have hot running water late at night? Perhaps your boiler is on for too long, or set too hot. If you never lack hot water, or only when there is extreme usage, you are using too much electricity. Gradually reduce the time the boiler is on, or the temperature, until you feel you have enough for you day to day needs. As and when the need arrives (dinner party with lots of dishes, or the whole family suddenly needing a shower in the evening) you can turn the boiler on for that.

2) Do you leave your TV on stand-by over night? What about your DVD player, video games console, satellite or cable receiver? They might not use much when they are on, but if you are leaving them all on standby (with a little red light on) over-night this adds up to a lot of devices and a lot of time. When you finish at night unplug them all, or switch off at the socket if you can. It doesn't sound like much, but it adds up quickly.

3) The big obvious one: don't keep the lights on in rooms you are not using. In fact, do you even need the full lights on when you are watching TV at night? Minimise the usage of lights to as little as you need. And replace the bulbs with the modern energy saving bulbs. Typically an energy saving light bulb will give you the same brightness for about a quarter of the energy. Well worth the investment.

4) Fridges and freezers run all the time, night and day, so you are wasting money if you don't buy the most energy efficient fridges and freezers from the start. Find out the energy rating (A is best, then going down the alphabet for the poorer performers) and if your appliance isn't up to scratch, get rid of it as soon as you can. Also make sure you don't over fill your freezer, it will struggle. If you have a utility room or similar that doesn't have heating this would be the perfect place for your freezer it won't overheat on the outside and will have less work to do to keep what's inside frozen.

5) When washing your clothes decide whether you really need to do it on a full program. Are your clothes really that dirty? Probably they are not. Most normal laundry can be washed at 40, or even 30, degrees and short cycles. Needless to say, do not tumble dry unless you really, really have to. Tumble drying is for emergencies only in energy efficient home.

If you implement these you will save. I did and I knocked 25% off my electricity usage!

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