With the average energy bill hitting £2,500 a year from this month, many households are looking for ways to keep their gas and electricity costs down amid the rising cost of living .
MoneySavingExpert founder Martin Lewis has become well-known for regularly issuing helpful advice to Brits to ease the crisis, from ensuring they access the right support to suggesting different hacks to try at home. One of his latest tips offers a handy calculation to work out how much household appliances cost to run.
Martin explained that there’s an easy way to calculate the energy cost of an appliance by finding its wattage - how much electrical power it takes to run - and knowing that there are 1000 watts in a kilowatt (kW). He wrote on Twitter : “You pay roughly 34p per kW per hour.”
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Giving an example, he elaborated: “So 100w (a tenth of a kW) appliance on for two hours is 3.4p an hour x2 = 6.8p.” The wattage of an appliance is usually stamped on its bottom, back or nameplate, so should be easy to find out.
When Carbon Brief deputy editor Dr Simon Evans pointed out that the calculation didn’t work for appliances such as an oven, fridge or dishwasher, because these “only operate at max wattage for short periods”, Martin clarified: “I know, but this is a rule of thumb in a simple tweet, which is a good start point.
“It gives an indication and is most useful when you're talking about ‘how much will it cost to switch X on’, rather than appliances that are constantly on,” he added. One of Martin’s followers left another useful tip in reply to the financial expert’s Tweet.
They wrote: “If you’ve got a smart meter, make a note of what it says you are paying today, then turn the appliance on. When it finishes, make a note of how much that figure has changed.” However, they pointed out that this would also take into account any appliances running in the background at the time.
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