1663 Practical Things To Do That Will Help Reduce Your Electricity Bill Now

[xlerb_again_to_music]

The biggest mystery power drain in my house turned out to be the washing machine, taking 20W when showing OFF. So I've wired a 230V neon into the plug, I can now tell the machine is powered up - otherwise I will forget to turn it off at the socket.

[kevinleebailey]

Learn how to make wind turbines and generator's and batteries by watching this channel. Make your own electricity ! Thanks for all the information on this channel Rob 👍 !
Every body remember to share and link this channel with everyone. It's a God send in these crazy time's.

[EgonSorensen]

Put a lid on, when boiling in a pot
Defrost food in the fridge - and cool it well down (outside and/or fridge) before putting food in the freezer
Use an air fryer, much less volume to heat up instead of a big oven
The list goes on and on - main thing is to use less energy over time whilst saving/recycling on the heat/cold and number of repeat(s)

[adouglas]

My worry is as we all use less and less energy the energy providers will continue to put the prices up accordingly so they can continue to make the same profit from selling less.

[kferguson]

So many great ideas. We've used Insuladd paint additive on the outside of our home to reflect heat from the south side (this room came down by 2-3 degrees in temperature in summer) and on the ceiling inside at the north end to reflect heat back and it has reduced our oil bill by a third for the year.

[shinjisan]

Buy a Kill-a-Watt power monitor and go around the house checking phantom power drains. Also great to see how efficient devices/appliances really are.

[edwardvanhazendonk]

I have big savings after rinsing my radiators internally (lot's of debry collects in it including iron), changed the radiator valves to thermostatic and controllable via Honeywell Evohome (bought it secondhand). This brought down my gas usage from around 800m3 to a bit north of 400m3. (In the Netherlands this saving could give you around a €1000 a year). Also installed a radiator valve on the shower, installed LED lights, heat only rooms I'm in and switch heating to low when away (Evohome helps with this). Also looking at your energy consumption in depth would give you hints about your usage, which helps you save a lot. When you understand Dutch (or if youtube translates it well) you kan watch channel Ketel Klets with all kinds of savings. (For instance lowering your radiator temperatures to 55 degrees saves a lot of power heating the water, placing a temperature controlled fan under it heats your room a lot faster. Thanks for sharing Robert!

[craiglees]

I have an old flat plate electric hub when I boils up anything I always have a pan of water ready. When I turn off the plate I put the pan full of water on the plate. Usually I am able to then wash the dishes with it.
Also do the same with the electric over once finished and off I put the pan in the use up the heat.

[michaelschauperl]

At times with temperatures below 0°C i am always putting a metal bowel filled with water on the balcony. The ice that formed comes into the fridge till it's molten..
When there is snow I pile it up and shade it and use it as above.

When I find the time and the sun shines I 'm using a solar cooker.
When there is not enought sunshine I often take small rocket stoves to heat a dutch oven or a wok.

Most of the summertime I used a outdoor solar shower, thus leaving the boiler shut off.
But my biggest point in saving energy and money is going as much as I can by bicyle.
Over 2000 km since january.

[kevinleebailey]

Build a solar cooker (oven) for the warmer sunny months. They are really easy to make. Why pay for electricity and fuel when the sun is shining.

[garys-half-baked-offgrid-dream]

I have been very strict and only using heavy loads when when I am generating enough Solar to cover it. We have saved amazing amounts of Money since April.
The best thing I have done is install a hot water diverter box. Any excess solar I can't burn gets turned into hot water, it runs from hot to scalding, I love it!

[ddbb]

Use a thermos (insulated flask) for left over hot water after boiling a kettle. Easier than trying to boil just the right amount of water for a cup.of tea or coffee.

[henriaube]

Hello Robert, really enjoy your channel. You might consider doing an episode demonstrating how to use a killawatt device and how to extrapolate your findings to a yearly cost, of, say a big TV idling on standby for a year! Would open some eyes, I'd bet!

[dougfemmel]

I'm from America, but energy bills are something I keep an eye on. If you have a USB solar power panel charger; you can charge by the sun a USB power pack to charge a phone. A lot of solar panel chargers can charge a power station; that can store solar energy to charge laptops or other electronic devices.
If you plug your TV into a power strip, you can turn your TV, DVD, etc. off at night before you go to bed and save the cost of a phantom load every night.
I subscribe to your channel and regularly watch your videos. Keep up the great work. Thanks.

[richardharries]

Been doing all your suggestions for years unfortunately I now use solar powered LEDs as free lighting, after a fiver capital cost. I use an old 260 watt solar panel connected to two ordinary kettles for my washing up and to top up my five litre water urn for not drinks. Luckily I have always been a bit crazy about solar panels. Have just had a new Gas central heating boiler and will be putting the old radiators to good use by using two of them as solar hot water collectors connected by two pumps to better use any solar gain. I've an old outside toilet connected to a water butt and mains drainage but use only occasionally as you start to become a bit of a crazy old loon in the family's eyes. Sadly the only times I'll be using the gas boiler will be to keep the water from freezing as I'll be using an old quilt and blankets however much snow is outside, and I'm guessing it I stick an electric blanket under the quilt I'll be doing the "in thing" and keeping the body warm not the whole house. Oh and did I mention that I have three solar radios for company? Did someone mention a crazy old *art?

