In this article you will find a list of things you can do to save your house electricity bill without shelling out any extra penny. Let me clarify if you are expecting a major drop of 50% in your electricity bill then this article is not for you. The tips shared in the article will help you to save 20-30% of your electricity bill if implemented properly that too without buying any new things, these are lifestyle and how to use your appliances more effectively.

1. Turn Off Electronic Appliances When Not in Use To Save Electricity Bill

Okay I know your mom is preaching this to you for the last 30 years, but how much electricity bill can you save by turning off the devices when not in use, turns out quite a lot. Just like most cases your mom is right even this time.

Let’s dive deep

So every morning and evening when you go for a bath you keep your bedroom tube light and fan running, on an average this takes about half hour daily, so in a month it’s around 15 hours. (If you don’t do this then think of times when the fan and light is on and you are doing something else in another room.)

A normal fan has around 60 watts and tube light has around 25 watts that adds up to 85 watts.

Let’s do some math, 85 watt of equipment running for 1 hour will consume 85 watt hour of electricity, so for 15 hours it will consume 85 watt X 15 hours = 1,275 watt hour = 1.275 Kilowatt hour (KWH).

Confused what is KWH, check this out – What is Watt, Kilowatt, KWH ?

I live in Mumbai here the tariff (tariff is the amount your electricity provider charges you for a unit or KWH of electricity) is Rs 12 / KWH.

So in a month that extra half an hour of one 60 watt fan and one 25 watt tube light will cost you around Rs 12 X 1.275 = Rs 15.3.

Not much right, but If you are a four person family and each one of you is doing this then your monthly saving just by doing this will be Rs 60.

Here I have only taken example of fan and tube light, but if you leave other high power consuming devices like AC, Heaters, water geyser turned on every day even for 5 minutes extra in a month that all adds up to a pretty significant chunk. Start doing this and you can cut down your electricity bill.

2. Save Electricity Bill By Washing Clothes in Batches & With Regular Water

Washing machine are a big help in doing laundry but they are power hogs, they consume quite a lot of power.

To give you an idea, a 7 kg automatic washing machine has rated power of around 2000 Watt (2 kW), but a significant chunk (approx. 70%) of this power is used to heat the water.

So what I suggest is to avoid using the heating feature as much as possible and to clean the clothes once every two days or three. If you don’t have enough clothes to clean then wait for a day and put all the clothes together.

To give you an estimate, I have a BOSCH 7 kg top load washing machine. The rated power for this is around 2 kW but the motor which turns the drum and does the cleaning and drying along with the electronic control unit accounts to only 700 watts.

So the rest 1300 watts is used to heat the water,

So if you use this washing machine for 1 hours daily for a month without heating the water your consumption will be around 700 watt X 1 X 30 = 21,000 watt = 21kWH.

If I take a tariff of Rs 12/KWH then, the monthly bill because of this washing machine will be Rs 12 X 21 = Rs 252.

But if I reduce the number of days of washing by 20 from 30, then the monthly bill because of the same washing machine will be 0.7 (kW) X 1 X 20 X 12 = Rs 168.

So just by arranging the washing cycle you can save around 33.33% of electricity bill from this washing machine.

If you want to know more about this then check out my detailed blog on this – Calculate power consumption of a Washing Machine

You can check out this article from Samsung to know more – Effectively using washing machine

3. Save Electricity Bill By Using Refrigerator Wisely

Refrigerator is one appliance that is working 24 X 7 whether you are in your home or not. So optimizing your refrigerator usage will give you savings big time.

Few tips I can give is:

• If you have space then make sure your refrigerator is at least ½ feet away from the wall. This may sound like a gimmick but it works. When your refrigerator is wall are sticking to the house walls with no space between them it becomes difficult to dissipate the heat which heat the refrigerator and puts more strain on the compressor.

Remember whether it’s humans or machines no one likes to work in hot environment.

• Keep your refrigerator coils clean, make a habit to clean them in every 4 months so that air can easily circulate and the pipes are free of dust and directly exposed to the air.
• Do not open the door again and again, this is again one of those things we all hear in our childhood from our mom and guess what mom is right here again.

Periodic opening and closing leads to unconditioned air from the environment enter the refrigerator, so now your refrigerator has to do the work to condition this air too.

4. Excessive Use of Electronic Heating devices is NO NO

We all love our water heater, toaster, electric iron for simplifying the life for us. But these appliances are the biggest electricity consumers.

Smallest water heater in the market is of 1000 watt, an electric iron is around 500 watt, toaster, hair blower are around 150 – 300 watts.

If we keep these devices running uselessly even for 10 minutes in a day (cumulatively) that adds up to 5 hours in a month, so with a tariff of Rs 12/KWH and considering combined load of 1000 watts only, just for using these loads for 10 minutes daily you will get an extra bill of Rs 12 X 1 (kW) X 5 = Rs 60.

And let me tell you 10 minutes extra is a conservative estimate, if you have a family of 5 and each one of you just keeps the water geyser running for 2 minutes extra daily, there is your 10 minutes in a day. I am not even counting your toaster, hair dryer, electric iron.

So moral is to use heating appliances carefully, turn them off the moment you don’t need them.

5. Use Air Conditioner Wisely To Save Electricity Bill

Now the big one and probably the one each of us are scared off when it comes to power consumption. AC consumes a lot of power to keep it simple 1 ton of AC consumes 1 KWH of electricity in an hour (for an inverter AC this is less), that means Rs 10 electricity bill for every hour of operation.

But we can make the most of your AC by making slight changes in the way we use them

1. Keep your compressor under shed (keep it away from direct sunlight)
2. Make sure less heat enters your house when ac is turned on by using curtains on the window.
3. Clean the filter every month, this will certainly improve your AC cooling performance and cool the room fast.
4. Optimal temperature to run AC is 24 C, every now and then you can switch back to 16 C but you AC should run at 24 C for majority of the time.
5. And last I know you have heard this time and again, keep your doors shut when AC is on. Frequent opening of door bring unconditioned air inside the room which needs to be conditioned again this puts stress on the compressor to keep the room cool at all times.

I would suggest you pick up any two of the tips and start implementing you will definitely see benefits.

If you are looking to shell out some money to save your electricity bill in the long run then here are some quick tips which are worth every penny.

1. Replace CFL with LED’s, for the same luminance LED consume less power than CFL.
2. If you are still using old CRT, plasma TV, it’s time to replace it with a LED TV. A 48 inch LED TV consumes at max 100 watt where as a CRT consumes around 200 watt and for plasma it well over 300 watt for small size.
3. If you are buying any new appliance which you will be using a lot then opt for energy saving star rated appliances, they might cost you upfront but will give great savings in long run.
4. Replace your electric water heater with solar water heater if you use it a lot.

You can check out this post from Samsung website to know more about power savings for air conditioners – Steps for Effective Cooling in a air-conditioner

Even after doing all these things you are still getting high electricity bill I would suggest it’s time to go solar.

It is the best time in India to go solar, the prices have come down considerably, the quality of products have improved and there are many companies to choose from.

You can read everything about solar system over here to make a more informed decision.

Conclusion:

In conclusion I would say if you want to see any savings in your electricity bill then use the appliances only when you need it if you are not using it turn it off from the switch board (no standby mode).

Also try to avoid using electronic heating appliances like electric iron, electric hair blower, hot water geyser and so on.

I am confident that if you follow even any two tips I mentioned you will a drop in your electricity bill.

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References

• https://www.samsung.com/
• https://beeindia.gov.in/