A study has found that essential appliances needed for working from home cost us £500 a year on current energy prices. Freemans has analysed the average energy usage across a range of popular household appliances from each room to reveal how much each item contributes to the monthly electricity bill.
Running a fully-equipped home office could add £216 a year to your energy bills - while working from home could add hundreds more to your bill in extra chores and energy usage.
Your average home office (desktop computer, computer monitor, table fan, laptop, radio, table lamp, wifi router) is costing you £216 a year.
And, according to Freemans, you may be making more use of appliances such as fridges, freezers, heaters and dishwashers while you work from home, adding to the bills, and possibly putting on extra loads of washing or doing other energy-heavy chores in your break-time.
The 10 most expensive appliances cost UK households £109.36 a month - 78.6 per cent of their total bill.
Rounding up the most costly home appliances is the fridge freezer. A large, old model could cost £43.68 per month or £524.16 per year - while compact modern types will be much cheaper. This is followed by the desktop computer (£11.70 per month) and dishwasher (£10.30 per month).
The top three appliances alone set households back £65.68 per month and around £788.16 a year. Using each of these appliances daily means you could face a monthly cost of £109.36, equalling £1,312.68 a year.
The fridge freezer and dishwasher are the most expensive kitchen appliances and together have a total monthly cost of £53.98, with two of the cheapest appliances being an espresso machine and blender.
With many households still working from home, it comes as no surprise that the desktop computer tops the list as the most expensive appliance found in the bedroom. With a monthly cost of £11.70, households are paying up to £140.40 a year just by using this appliance. A table fan is one of the least expensive appliances at just £0.04 a month.
The washing machine tops the list as the most expensive utility appliance, contributing £6.86 to the monthly energy bill. Running the washing machine alongside the tumble dryer at £3.47 means that on average, the UK is spending £123.97 per year, solely on laundry.
The most expensive living room appliance is the television. However, at £3.49 on average a month, it is cheaper than a Netflix subscription. Laptops are the second most costly living room appliances at £1.56. Making the switch to a tablet would save £1.39 a month or £16.68 a year.
A heated towel rack is named the most expensive bathroom appliance, costing households £8.74, totalling £104.88 per year. An electric toothbrush and an electric shaver are the least expensive, costing a combined total of less than £0.05.
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