And I was saying that I'd be doing a little post on the top power guzzlers in a household and the alternatives.
I'll just jump straight into them nothing much to explain...
Sometime before, I mentioned that it takes a lot of power to change temperature. Doesn't matter whether it's hot to cold, or cold to hot, it takes a lot of power to change temperature so you'll be seeing a lot of temperature changing appliances on this list.
Top of the list...
Obviously the Air-conditioner
For my wife and I, we just use the air-conditioner at night between 9pm-6am.
Our electricity cost is $52. (Just electricity cost for the whole month.)
I don't know the cost of running the air-con. I just know it's expensive.
I know of people who regularly on the air conditioning for the whole house and their power bill is above $200, for a 4 room HDB.
There's a not a lot of alternatives for the air-conditioning.
One could blast 4 fans in the room and the power wouldn't even come close to what the air-con consumes.
Or we could turn on the air conditioning and set the timer to turn it off 1 hour before we wake up, but this might result in stuffy air, cos when air is still it gets stuffy and my wife doesn't like it.
The thing about it is... many of us have gotten so used to air conditioning when we sleep that it might be hard to sleep well without it. Cool dry air is different from cool air blown from fans. So for me, I take it as a fair enough expense for a good night's sleep.
Anyway, moving on...
The fridge. This appliance is turned on 24 hours a day. The saving grace is that the door is usually kept closed and there is minimal loss in temperature on a regular basis.
Some people have bigger fridges, some people have smaller fridges. Some people keep their fridge doors open when they pour the milk, others keep the doors closed as much as possible.
Once again, this is one of the appliances that we don't have much alternatives to.
The only way is to reduce the consumption, like having a smaller fridge or not opening the fridge too much, or not putting in hot stuff into the fridge.
Well, theoretically, we COULD live without a fridge... but... let's not go there.
For the next few, I don't know which eats up power more than the others.
One of the main culprits of high power consumption is the hot water heater.
More specifically, the hot water tank.
More often than not, people will have to heat up the whole tank then take a shower, that's heating up a couple of additional liters of water which is probably not used. Cos chances are, people don't use up all the hot water in the tank.
The alternatives to this is the gas heater or the instant heater.
I'm assuming that we are all responsible people and we turn on the power only when we go and bathe and we turn it off after we bathe.
If so, then both the gas heater and instant heater are probably better alternatives which reduce power consumption. Simply cos, we only use what we need. These heaters will only heat up the amount of water which we need to take a bath then when we turn it off, we stop using power.
Whereas a heater tank would have to heat up additional water cos... that's the amount in the tank.
Another heavy power user which is seldom mentioned is the washing machine.
How many of us use hot water to wash our clothes? I know some people who always use a hot wash.
For us, we don't use hot water to wash our clothes. We usually just use normal temperature unless for special circumstances. Also, hot water tends to damage clothes.
So similar as the above examples, the washing machine needs to use electricity to heat up all the water in the machine. I don't know. Some people like to use hot water... but for me, I wonder... how dirty are we? Such that we need to use hot water AND detergent to wash our clothes?
Not much alternatives here. You either use hot water or don't use hot water.
And along with a washing machine, we must surely talk about the dryer.
In our small HDBs, we might not get much sun or wind to dry our clothes, leading to a musty smell due to slow drying of clothes, so some of us use a dryer regularly to quickly dry the clothes.
I use the dryer on wet rainy days when clothes take longer to dry.
Like all temperature controlling appliances, the dryer also takes up a lot of power, cos it blows hot air.
Of course the best alternative to this is FREE, which is nice hot sun, but for most of us, this is becoming hard to achieve so... we also need to look at other alternatives to sunlight.
My personal alternative to this is that I put a fan in my drying area and I turn on the fan to blow the clothes after they come out of the washing machine. So I turn on the fan for around 6 hours and the clothes get fairly dry and don't have any smell. It's a low powered fan to provide circulation and to move the humid air around so that the clothes can dry better.
This is my best alternative for now, unless someone else gives a better suggestion. Sunlight is not available in my drying area.
The last one on my list is what I feel is the WORST power guzzler of them all.
Not cos it takes up the most power, but cos it's simply silly.
For all the above, typically, we only turn it on when we need it.
1. Air-con we turn it on usually at night when we need it, even if we use it in the living room, we turn it on when we come home.
2. Fridge, we need to keep the food constantly cold so that it lasts longer, so we keep it on all the time.
3. Hot water heater, regardless which one we use, we turn it on when we want to bathe, then usually we turn it off again.
4. Washing machine and dryer, we turn it on when we need it. We don't run the washing machine or dryer without clothes right?
So what is this last appliance which I absolutely feel is the most ridiculous power guzzler of them all???
The hot water pot
Think about it. Most of us don't really drink hot water on a regular basis.
And yet we keep it on 24/7. Even overnight, or when we go out to work.
No one I know keeps the air-conditioner on when they go out to work.
But somehow it's OK to keep this appliance on when they aren't at home or whatever.
And what convenience does this appliance provide? INSTANT hot water on demand. Cos the water is perpetually hot.
If my estimations are correct, IF you are using a 24/7 hot water pot, you could buy a $30 electric kettle, switch to it for 3 months, and you would have made back more than the $30 in terms of savings off your electricity bill, AND continue saving for the months that follow.
(Depending on how often you drink hot water.)
Of course there are people who DO, drink hot water regularly. Now, by all means, continue using the hot water pot. But at least turn off the pot at night or if you are going out for a long period. I think that would be more energy efficient and provide savings on your electrical bill every month.
Did I miss out any other appliance which most people use and takes up a lot of energy?
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