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Appliances
Appliances account for about 47% of the electricity consumption of an average household. There are now many efficient appliances available, most of which have efficiency ratings. The top ratings are:
- washing machines ‘A++,A,A’ (for energy consumption, wash performance and spin efficiency),
- tumble dryers ‘A’,
- Fridges and fridges freezers ‘A++’,
- Dishwashers ‘A,A,A’ (for energy consumption, wash performance, drying performance),
The difference between using all ‘G’ rated appliances and all ‘A’ rated ones for the mythical average household would be about £150 per year, plus additional savings on water and consumable costs. Not a great idea financially to run out and replace everything straight away, but definitely worth buying the top ratings when you do need a new appliance.
Actually making an appliance takes quite a lot of energy and leaves a bit of a hole in the ground where the raw materials were taken from. Once you own appliances that run efficiently, try and get them fixed when they go wrong rather than buying new ones. My mother takes this to the extreme by Hammeriting her dishwasher every time it gets too rusty, which is not a good idea which ever way you look at it.
Remember to keep fridges and freezers clean and defrosted, as dirty ice monsters use a lot more energy than their squeaky clean counterparts.
Washing machines are generally best used at 30oC, with only clothes from Armageddon needing more. This means that cold fill is just as good as hot, since the hot will have to be cooled anyway. Use dishwashers on the eco setting, as again the really hot washes are only needed for the bad stuff. Interestingly, it turns out that dishwashers use about 25% of the water that hand-washing uses; about 15 to 20 litres. They do use slightly more energy, but this can probably be sorted out by turning the wash setting to a low temperature and not using the super hot drying mode (if possible). So dishwashers are a good thing, more or less.
Tumble dryers – just don’t. If you can, hang things up to dry. If you smooth things out as you hang them up, it will have the added benefit of making ironing easier or unnecessary.
Information on gas vs. electric ovens is a little hard to digest, but it seems that overall gas is better than electric. Gas ovens apparently use more energy than electric during cooking, but less energy is wasted in getting the fuel to the oven (e.g. transmission losses in power lines). This leads to gas being better, unless you use electricity from sustainable sources (follow this link to find a green electricity supplier).
For hobs, it seems that gas beats standard electrical cookers, but electrical induction hobs are the best. These work by creating a magnetic field that heats steel pans directly: cooking by cunning physics rather than simply passing heat from the hob to the pan. Again, green electricity supply makes a whole world of difference.
Microwaves are very efficient and those with combination cooking elements can take over almost entirely from traditional ovens. It’s just that most people who have them don’t use them to their full advantage. Apparently, the ones with halogen lamps are the most efficient for all-purpose oven cooking.
Vacuum cleaners use a surprising amount of energy, but do not have an energy rating scheme yet. The higher the wattage, the more energy it will use. Friends of The Earth suggest buying a Dyson or Medivac rather than a Philips or Panasonic, but apart from that there is little help. I hear there are super efficient, air recycling vacuums coming out soon, but I haven’t got anything definite to report yet.
Boilers are appliances of a sort, I guess, so I’ll talk about them here. Very inefficient boilers are no longer available, which is good news. If you are getting a new boiler, it is worth going for a condensing one as these are the most efficient. They are a little more delicate than the traditional sort, so may need a little more servicing to keep them going long term. If you have an old gas boiler, replacing it with a spanking new condenser should cut around £100 off your fuel bills.
If you have a hot water tank, make sure it is well lagged. This will reduce the drying potential of the airing cupboard, but save a small fortune in fuel bills. OK, a very small fortune – about £20 a year. The best sort is factory finished, where insulating foam is sprayed all over the tank to make a completely insulated layer. Obviously this is tricky to achieve in a cupboard, but there are a lot of jackets that fit very well. There should be some available through the community or at the shop.
Hot water should be kept at about 65oC or just above. Go much lower than that and it could grow all sorts of nasties like legionella, but any hotter is a waste of energy. 65oC is actually very hot and would scald you if you tried to wash with it directly. Why heat water up just to cool it off again?
