Easy ways to save up to $500 on your power bill

Where does moisture come from?

• Clothes drying: 5.0L per load.
• Cooking: 3.0L per day.
• Showers and baths: 1.5L per day (per person).
• Dishes: 1.0L per day.
• Clothes washing: 0.5L per day.
• Breathing: 0.2L per hour (per person).

Keep the air dry

• Dry clothes outside if possible. 
  

• Open your windows for at least 10 minutes each day. Better yet, if you have secure window stays, leave the windows cracked during daylight hours when you’re not using any heating to ensure you have fresh air coming in. 
  
  
• Avoid gas heaters. They make the air damp and also fill it with dangerous gasses. If you have to use one, make sure the windows are opened a crack – but your safest option is to use an electric heater instead. 

Stop the heat from escaping

Draughts

Draughts often come from around windows, doors and other gaps such as cat flaps. You can make your own “draught snake” with a rolled-up towel or blanket that’ll block the cold air.

Curtains and window coverings 

A lot of the heat from your home will disappear out the windows on cold nights if you don’t have curtains or blinds. It’s best to close them as soon as the sun goes down to capture as much heat as possible. 

If you don’t have window coverings, or if your curtains have seen better days, your local curtain bank might be able to sort you out with some new ones for free. 

Fans

When you heat a room, the heat rises to the ceiling and eventually works its way out of the house. If you have a spare fan, plug it in and put it on a low setting. It’ll spread the heat evenly throughout the room, and your heater won’t have to work as hard. In fact, it’ll save you money!

Setting the temperature

Heat pumps work best when set between 19 and 21 degrees.

Change the mode on the controller so it’s on heat – select “mode” until the little sun icon shows on the screen. From there, set the temperature. Doing this can save you $320 a year.

Use the fan setting

If it’s cold out, don’t put the temperature up – turn up the heat pump’s fan settings instead.

You don’t need to crank the heat pump to 30 degrees to make it work faster. High temperature settings use a lot of power and lead to expensive power bills.

Cleaning the filter

Heat pumps have removeable filters that get clogged up with dust which stops the air from flowing. The heat pump then has to work harder to make up for the loss in air flow and will use more and more power.

Take out the filters and give them a gentle vacuum. You’ll notice an immediate difference if they’re really dirty and the room will instantly feel warmer. Make sure you do this every couple of months. 

For more information on efficient use of your heat pump: Heat Pumps - Benefits of Heat Pumps | Gen Less

Switch off at the wall

Most of the things that you have plugged in at home use power all the time, even when they’re not switched on. Switching off appliances at the wall when not in use can save up to $100 on your power bill over the course of a year.

Power-hungry appliances

Oven: Cooking a large meal in the oven for the whole whānau will cost about $1 each time. You can save more money by using a slow cooker - it’ll cost about 35¢ a meal instead.

Clothes dryer: A regular vented clothes dryer costs about $1 per load. It might be your only option during wet, cold weeks but take advantage of drying clothes outside as much as possible – it’s free after all.

Lights: Standard 100W lightbulbs cost about 20¢ each evening to run. This all adds up, so be sure to turn lights off when you’re not in the room. The 100W equivalent LED bulb costs about 3¢ each evening to run, which could save you $62 a year. If you can get your hands on them, opt for LED lightbulbs as they’ll pay for themselves in power savings very quickly!

Heated towel rail: A warm towel feels lovely after a shower. But did you know that leaving a heated towel rail on will cost you about $3 per week? Switch it off and save yourself around $140 on your yearly power bill. 

Shorten your showers to 5 minutes

Each 15-minute shower will cost you about $1 – think about how many people you have in your house, and it’ll give you an idea of how much it costs you per day.

Shorten showers down to five minutes, and you’ll save 66¢ each time. That’s an average of $5 per person per week - or $260 per person per year!

Keep baths to a minimum

Baths cost about twice as much as a shower. Keep baths to a minimum and make sure the shower is the first option.

Check your water flow

Sometimes the shower pumps out more water than you need, and you end up wasting a lot of hot water down the drain. Check how much water is wasted with a bucket and timer. Put the bucket under the showerhead and turn on the taps – if it fills up in less than one minute, it’s wasting money. Efficient showerheads can be expensive, but you can also buy water flow restrictors that reduce the water flow and cost much less. Failing that, just don’t turn the taps all the way to full!

Stop the drips

A dripping hot tap can waste more than 70 litres of water a day. This can add over $200 a year to your power bill! If you are renting, notify your landlord as soon as you notice a drip – fixing a tap that’s dripping from normal wear-and-tear is usually their responsibility.

Use a cold laundry wash

• A warm wash: costs about 30¢.

• A cold wash: costs about 6c (and often performs just as well as a warm wash).

• Savings: approximately $50 per year if your family does about four laundry washes per week. 

Visit Gen Less for more info on using hot water efficiently.