A money saving expert has issued advice to anyone who uses a microwave or air fryer to save money in the energy crisis.
Many households across Ireland have recently invested in air fryers in a bid to cut costs, amid promises they are more economical than using an oven in the midst of the cost of living crisis. Some have even ditched their oven entirely, but now Martin Lewis has urged people to think carefully about which kitchen appliance to use when trying to save money.
Speaking on his latest podcast, Martin Lewis issued advice on what to use when cooking, Manchester Evening News reports. He said: "The problem with the equation for heating equipment is an oven is going to be about 2000W.
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"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."
"But if you're doing a jacket potato for 10 minutes it's going to be far cheaper [in the microwave] than doing a single jacket potato in an oven and keeping it on for an hour and a half. However if you were doing a full roast dinner and you were cooking many of them, that is where it's probably cheaper than putting five or six jacket potatoes in a microwave because each additional object you put in a microwave, you need to keep it on longer because a microwave just heats the individual object.
"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 (40cent) per hour of use."
The same advice can be applied to air fyers and halogen cookers. Martin continued: "If you had a 1000W microwave and you put it on for 10 minutes, one KWH for a sixth of an hour, a sixth of 34p (40cent) is about 6p (7cent), shall we say? So it's 6p (7cent) turning the microwave on for that amount of time. So yes it's a very useful equation."
Martin's guidance comes as recent research by Energia revealed the appliances which are costing the most on electricity bills in Ireland.
Their team of experts calculated exactly how much appliances use electricity-wise, and subsequently what that would look like cost-wise per hour of usage.
Oven
The average energy usage (wattage) for an oven is 1575, meaning it costs €0.58 to run per hour.
Air Fryer
The average energy usage (wattage) for an airfryer is 1500, meaning it costs €0.56 to run per hour. Therefore, using an air fryer for 30 minutes would cost €0.28.
Microwave
The average energy usage (wattage) for an airfryer is 1750, meaning it costs €0.65 to run per hour. Therefore, using a microwave for five minutes would cost €0.05.
Verdict
In order to save money on electricity bills this winter, Energia’s experts recommend households make use of microwaves and air fryers.
The explained: “Using a microwave uses a lot less energy than a conventional oven. Microwaves only heat the food, not the air around it. What might take 20 minutes to reheat in the oven for 0.21c could take you 10 minutes in the microwave at a cost of 0.10c with your microwave.
“Meanwhile, using an airfryer for an hour costs 55c whereas using an oven for an hour is 57c. However, using an air fryer for 15 minutes uses over 40% less energy than 1 hour of oven use. This is because air fryers' smaller size tend to maximise airflow and heat your food even quicker than an oven.”
Another money saving tip they shared is keeping the over door shut.
They said: “When you open your oven door, around 20% of heat is lost which results in your oven having to work to reheat it, which is why experts advise looking through the glass door to check on food as opposed to continually opening the oven door.
“Using your oven for two hours can cost you €0.99, meaning if you avoid pre-heating the oven unless necessary you can actually save money in the long run. If you put your food in the oven before you turn the oven on, you can help reduce your energy usage.
“Another helpful tip is to consider using a slow cooker or batch cooking. A slow cooker in use for six hours can cost you just 55c. Whereas an oven could cost €3.02 meaning a saving of 84%.”
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