[debbiehenri]

My family started cutting down on our electricity in April, during the first round of price increases.

Firstly, it calls for me to spend an inordinate amount of time switching off lights/things everyone else leaves burning.
(I do get told off for nagging if I point things out lights being left on. So I realised that if I just get on with it and then show the reduced bill afterwards with a sort of 'See? Told you so' attitude, this actually makes a difference).

We turned off the immersion heater. It's one of the most ridiculous energy eating devices in the house. Someone has a wash, washes up breakfast things, and the tank fills up with more cold water turning the rest of it tepid. What a waste of energy.
So we boil only what we absolutely need in the kettle.
I can wash in cold water very happily (I'm a cold-loving person and dislike it when the heating goes on in winter).
We're vegans/vegetarians, and we've had no issue with washing up most of our dishes and kitchen utensils in cold water. No meat juices, greases, blood etc needing hot water.

We each have one 4 minute shower per week. (We keep a clock on a shelf opposite the shower so we know how long we take).
We wash at the basin on all other days.
My hair is rather on the greasy side, so I just tie it up in a headscarf until shower day. No one cares.

We had 3 dehumidifiers running nearly all the time, as we have a Scottish hillside cottage in one of Britain's wettest regions. They're probably one of the biggest contributors to our bills.
So I bought some fine insect mesh, husband made some frames out of dumped wooden floorboards to go over selected windows, and we can now air the entire cottage all day without the place filling up with millions of insects.
We won't be able to do this so much during the winter, unfortunately, but we can still air the place on any warmer, drier days.

We got rid of the lawnmower 20 years ago.
I let my lawn grown into a meadow, added lots of different wild flowers to it - and it has become a haven for wildlife.
No one needs to cut their lawn, it is one of the most unnatural features in any garden and was a habit started by ordinary citizens because they wanted to copy the rich. Now, considering the vast lawns of somewhere like Buckingham Palace, the Royal Parks, etc - that 5 x 5 ft manicured square of sheared green desert out the front starts to look a bit silly in comparison. So, return to the cottage garden style, grow flowers that attract wildlife, herbs that flavour your food, and a few veggies to reduce your grocery bills.
Even if you grow just 3-5 courgette plants, you will have so many veg off those few plants in a summer, you won't be buying anything from the supermarket.

We have started to use a barbeque (using wood, not charcoal).
I never had one before, and found that it does not take long at all to cook food or heat water. It's a habit I'm still trying to get into at the moment.
I have a multi fuel-burning stove. We grow our own trees for this and there's plenty more wood laying around locally. Our previous stove was linked up to radiators, but was not an efficient system. So when the old water jacketed stove burst one day, creating a massive mess, we went with a solid type and just let the heat permeate the cottage (2-bed, so it's a small place that doesn't need much heat). It's very good, very efficient.

Cold food - yes, I reduced the amount of hot food we eat all this summer (to reduce the gas bills), and have kept our shopping bills down to £40 per week (for 3 of us) by growing more stuff. I haven't bought any fruit all summer - due to the number of blackcurrant, raspberry, and many other fruit bushes I bought and planted into our meadow.
I've noticed that since we went vegan our calor gas bottles for running the oven have lasted much longer anyway. I suppose because we were no longer roasting chickens of a weekend, we saved a lot of gas.

Husband swaps his laptop for a smaller phone-like device when he wants to listen to a debate or an audiobook on YouTube.
I got my son to go onto the 'settings' bit on my laptop and change the 'skin' colour of some of the pages, swapping the standard, glaring 'white' page (which must need more electricity) for a black one instead. And I have to say, the black background on Google and YouTube is much, much gentler on the eyes.

As well as wearing warmer clothes and cuddling up under throws during colder weather, we also wear hats indoors.
We all lose something like 80% of our heat through our heads, so if you wear a hat and make sure grandma and grandad do the same, that's going to save a lot of personal heat loss.

[musicplaylists]

cleaning the dust off the coils on the back of your fridge/freezer normally extends the life and efficiency.

[Radio_FM_]

1. Use a soda bottle (at least 1 litre) filled with water & put it in the fridge, the water can stabilize the temp so that the compressor won't turn on & off as frequent.
2. Get some insulating boards and stick them on the north side of the walls, that should reduce the energy bills in winter.
3. Use the bubble wraps and stick them to the windows in the winter, make one more layer of insulation.
4. Make a solar water heater for shower & home heating.

5. Take this as an opportunity to change the bad living habits, i.e. eat less carbohydrate, reduce sugar, bread, rice, potato...etc consumption, they tend to make you more hungry. Instead, use fruits to replace your lunch.
6. Grow your own veg & share & exchange with your neighbors.

Doing the above things is more fun than you think but In a long run, living " Off- Grid" is the only way out one day.

[martinclemesha]

Good advice and useful information. However, a big chunk of unavoidable cost, which offsets some of these savings to some extent, is the ever present standing charge.

[voltrevolt]

I've started turning the brightness down on monitors etc. a lot -- it's amazing how clearly you can see even with the brightness way down, saves a bunch of battery power...