Money Saving ExpertMartin Lewis has shared a tip recently on his podcast on how to dry your laundry quickly during these cold winter months. Furthermore, the method costs hardly anything and you don’t even need to have your heating on.
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Speaking on his podcast, Lewis suggested that instead of using central heating, you can use a dehumidifier that will be even more effective at drying your clothes and is much cheaper to run.
7p per hour
Lewis described in his podcast how dehumidifiers have many different wattages but the one he checked was 200W, which is a fifth of a KiloWatt - how energy is generally priced. Commenting further he said, as per Wales Online:
You pay roughly 34p per kw per hour. A fifth is 7p so you're going to pay roughly 7p per hour to run a dehumidifier at 200 watts assuming it uses full power the whole time. Which is generally far far cheaper than putting the heating on.
If a dehumidifier does work for you it will definitely have lower electricity bills but of course you do have the initial capital outlay of buying a dehumidifier and see how that works for you.
Oven or microwave?
According to Lewis, the same principle can be applied in the kitchen when it comes to cooking. If you check the wattage of the item you are using and how long you need it before, you’ll be able to work out which is the cheapest method of cooking your food.
In most cases an air fryer is cheaper than using an oven to cook your meals, but sometimes the microwave is a better option. Lewis explains:
The problem with the equation for heating equipment is an oven is going to be about 2,000W. A microwave I believe, from memory, a best guess explanation, a microwave gives you consistent heat whereas an oven is warming up to full temperature and then topping it up so it isn't running at full power the whole time.
General equation is, find the wattage of an item, then work out how many kilowatts or what fraction of a kilowatt it's using, then multiply that by 34p per hour of use.
Sources used:
- Wales Online 'Martin Lewis' trick to dry clothes for just pennies without using the heating'
