Householders across Ireland are doing all they can to minimise their energy bills as many providers confirming they are hiking their prices this winter.
One clever dad from Essex in the UK has managed to save the equivalent of €722 on his annual energy bill with the help of a smart plug. David Miles, 46, calculated which appliances were guzzling electricity in order to cap his spending as prices continue to rise - and his results were surprising.
The father-of-two went around his house, plugging a smart adapter into the socket for each appliance to keep track their energy performances via an app on his phone. He said: “It tells me how much power each appliance is consuming at any given time and its average daily consumption."
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The app also allows him to turn the appliance on or off from his phone when he is out of the house and forgets to plug something out. And David got the biggest shock when he figured out how much it costs to run his 25-year-old American-style fridge freezer.
“Incredibly, it ate up a fifth of my entire electricity bill," he said. Over the course of a year, the appliance was using an incredible 1,600-kilowatt hours (kWh) of power, the same as David's friend's hot tub.
Today, each kWh of electricity costs 32c, according to moneyguideireland.com, so at the moment, David's fridge is costing him €512 a year to run.
But new fridge freezers cost between €404 and €2,310, depending on the make and model and David considers buying a new one a good investment.
Typically, a brand new fridge freezer will use a maximum of 400 kWh of electricity each year, which will cost €240 a year when prices jump.
“That will save me at least €722 a year, so upgrading my fridge freezer will pay for itself in two or three years, plus I will also slash my home's carbon footprint," he explained.
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