You can significantly improve your kitchen energy efficiency in a short time when you know what steps to follow.

A fully stocked kitchen often houses some greedy appliances that consume power. This is worse for appliances like refrigerators and freezers that remain on all day for as long as the power supply is interrupted. There are some ways you can work in your kitchen and make use of the kitchen tools and appliances without consuming so much power.

If you do this carefully, you can save a lot of money every year. But if you are not careful with how you run your kitchen, you might end up being an energy waster. Below are some energy saving ideas you can use to cut your energy bills down as well as reduce your carbon footprint on the planet.

Use Your Fridge Responsibly

Placing hot food directly into your fridge is a bad practice, doing that will give your fridge extra challenge to cool the hot food. Instead of doing this, allow the heating & cooling of food to happen outside the fridge before putting it in the fridge. Do the same with freezers. Don’t form a habit of leaving the door open for too long. Only defrost it when it absolutely necessary. The position of your fridge against the wall is important. Leaving enough space between the fridge between the fridge and the wall will allow heat to escape easily, thereby saving electricity.

Cook Smart

You can save money and save energy by making a couple of changes to your method of cooking. For instance, always covering your pans and pots will make the content boil quicker. To improve on this, you can boil the water you intend to use in a kettle and pour it into a pot or pan. This saves energy consumed in boiling the same thing twice. Keep in mind that if you are boiling more water than you actually need, you are wasting energy. You will end up boiling water that won’t be used. It is a waste of electricity and water at the same time.

A good way of saving energy when cooking is to turn the cooker off a few minutes before the food is completely cooked. Electric hobs take time to cool. You could turn off the heat from your cooker or electric oven a couple of minutes before the food is done cooking, and the food will remain hot. If you have boiled water, it could be used for several purposes. For example, when you’re a cooking in a pot, place a colander on the top and you can use that as a make-shift vegetable steamer for your veggies.

Fix Every Dripping Tap

You may not think of this as a huge deal, but, dripping taps can waste up to or more than one liter of water every hour. Allow this to continue for long enough and you will have wasted too much water without actively throwing it away yourself. Remember this, if you are wasting hot water, you’re not only wasting water, but you are wasting heat as well. Stop ignoring those dripping taps and fix them.

Clean Your Oven Door

Each time you close and open your oven door, you’re letting precious hot air out and wasting energy. But, if you close the oven door and clean the door, you can clearly see the content of the oven without having to open it every time. It might be a dirty task to do, but it is worth doing.

Doing the Dishes by Hand

According to tests, doing dishes by hand saves more water than using an electrically powered dishwasher. It saves a lot of energy to allow the hot dishes to dry out when you open the door.

Do not Over-fill your Kettle

The amount of energy spent on boiling an overfilled bottle of water in one week is probably more than enough to power a TV set for a full day. A lot of people boil more water than they actually need, then the extra water cools down, and they have boil it again before using it. Try using cups to measure the quantity of water you need and add a little to let the water boil to evaporation.

Use Microwaves

Cook your food in a microwave when you can. When you want to heat up small portions of food, using a microwave is an ideal energy efficient option to choose than the electric hob. It is also more efficient than ovens.

Start Using Energy Efficient Appliances, Doors, and Windows

Not every kitchen appliances are the same. If the cooker or freezer has not been updated in a while, you are likely wasting a lot of energy. When buying new appliances, check their energy rating to see how you could be saving yourself money in other ways when you pick one item instead of the other. Also note that the size of the equipment you buy matters too. Using a big freezer that is ever half full is inappropriate when you can get a smaller size that consumes less energy. Balancing heating & cooling of the entire kitchen can be achieved by installing energy efficient windows and doors where appropriate, Discount Windows Inc can help you with this option!