How to spend less on hot water
Did you know a third of your winter power bills are for heating your water? From your morning hot shower to turning on the dishwasher before bed, there are ways to do things differently that will reduce how much hot water you use and what you have to pay your power company each month.
Take showers, not baths
Soaking away the stress of the day might not feel so relaxing when you know it’s costing twice as much as if you’d had a shower. If you save baths for a treat, you’ll be treated to small power bills instead.
Set a timer when you get in the shower
Add a fun challenge to shower time by setting your phone timer for 5 minutes before you hop in and getting out before it goes off. A 5-minute shower costs 66 cents less than a 15-minute shower. If you can get everyone in your household to reduce their shower time by 10 minutes, you’ll save $5 for each person a week – or $260 per person a year.
Do the bucket test
Some showers pump out more water than you really need to feel comfortable. Check if yours is wasting hot water by taking a 10L bucket into the shower. If it fills up in less than a minute, there’s savings to be made. You can buy efficient showerheads, but they tend to be an expensive solution to the problem. Give water-flow restrictors a Google – they’re cheap little discs that you can insert yourself easily and do the same job.
Don’t put up with drips
If you’ve got a hot tap that’s dripping it might not seem like a big deal, but all that dripping can add up to 70L a day. If you let it, that would add $200 a year to your power bill. Often, all that’s needed is a new washer – and they cost only a few dollars.
Wash in cold water
A cold wash is all you need for most loads of washing and will cost you a lot less than a warm one. A warm wash in a front loader costs three times more than a cold wash. A warm wash in a top loader costs six times more than a cold one.
Turn your mixer taps to cold
If you leave your mixer taps in the hot position, when you turn them on, hot water will start flowing into the pipes. Sometimes we’re just quickly washing our hands or grabbing a drink before the hot water starts coming out, but you’ll still be paying for that hot water.
Wrap your cylinder
Hot water cylinders made before 2002 aren’t well insulated. Wrapping the cylinder in an insulative wrap will keep in the heat you can feel when you touch it. That means the cylinder doesn’t have to work so hard to get the water up to temperature. You can usually find the wrap at hardware stores.
Check your cylinder’s temperature
A hot water cylinder usually maintains its water temperature at about 60°C in the cylinder (to prevent the growth of legionella bacteria) and 55°C at the tap (to prevent scalding). Anything above this mark is a waste of power and an injury risk. Check the temperature at the tap first. If it's above 55°C it's a dead giveaway that it's set too high in the cylinder. Some cylinders let you manually adjust their temperatures, but you might need to call in a tradie to help out with this task.
Use your dishwasher wisely
Wait until your dishwasher is fully loaded before you run it, and choose the eco or auto-sensing cycle so it doesn’t use more power or water than it needs to. Don’t worry about rinsing your dishes – just scrape off any food before you pop them in.
Consider moving to a hot-water heat pump
Hot-water heat pumps are a new energy-efficient technology that significantly reduce household water-heating costs. They typically use about 60-75% less electricity than conventional electric hot water. They do have a high upfront cost but this is more than made up for by the ongoing savings, so they are well worth considering if your existing hot water cylinders needs replacing.
How much could you save?
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