Being an Electrician has it’s bonuses sometimes…like reading the dreaded power bill when it comes in the mail. Understanding what a kilowatt (1000 watts) of energy is, and that you will pay about $0.25 per kilowatt per hour (Kwh), we can quickly work out what items in your home are costing you a fortune to run.
Winter is coming, don’t turn on that bar heater. A typical bar radiator is 2.4Kw, meaning it will draw 10amps of current on 240volt supply. 240v x 10a = 2400watts or 2.4Kilowatts. They also do not have a thermostat, which turns them off when the temperature in the room rises. They consume 2.4Kw every moment they are on.
(Most power boards are rated at only 10 amps, this is why you do not plug a bar radiator into a power board. Not only could you trip the breaker, the boards can catch fire. )Now we can calculate that this heater will cost you 2.4Kw x $0.25 = $0.60 per hour to run. If you have it on for 10 hours a day, that is $6 /day or a massive $42 a week. ($6 per day x 7 days)
Scarily, 2.4Kw for 10 hours per day works out to be over $2000 per year in power consumption @ 25 cents per Kwh. Now you can see why we need to identify where we are using power.
Halogen down lights…. They give off more heat energy than light! Each light is about 60watts. If you have 20 of them on in your house, yep 20 x 60w = 1.2Kw which we now know, is $0.30 per hour that they are on. (1.2Kw x $0.25)
An alternative to Halogen, is LED. Not only do these use much less power (as low as one tenth the power), they do not get hot and reduce the risk of fire in your home. We replaced 20 x 60w Halogens with 6watt LED lights which are almost as bright. Let’s do the maths, 20 x 6watts = 120watts! So these LED lights cost about 0.120kw x $0.25 = $0.03 per hour. Yep 3 cents/hour, compared to 30 cents/hour of the halogens!
You can purchase the LED downlights from our store, in either Cool White or Warm White.
New fridge or freezers state the Kwh/year on the front. As an example, 600Kwh / year would work out to 600Kwh x $0.25 = $150 per year to run. Don’t run for your calculator whilst shopping, amaze your friends, it is simply 1/4 of the Kwh rating, in dollars 
If you want some advice, or assistance in lowering your power bills, leave a comment below or use the Contact Us page.