Electrical
The most important actions you can take for electrical goods are also the simplest: replace all your light bulbs with energy savers, and turn things off when you’re not using them. Simple, huh?
People often think that energy-saving bulbs are expensive, horrid and don’t fit most lamps. This is no longer true. Prices kick off at around £1 per bulb, but they last for ages and will save around £30 per bulb compared to using standard filament types. They also now come in all shapes and sizes, and often kick out a better quality of light than the filament bulbs. They are also a lot cooler, so good for many lampshades: a 30W energy-saving bulb will kick out about as much light as a 100W traditional filament bulb. Check out Go Green Lights for the cheapest deals around. It is worth noting that the cheaper bulbs tend to break quicker than the branded bulbs, although they should all last a lot longer than filament types.
Whilst we’re on lights, I have heard people say that strip lights take more energy to turn on than to keep running. This was indeed true around the time of Boudicca, but now turning them on takes the same energy as only 15 seconds running time.
Turning things off, including lights, saves vast amounts of energy and therefore cash. Most standby modes take about 15% of the energy needed to run the thing fully. For most households in the UK, this equates to between £20 and £120 a year. It’s not as if turning things back on is difficult – how much effort does it take to press a switch? One has to be pretty dedicated to being fat and unhealthy to baulk at using a switch. If, like me, you have no noticeable memory so tend to turn the wrong things off (like the fridge), try getting an extension multi-block with individual switches and only plug things into it which are OK to turn off. You might get the wrong one now and again, but there will be no harm done.
Or buy things that have an ‘off’ button. Considering that the UK spends £2,000,000,000 on electricity to run electronic gadgetry, it is worth trying to save the 15% by turning things off.
If you really, really must leave your computer on (obviously not for downloading pirate copies of films and music), then turn your screen off. Even if it is blank when on standby, it uses power. Turning it on again is no more hassle than wiggling the mouse about and might be quicker.
With digital television transmission coming up, it is worth buying an integrated digital television (IDTV) when replacing your old set. The other option is to get a normal TV and a set top box, which is just silly. When buying an IDTV, make sure it can be completely switched off without losing the settings, or you will have to leave it on standby and become a pariah. Also, buy one that is Energy Saving Recommended: a blue and white logo with a swirly arrows design and ‘Energy Saving Recommended’ written on it. This shows the appliance is one of the most efficient available.
Greenpeace have rated the electronic manufacturers according to how eco-friendly they are (Guide to Greener Electronics). In early 2010 the leader was Nokia, with Samsung then Sony Ericsson fairly close behind. The worst culprit was again Nintendo, with Lenovo, Microsoft and Fujitsu nearly as bad.
Never throw away waste electrical equipment (or WEEE as it is officially known). Anyone selling electric or electronic goodies has to provide a disposal route for the old kit that their customers are replacing. They can do this by taking them off your hands at the store (when you buy something new), or providing places at which the old kit can be dropped off. The latter requires a dedicated trip to somewhere like your local dump (Civic Amenity Site), but you don’t have to buy anything to take advantage of it. Dell arrange for doorstep collection, which is nice.
As ever, and sorry to sound like a scratched record (for you young ’uns, records are those large, flat black things with music grooved into both sides), but try to make your kit last rather than getting new stuff all the time. Or even willy-nilly, by Jingo! Making and scrapping TVs etc. is a resource sapping business, so make them last. Or read a book instead – or go down the dance hall to have a frightfully gay time and a slap-up supper for 3 and 6 pence.
It’s all right, I’ll stop now.
What to do
The important and easy things to do are:
- Turn things off when not in use.
- Fit energy efficient light bulbs.
- When buying new kit, get the highest efficiency rated models, such as those recommended by the Energy Saving Trust (see logo above).
- Buy less stuff and use it less.
Other Sites
The Energy Saving Trust guide to Energy Labels for electrical appliances.
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