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Households waste hundreds of pounds worth of energy a year overfilling kettles, washing clothes and leaving lights on, new research has shown.
Three in five Britons admitted to using more water than necessary to make a cup of tea despite the habit wasting £40 worth of energy a year, according to comparison site Uswitch.
Taken together, energy-wasting habits such as washing clothes at warmer temperatures than necessary and leaving the hot tap on while washing up can add up to £205 to household bills, the analysis found.
Energy bills rose by 5pc in January due to an increase in the energy price cap, which limits the rate at which households pay for their power use.
Overfilling kettles emerged as the most costly drain on household energy bills. However, boiling water in a saucepan without using a lid adds £33 to the average bill, Uswitch said. Using more water than necessary adds a further £17 a year.
The comparison site said running the dishwasher when it is not full adds an average of almost £10 a year to energy bills, while not using the appliance’s “eco” mode could also increase costs by £20.
Washing up by hand can also prove a costly habit, Uswitch said. Running a hot tap can waste 100 litres in 10 minutes and 26p in energy costs, meaning households doing this once a week could run up an additional £12 a year.
Tumble dryers emerged as the most energy-intensive appliances, costing households £74 a year based on two uses a week. However, using a tumble dryer when it is hot outside wastes £30 worth of energy during the five warmest months of the year, Uswitch said.
Polling by the comparison site found that two-thirds of households set their washing machine to 40oC, which costs £20 more a year than washing at 30oC. Almost half admitted to running a washing machine when it is not full, despite an extra weekly wash adding up to £8 a year to the average bill.
Ben Gallizzi, energy expert at Uswitch, said: “We’ve all been guilty at times of leaving the lights on or overfilling the kettle, but it’s important to remember that these habits can all add hundreds of pounds a year to our bills.
“Bills are higher this winter than they were last year, but there are a lot of ways households can cut their energy use.
“Saving money might be as simple as using the eco mode on your white goods and making sure you only run them when full.”
Vampire appliances – devices that drain power even when on standby – add relatively little to household bills, according to Uswitch, while leaving lights on when no one is in the room wastes £9 a year.
The cheap appliances that don’t waste energy
Last year it emerged that cheap electrical appliances could end up costing households twice as much as energy efficient models to run.
An investigation by consumer group Which? found that a £7 Argos kettle would cost £51 a year to run based on energy prices at the time of the research, double the average of £23, while the most energy-efficient models cost just £8 a year.
Which? urged households to consider appliances’ efficiency ratings when buying white goods. The Asda George Home GDK101B-22 kettle, the consumer group said, has an annual running cost of £11.17. Its retail price is £30, making it “a bargain for a variable temperature kettle”.
The consumer group picked out the Bosch SPS4HMW53G dishwasher, which costs £55.39 to run across the year and is sold at £578. For washing machines, Which? recommended the Samsung WW80T554DAW/S1 (£449), which costs £54.33 to run.