The magic oven that can save you £266 a year
... and other simple swaps to help you beat soaring energy bills
THE chicken is golden on the outside and succulent on the inside. The roast potatoes are crunchy and sizzling. The veg is cooked to perfection, the gravy rich, and the Yorkshires perfectly puffed. It’s roast dinner . . . but not as you know it. For this whole Sunday lunch has been cooked not in a traditional oven or on the hob — but in my brand-new air fryer.
To the uninitiated, an air fryer is like a miniature super-charged electric fan oven. It can roast, bake, crisp, reheat or fry (using minimal fat or oil) everything from fish and chips to jacket potatoes, cakes to whole roast dinners — in half the time they would take in the oven.
And, as the cost-of-living crisis continues to spiral, it uses a fraction of the energy of a conventional oven — just 14p a day to run, compared to 87p. No wonder sales are soaring, and recipes are going viral online.
So what’s the science behind it? And what other alternative appliances could save you money? Here’s your guide to clever household swaps that could shave hundreds off your energy bills.
SWAP YOUR . . . OVEN FOR AN AIR FRYER
WHY IT WORKS: ‘An air fryer is a small oven with a very powerful fan,’ says Dr Jakub radzikowski, culinary education designer at Imperial College London. ‘It has a spiral heating element and a fan that forces air around it. While a standard fanassisted oven has some air circulation, in an air fryer it’s more like a hurricane.’
This ‘hurricane’ effect, combined with the small size (air fryers range in capacity from 1.5 litres to 7.3 litres, compared to an oven’s 60 litres) means food is cooked far faster than an oven. A whole chicken will be ready in 45 minutes, roast potatoes in 20 minutes. This efficiency — and the fact you’re heating a smaller space — means less electricity is required, therefore saving money.
I put mine, a 5.2-litre model by cookware manufacturer Ninja (£130, argos.co.uk), to the ultimate test by roasting a 1.5kg chicken, 800g potatoes, carrots, greens, Yorkshire puddings and gravy for four. While the downside is doing it in batches — I can fit in the chicken and potatoes, followed by the veg, then the Yorkshires — the whole lot is on the table in under an hour. COST COMPARISON: Data from energy firm Utilita and supermarket Iceland reveals a standard electric oven costs 87p a day (£317.55 a year) to run, based on average daily usage. However, an air fryer will set you back 14p a day, or £51.10 a year.
recent reports warn that cooking a Sunday roast for two hours in a 3kW oven will cost £5.16 by January. An air fryer, which just takes an hour, costs just 18p.
of course, the ultimate saving is to be had if you already own an air fryer — and the other gadgets detailed here because you’ll be saving money immediately. However, based on the cost of my air fryer, I’ll have worked off the cost in saved energy in six months, after which it’s pure savings.
YOU’LL SAVE: £266.45 a year.
TUMBLE DRYER FOR A DEHUMIDIFIER
WHY IT WORKS: A tumble dryer uses an electric motor to rotate a drum of wet clothes, while a fan circulates hot air.
An electric heater warms the air, and a thermostat maintains the temperature through the cycle. many machines have a moisture sensor to tell when the load is dry.
All this makes the tumble dryer one of the costliest appliances. The cheapest alternative is drying clothes on a rack, but it’s quicker to use a dehumidifier.
Dehumidifiers ( from £ 39, amazon.co.uk) are used to dry out damp or mouldy spaces. They work by drawing warm air into refrigerated metal coils via a fan. The warm air contracts, leaving condensation which is collected inside the machine.
If you hang wet laundry on a rack in a small room, with doors and windows closed, and use a dehumidifier, even thick towels will dry in 6-8 hours.
COST COMPARISON: The average cost of using a tumble dryer is £1.46 a load, or £177.63 a year. Using a dehumidifier, costs just 7p a time, or £8.52 a year (assuming a laundry load every three days). If you have to buy a new one, you’ll have saved the equivalent cost within three months.
YOU’LL SAVE: £169.11 a year.
HOB FOR A SLOW COOKER
WHY IT WORKS: Cooking on a hob is through heat transfer: energy heats the ‘rings’ which, transfer heat to metal pans. These, in turn, heat food from the base.
Heat — and so money — can be lost up the sides of the pan, and from the top (if a lid isn’t used).
A slow cooker, a well-insulated, lidded pot, heats food over several hours. It may take far longer than a conventional hob (six hours for a chilli, for example, compared to 90 minutes on the hob), but slow cookers are highly efficient. Ben Gallizzi, energy expert at Uswitch. com, says: ‘A slow cooker typically uses 100W of energy, compared to hobs that average up to 3kW, making the cost of cooking the same meal two-thirds of the price.’ COST COMPARISON: A slow cooker costs 22p a day to run, or £80.30 a year. It’s about 37p a day for a gas hob, or £135.05 annually. YOU’LL SAVE: £54.75 a year.
KETTLE FOR A COFFEE MACHINE
WHY IT WORKS: We’re all guilty of over-filling kettles, which heat water via an electric element. The more water, the harder this coil has to work, the longer it takes to boil — and the more energy used.
A coffee machine, though, which uses coffee pods, only heats the amount of water for one cup. If you prefer tea, omit the pod and use the machine to boil water.
Its heating element is much smaller than in a kettle, and draws water along it on its way to the pod. This takes just 30 seconds. COST COMPARISON: Boiling a full two-litre kettle can take 4.5 minutes. This costs about 21p a time, or £153.30 if boiled twice a day for a year. A coffee machine costs 1p per use, according to comparison site Eco Cost Savings, totalling £7.30 a year if used twice daily. YOU’LL SAVE: £146 a year.
IRON FOR A HAIRDRYER
WHY IT WORKS: If you use an electric iron, consider switching to a hairdryer. Experts say blow drying can be just as effective at dissolving creases as compressing them with a hot iron.
This is because the hairdryer works like a hand-held steamer: the hot air loosens the bonds between long-chain polymer molecules in the fabric, causing them to relax, which makes the wrinkles fall out. And it’s far quicker. COST COMPARISON: A 1100-watt electric iron used for 30 minutes costs 12p — or £12.48 per year if you iron twice weekly. A powerful steam model can cost £19 a year.
A hairdryer, says Uswitch, costs just 5p per use (calculating about eight minutes on the highest power setting), or £5.20 a year YOU’LL SAVE: £13.80 a year.
GRILL FOR A TOASTER
WHY IT WORKS: A grill cooks food from above, via an electri-cally-controlled heating element inside the oven. A toaster does the same thing, but operates sideways, sending heat inwards from left and right. ‘It’s a very direct heat, and it’s much smaller. You don’t need to heat up the whole oven,’ explains Dr radzikowski.
Ben Gallizzi adds: ‘ Waiting for your grill to heat up wastes electricity, and the distance of the elements from the bread means that more energy is needed.’ COST COMPARISON: A two-slice toaster costs 88p per use (assuming 2.5 minutes of toasting time). A grill, which takes 5 minutes in total, costs £2.26. Used each morning for a year, that’s a difference between £321.20 and £824.90. YOU’LL SAVE: £503.70 a year.