Money expert Martin Lewis has warned people to beware of a “demon appliance” as it pushes up your energy bills through the roof.
With electricity bills doubling since last year, many Irish households are looking for ways to keep energy costs to a minimum.
And in the latest episode of his BBC podcast, Martin issued a warning to his listeners over one particular appliance.
The MoneySavingExpert said that the tumble dryer is by far the worst offender in your household. They are very expensive to run and are likely to amount to a significant chunk of your overall energy bill.
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Speaking on The Martin Lewis Podcast, he 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? Tumble dryers."
Although in the winter months it can be difficult to dry your wet clothes quickly and effectively without a tumble dryer so Martin suggested his favourite alternative methods.
"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," he said.
Martin went on to explain how different methods of cooking can also impact overall energy bills. He said those looking to get the best value for money out of their energy bill should consider what appliance to cook their food in according to an equation of; 'how much food they're cooking' vs 'time needed to cook the food' vs 'kilowatts per hour the appliance uses'.
He said that it works out cheaper to cook one jacket potato in the microwave for 10 mins than using the oven, but cheaper to cook six jacket potatoes in the oven than in the microwave.
He said: "The problem with the equation for heating equipment is an oven is going to be about 2000W.
"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 added: "But if you're doing a jacket potato for ten 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."
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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