This month on Greenredeem we’re looking at how you can reduce your hot water. Previously we’ve always talked about reducing your water as a whole, but we know that when you see your water bill, you’re not sweating to find a way to reduce it. But what if we told you that your hot water (in a single-person household) which is 55% of your total water usage can be responsible for £228 of your energy bill. Yes, that’s the shocked face we had also. This month we’re tackling reducing hot water – let’s see how much we can save on your energy bill.
It might seem silly to some, but many of us aren’t entirely sure what hot water we’re using in our home – or at the very least we’re just not aware. To begin this blog, before we get to the important tips, it’s only right to paint the right picture of what uses hot water in your home.
The bathroom and the kitchen are your hot water hotspots, inside each of these rooms several items use hot water. The most common are:
-Shower
-Bath
-Sinks
-Dishwasher
-Washing machine
Of course, this list isn’t singular. There are several sinks and your bath and shower might combine. But these are the most common areas where we use hot water. The activities can vary, including:
-Showering
-Bathing
-Washing hands
-Washing dishes
-Washing clothes
-Cleaning the home
-Cooking
Now, in the rest of this blog we’re going to look at how we reduce the hot water used in these activities to make sure you’re saving on that energy bill.
Reducing your hot water in the shower
There are a couple of ways to reduce the hot water of your shower. First, and the one we recommend the most, is reducing the time you spend in the shower. Roughly 25% of all water usage in your home is from a shower – not a bath – just the shower. That’s almost half of your hot water usage. Imagine how much you can save by transforming your 10-minute hot shower into a 5-minute one. Of course, you can also reduce the temperature of your hot shower in a bid to save some energy. After all, the harder your heating must work to reach higher temperatures, the more energy you’re using.
Reducing your bath’s hot water
If you’re tempted to stand in the shower for a long time, we suggest getting in the bath instead. Power showers produce a lot of hot water in a short amount of time, so you may end up using less water when running a bath. That said, we’re looking to reduce hot water here and when it comes to the bath there is only one way to do this to make sure you’re not wasting any. It’s by putting less hot water in.
In most cases, hot water temperature is difficult to control. Turning on the hot and the cold for a little while to make it comfortable. That’s all hard enough. If you’re going to reduce the hot water in your bath, simply putting less in is going to be the more effective action you can take.
Minimising your hot water when cleaning
We’ve bundled this all into one category because cleaning anything will require hot water. When it comes to your dishes, remember that using your dishwasher may be more eco-friendly. Especially if you’re using more than one hot bowl of water or even a dreaded running tap! To reduce hot water when washing dishes, use a dishwasher on an eco-friendly setting.
Your laundry can often be washed at a much lower temperature than you think. While in recent years there’s been a huge push to have people wash their clothes at 30 degrees, a lot of detergents and stain removers now encourage an even colder wash to get the job done.
Other types of washing such as your hands and cleaning your home simply require you to use less of the water to reduce the hot water usage. There’s no other way around it. Turn the tap off as much as you can.
You’ll notice that we haven’t yet mentioned cooking. That’s because quite often you’re using hot water to cook but you often need to heat the water to cook. That’s why we’re not putting it down as using hot water as you’re not using your boiler to heat it up. However, if we have one tip for you, it’s to heat your water using your kettle – it’s by far the most efficient way to cook with hot water.
Do you have more tips? We’d love to hear about them and we’re sure your friends and family would too. Be sure to share this blog with them or tell them where they can read it. The more of us doing this, the better for our environment.
