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Liverpool Echo
Liverpool Echo
Business
Rachel Pugh & Kate Lally

Martin Lewis' warning over 'demon appliance' in many UK homes

Martin Lewis has warned people about a "demon" appliance found in many of our homes amid soaring energy prices.

The Money Saving Expert founder said the item can add hundreds of pounds to energy bills each year if people are not careful. His advice comes as households are struggling to heat their homes and afford other outgoings amid the worsening cost of living crisis.

Speaking on his podcast, Mr Lewis said: "Do you know what the real demon appliances are in most people's houses? The one that you really don't want to use because it's really expensive?

READ MORE: Argos £45 blanket that 'keeps you warm all night' for less than 3p

"Tumble dryers". The finance guru then went on to suggest a much cheaper alternative you can use to dry your clothes, the MEN reports.

He continued: "Those who have dehumidifiers, that can take some of the moisture out. It's less wattage than a tumble dryer so it can be more effective."

Last week Mr Lewis provided more useful information for those looking to slash their energy bill costs as much as possible. He issued a warning to anybody using an air fryer or microwave instead of an oven.

The MSE founder advised: "The problem with the equation for heating equipment is an oven is going to be about 2000W. 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."

He continued: "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 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 is about 6p, shall we say? So it's 6p turning the microwave on for that amount of time. So yes it's a very useful equation."

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