UK households have been urged to switch off two items in their bathroom to get as much as £450 a year back.
And at a time when state pensioners are losing their £300 Winter Fuel Payment and £300 Cost of Living payment and the Ofgem energy price cap is going up by 10 percent, every penny added to energy bills makes a difference.
And even if you aren’t a retiree, a £149 increase to energy bills from next week is going to make a lot of people consider how much energy they’re using and where they can cut back.
And there are two items in every bathroom which are running up your electricity bill.
Research by energy supplier Utilita has found that bathroom towel rails are one of the most expensive items to run in your house, with £330.25 added to the average energy bill per year.
There are two main types of heated towel rail: a plumbing based one which is connected into your gas boiler powered heating, and an electric one which can be added to any bathroom whether or not you use gas central heating for everything else.
They cost 90p per use if run for 12 hours a day, Utilita says, also using 297 KG of CO2 emissions per year as well, hurting the environment as well as your wallet.
A gas boiler powered one is cheaper to run than electric, but simply switching them off will be cheapest of all.
Bathroom fans can add a lot to your energy usage. In winter, it’s far more cost effective to just open a window than use a fan, which can add as much as £5 a month to your energy bill.
Many bathrooms have an automatic bathroom fan which comes on whenever the light is turned on. There is usually a switch somewhere in the bathroom or just outside it which controls the fan – turning it off so it does not come on may save you £120 a year in fan costs.
Just make sure that you have an alternative method of airing out the bathroom instead so that you don’t get mould problems instead.
