How to reduce your electricity and water consumption

Whether closed restaurants and bars, giving up social contacts or working from home: the current corona crisis presents us with many challenges. We have to change our lives, but above all: stay at home. This incurs significantly more ancillary costs than usual. So that the ancillary living costs do not skyrocket, we have summarized the best tips for you on how best to save electricity and reduce water consumption.

Table of Contents Table of Contents Save extra costs while Corona: The best tips

• How can I save electricity?
• Saving electricity in refrigerators and freezers
• Saving electricity when cooking
• Save electricity when using the dishwasher
• Saving electricity when washing clothes
• Saving electricity with electrical appliances
• Change the electricity provider
• How can I save water sensibly at home?

Table of Contents Table of Contents Save extra costs while Corona: The best tips

• How can I save electricity?
• Saving electricity in refrigerators and freezers
• Saving electricity when cooking
• Save electricity when using the dishwasher
• Saving electricity when washing clothes
• Saving electricity with electrical appliances
• Change the electricity provider
• How can I save water sensibly at home?

How can I save electricity?

Saving electricity is not only a very important issue during the corona crisis. From an ecological and economic point of view, it always makes sense to critically examine your own consumption and see where there is room for improvement. In the following, we will show you how this works in a rented apartment as well as in a family home.

Saving electricity in refrigerators and freezers

If you want to save electricity, it makes sense to start with your fridges and freezers. Since the devices are always running, you can sometimes see the highest power consumption in your household. If your refrigerator is over ten years old, it may be worth replacing it with a new, more energy-efficient one. Make sure you pay attention to the EU energy label: the A + classification is particularly energy efficient. You haven't got your fridge for so long? You can save electricity without changing the refrigerator!

• Do not place your refrigerator next to appliances that radiate heat. A stove or a running heater in particular can have a negative impact on the energy efficiency of your refrigerator. The hot midday sun also ensures high energy consumption near the window. Cool places are better!
• Good ventilation is essential! Make sure that there is sufficient distance from the wall and dust the grille on the back regularly. This allows the air to circulate freely again.
• Hot dishes have lost nothing in the refrigerator. The refrigerator must then run at full speed and ice forms. Not exactly energy efficient.
• To reduce power consumption, you may also want to defrost your refrigerator or defrost your freezer.

Warm dishes do not belong in the fridge. If the muffins have cooled, there is nothing to be said against it.

Photo: iStock / AndreyPopov

Saving electricity when cooking

Unfortunately, due to Corona and the ban on contact with the pandemic in Germany, the restaurant visit is currently canceled. There is also no canteen when working in the home office. If you don't just want to eat cold, you now have no choice but to swing the wooden spoon yourself. With the right tips, electricity consumption can also be reduced when cooking.

• If possible, use the recirculation function of your oven. This not only shortens the preparation time, the temperature can also be set 20 to 30 degrees Celsius lower.
• There is a lid for each pot. But did you know that up to three times more electricity is used if the lid does not fit the saucepan? So always use the right lid and make sure that it fits properly.
• If you have a new oven, you may not need to preheat it. The modern oven gets hot so quickly that it would be a waste of energy.

Tip: Saving no additional costs, but when you clean your oven it looks like new again. This can be done with simple home remedies.

Because the restaurant visit is canceled due to Corona, more is cooked at home. This can also save electricity!

Photo: iStock / Ridofranz

Save electricity when using the dishwasher

Those who cook can also do the dishes. Fortunately, the dishwasher does all the work for you. Unfortunately, this is not entirely in vain: a dishwasher can be a real power hog. However, if you take a few things into account, you can save electricity here too - and a dishwasher is more energy efficient than washing by hand in any case!

• It takes longer to wash your dishes with the energy saving program - but it is worth it to save electricity. The water is usually only heated to 50 degrees Celsius instead of up to 70 degrees Celsius. This not only protects your wallet, but also the dishes.
• It should be clear, but only switch your dishwasher on when it is really full. The "Half charge" program function does not reduce power consumption by half!
• If you can connect your dishwasher directly to the hot water supply, the water no longer needs to be heated by the device itself. If the supply line is as short and well insulated as possible, you can really save electricity!

