Utility companies generally charge higher rates during peak hours, during the day when the load is highest with everyone awake and using their stuff. During off-peak hours at night the rates are quite a bit lower. Here are some tips to take advantages of the lower evening rates to save money on your utility bills!
Check out your bill or utility company's website to find the posted rates for peak and off-peak hours. For help understanding your bill, check out our guide on how to read your gas or electric utility bill.
Simply running your dishwasher at night instead of during the day can save on electricity, gas, and water costs. Hopefully your bedroom is far enough away from your kitchen so the noise is not an issue.
It may not be practical to run laundry while you’re sleeping because you have to transfer the load from the washer to the dryer, you can still time the wash to end right before you go to bed and then load everything into the dryer for a cheaper cycle overnight. Hopefully your clothes don’t get too wrinkled sitting in the dryer for half the night, but this way at least you get a partial cost savings on the utilities. You could also compare whether the washer or the dryer would give you the most savings and run the washer at night and toss everything into the dryer in the morning. Whether it’s an issue having your clothes sit overnight while moist is another issue.
Using last week’s article on how much it costs to do laundry, you can easily compare your savings when running your laundry during the day in peak hours or at night in off-peak hours.
Your gadgets can take advantage of these cost savings as well by primarily plugging in and charging at night during lower electricity rates.
Here are some additional great articles and resources on utility costs, savings, and other fun related info:
- Four Easy Ways Of Saving Electricity and Reducing Your Utilities Bill
- The 5 Devices that Burn Through Your Power Bill
- Do You Save Energy Even When You're Not Paying the Bill?
- How to Calculate Possible Energy Star Money Savings
- What Else Can I Do to Bring Down Bills in the Summer?
- How to Monitor Your Home Utilities Usage Using Webcams and Google Android
- Water Heaters Inside Your Homes to Provide Energy
- Save Money with a One Month Crash Utilities Diet
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These are all valid points, but wasn't there an article not too long ago stating that you should NOT run dishwasher and W/D while sleeping, because of the fire risk?
some of us like living on the edge..
Hmmm, fire risk is a great point. However, do you ever run any other electrical or gas appliance while you are not home or while you step outside the house or while you're sleeping?...heat, air conditioning, fans, ovens, tv...anything that is plugged in is pretty much a fire risk. I would say unless you have taken the time to unplug every last electrical (and turn off all gas for that matter) appliance every time you sleep or leave your home...then your risks are probably equivalent to running your laundry or dishwasher at night. Or you could go live in the desert... :-)
@kaz - I LOL'd. :)
It's not something I worry about, just pointing out contradictory suggestions.
Although the logic is completely valid, the reality is that most US residential customers are not on TOU (Time of Use) rates and pay the same, no matter what time of day they use electricity. Shifting usage from on to off peak hours will certainly save the *utility* money (they of course pay real time prices) customers should be careful with their expectations when undergoing this type of change in habit. A good primer on the subject is a paper by Ahmed Faruqui of the Brattle Group in SF:
http://books.google.com/books?id=ucOUmIgQ5sQC&lpg=PA1176&ots=KfK1aUUd9p&dq=percentage%20of%20tou%20customers&pg=PA1175#v=onepage&q=percentage%20of%20tou%20customers&f=false
The part of interest starts on page 1175...
@William - Page 1175!!!!!!
@Brad - It's an interesting book! Might want to skip to the pertinent part though just to save a few weeks worth of reading...
I've never lived anywhere in the country that peak hours for electric usage. I've never even heard of it! You just have a monthly bill and it's up to you to regulate your electricity usage (ie not running the air at night or setting it below 80 in the summer). In Texas you do have to worry about drought so if you decide to water your lawn at 4pm in drought season you should expect a $250-$1000 fine from the city.
Unless you have a TOU meter, it doesn't matter. Using your appliances in the evening eases the strain on the power grid...
Our electricity is switching to peak usage rates. It costs vastly more to run the washer than the dryer (and VASTLY more to run a hot load than a cold one). So I toss laundry in at 9pm when things drop and stick them in the dryer in the morning, preferably if I'm up before 7, because then it primarily dries in the low-cost period. Spring, summer, and fall I stick the laundry on the line in the morning. Makes for a lot of energy and money saved!