ENERGY prices crept up in October and it’s important to know how much your appliances cost to run.
Former Prime Minister Liz Truss announced a price freeze on energy bills last month, with the typical family paying £2,500 a year from October.
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But the new Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has said that the energy price guarantee, which limits average bills to £2,500, will come to an end in the spring.
Energy bills were initially set to be frozen for the typical household for two years, but this policy will now end in April, pending a government review.
Consultancy firm Auxilione forecasts average bills could hit £5,078 and RBC Capital Markets predicts £4,684 a year.
But even with the current freeze on, people will be keen to know how much running their appliances are costing to run right now.
Especially because the cap only limits the amount firms can charge customers for each unit of energy.
So if you use more energy than the average household – you’ll end up paying more than £2,500 a year.
The average household currently pays 34.04p/kWh for electricity and with this in mind, we’ve listed your appliance running costs below.
Air fryer – 10p per meal
The experts at Uswitch told The Sun that if you used a 900-watt air fryer for 20 minutes, it would cost about 10p per meal.
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A larger 1,500-watt air fryer used for around the same amount of time would cost almost 17p per meal.
So if you used the smaller fryer five days a week for a year, that would cost a total of £26.52, and around £44.20 for the larger model.
We’ve explained whether air fryers are cheaper than running ovens.
Dishwasher – 27p per load
The average dishwasher uses between 1.2kWh and 1.5kWh per load, according to research by Compare The Market.
And according to Energy Saving Trust, your dishwasher contributes to 8% of your overall electricity bill.
The price to run a single cycle is 27p under the current Energy Price Guarantee.
Remember, modern dishwashers use much less water than washing by hand – so they should be cheaper to run and better for the environment.
But there are still ways to cut dishwasher costs and we’ve listed them.
Electric blanket – 24p an hour
These gadgets use 100 watts of energy to warm a double bed before switching to a sleep setting or being turned off, according to research from Uswitch.
It costs 24p to run an electric blanket for one hour a day for seven days.
If you used it for one hour a day for a year, you’d be spending £12.48 on your electricity.
But using an electric blanket instead of turning the heating up could still save you cash off your bill.
Fridge freezer – 6p an hour
The average fridge freezer uses 166 kWh of energy per year, working out at a cost of £56 a year, according to Uswitch.
That’s 0.6p per hour.
But there are ways to make your fridge more energy-efficient without spending any money.
Hairdryer – 1p a minute
Drying your hair on the highest power setting will take eight minutes and use up 1.8 kilowatts (kW) of power.
This will cost you nearly 8p to run.
If you use your hair dryer at full power it’ll cost you £16.97 a year.
But if you were to use it on eco mode without the heating element, it would cost £0.99 a year to run.
Heated clothes airer – 16p an hour
Heated clothes airers are similar to a traditional clothes horse, but they can be plugged into the mains electricity.
The bars of the dryer heat up, speeding up the time it takes to dry the clothes hanging on it.
A 300w dryer uses 0.3 kWh – a kilowatt hour is the unit of energy used for billing you electricity.
Based on the Energy Price Guarantee, running a heated airer for an hour costs 16p.
So, if you had it on for eight hours, it would cost £1.28.
The prices will vary depending on the model you have.
Oven – 71p an hour
A typical electric oven uses a 2,100W heating element, according to the Centre for Sustainable Energy.
This means it costs roughly 71p for each hour your oven is on.
We’ve answered whether it’s cheaper to use different appliances.
Slow cooker – 11p an hour
A slow cooker could be a good investment as there are several benefits such as hand-off cooking and is designed to bring out the flavour of foods and make some meats tender.
It’s estimated that the average slow cooker uses roughly 1.3kWh over eight hours of cooking time.
Uswitch has told The Sun that using a slow cooker for eight hours costs 92p under the Energy Price Guarantee.
Different recipes may also require different settings with some being set to as low as 60°C which will use less electricity than a meal cooked at a higher setting such as 149°C.
We’ve listed more tips on how to cut costs with a slow cooker.
Tumble dryer – 67p per cycle
The price of running a tumble dryer depends on what type of machine you buy.
But on average, Uswitch estimates a tumble dryer uses roughly 4.5 kWh of energy per cycle.
Each kWh of energy you use costs 14.37p – which means that you’ll be coughing up roughly 67p per cycle.
For big families who do three loads of washing a week, that could mean you’re spending £104.52 a year tumble drying your clothes.
But we’ve listed the cheapest models to run.
TV – from £35 a year
The average 40 to 43-inch television costs £30.51 a year to run under the new Energy Price Guarantee, according to Which?.
And if you have a 48 to 50-inch television – it’ll set you back £35.57 a year to run.
A 55 to 58 inch TV will cost £39.89 and a 65 inch box will set you back £49.66 a year.
Switching TVs as well as game consoles and set-top-boxes off at the switch and not leaving them on standby when not in use could save you £65 a year, according to Energy Saving Trust.
We’ve given a full breakdown of TV costs depending on the brand.
Washing machine – 34p per cycle
It is estimated that the typical UK household does 270 loads of washing a year.
If each load takes an average of one hour, then this puts the annual cost of running your washing machine at £91.80
However, this number goes up for families. A household of two adults and two children does an average 468 loads of washing a year – equivalent to 1.3 loads a day.
For these households, the cost of running a washing machine rises to £159.12 a year.
We’ve listed how you can cut washing machine costs.