Tip: Like the oven, the dishwasher does a good job too. If you clean your dishwasher, this not only prevents an early defect, but also poor washing performance.

There are many ways to save electricity in the dishwasher. A good place to start is to keep the dishwasher full.

Photo: iStock / AndreyPopov

Saving electricity when washing clothes

You may not need shirts or blouses in your home office, but you will probably also wear something at home. We'll show you how to use the washing machine and save electricity on the dryer.

• What applies to the dishwasher is also true for the washing machine: always fully loaded.
• When connecting the washing machine, it is best to use the hot water pipe. You should also align the washing machine, which also saves energy.
• If you descale the washing machine regularly, the controller does not use as much energy to heat the water.
• High temperatures during washing are often not necessary and only cost electricity unnecessarily. 30 degrees Celsius consumes only about a third of the electricity compared to 60 degrees Celsius and is completely sufficient for normally soiled laundry.
• Staying at home does not mean that you are not allowed in the garden or on the balcony! Take advantage of the good weather and hang your laundry outside. A dryer consumes unnecessary electricity, which can be avoided in good weather.

The garden and balcony are not off limits even during the corona crisis. Save electricity and hang your clothes outside in good weather.

Photo: iStock / Osobystist

Saving electricity with electrical appliances

Because of the corona lockdown, we are more at home - and use electronic devices more often. Whether the computer in the home office, the offspring with the Alexa skills for children (or the very hard-working with e-learning), the parents on Amazon Prime in the evening at the latest: all of this consumes electricity. Here we have only one, but very important tip for you: Avoid the standby mode for your electronic devices. Unfortunately, when you switch off a device, it is often only put into standby mode, where it still uses almost as much power.

Video streaming is now the only way to stay in touch with family or friends. If you then take your laptop off the mains, you bypass the energy-consuming standby mode.

Photo: iStock / Maria Symchych-Navrotska

Change the electricity provider

No matter how hard you try and follow all the energy saving tips: If you pay an above-average amount at your electricity provider, you will still save electricity, but unfortunately no money. A comparison with other providers can be worthwhile and the change is less complicated than you might think.

How can I save water sensibly at home?

In a four-person household, an average of 500 liters of water end up in the drain every day. In the current corona crisis, in which we spend a lot of time at home and wash our hands as often as possible, probably much more. At the same time, the water price has roughly doubled in the past 15 years. These are enough reasons to reflect your own water consumption. We show you how you can save water.

• Is the tap dripping? Potty and leaky taps should be repaired immediately! If a tap loses a drop every half a minute, that's 4 liters a week. This unnecessary water consumption can be avoided.
• Think about buying a pearl heater. This not only reduces water consumption, it also makes the water jet feel much softer. Be sure to find out beforehand whether a pearl heater is suitable for your tap.
• A flow limiter can also sensibly reduce your water consumption. This makes it easy to modernize old taps and reduce the water flow by up to 50 percent.

Whether for big or small: washing hands is now particularly important! However, do not let the tap run for an unnecessarily long time and save water.

Photo: iStock / hedgehog94

• Flushing your toilet uses up to twelve liters of water. To save water, use the save and stop button. If your toilet does not offer these functions, do not press the flush completely. This means you only use as much water as you really need. However, a stop button can also be easily retrofitted. If that is out of the question for you and you don't want to buy a new cistern, you can save water with a brick: in older cisterns, a brick reduces the capacity by about two liters. You save these two liters with every wash.
• We have already explained how you can save electricity in the washing machine. If you switch to a rainwater washing machine, you also save water. A cistern for rainwater harvesting is not only good for the environment, but also for your wallet.
• Washing hands is very important at the moment! Of course, the water consumption will also increase. However, if you turn off the tap while soaping your hands, you can save a lot of water. Sounds obvious, but this tip is often neglected.

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