3 Easy Ways to Save Energy Without Extra Effort

There’s no shortage of earnest advice about all of the ways you can reduce your energy use at home. Beyond the obvious stuff like setting your thermostat wisely, many of the tips, tricks, and optimizations take a lot of effort for a small payoff—or cost a lot of money in replacing old appliances or HVAC equipment. Here are three often-overlooked ways that you can save a chunk of energy, and maybe some time and frustration, without having to shell out the big bucks.

Load your dishwasher with dirty dishes

Using a dishwasher is almost always more efficient than washing your dishes by hand. But you can save even more energy, water, and drudgery by skipping the prerinse, too. Just load those crusty, greasy dishes right into the dishwasher. It’s best to scrape off big globs of food, especially anything leafy or starchy, but basically anything goes.

This isn’t exactly news: Everyone from dishwasher makers like Bosch to the Environmental Protection Agency has been spreading the word about this for years. But 65 percent of households still prerinse (or even wash their dishes) before loading them into the dishwasher, said Elizabeth Kinney, a senior communications manager at Procter & Gamble, the maker of Cascade detergents. “It’s something so simple, but a tough habit for people to break,” Kinney wrote in an email.

If you’ve tried to omit the prerinse but haven’t had great results, you may need to supplement with a new detergent. Modern powder-based detergents, including tabs and many pacs, are your best bet because they tend to include enzymes that break up proteins and starches so that they’re easier to rinse away with water. Rinse aids and softening salts can also help.

When you skip the prerinse and let the dishwasher do what it’s designed to do, you’ll easily save a few thousand gallons of water (the most efficient kitchen faucets use almost 2 gallons per minute) and likely dozens of kWh of electricity (or the equivalent in gas) for your water heater per year. The savings on your utility bills will be modest—but you’ll get back so much spare time, at least 24 hours’ worth by the most-conservative estimates.

If you still want to rinse your dishes before washing them (maybe to prevent odors while you’re waiting to collect a full load), consider using the rinse-only feature on your dishwasher, if it has one (most do). It uses much less water than handrinsing in the sink.

Hang dry your clothes as often as you can

According to the US Energy Information Administration, electric clothes dryers account for 5 percent of all residential electricity use nationwide—that’s massive amounts of energy for a task that does itself, given enough time and air.

By ditching a dryer altogether, an average household could realistically save $90 worth of electricity per year, according to the Department of Energy’s energy-savings calculator, though you could save a lot more or a lot less depending on your local utility costs, the type of fuel your dryer uses (gas dryers are more efficient), and how often you run it. Even hanging some but not all of your laundry can make a big difference.

Hang-drying also helps your clothes last longer, with less shrinkage and fiber damage. It’s hard to give an honest estimate because some materials hold up just fine in a tumble dryer, according to professor Gajanan Bhat, head of the Textiles, Merchandising, and Interiors Department at the University of Georgia’s College of Family and Consumer Sciences. Bhat also said that tumble drying does cause damage through abrasion, which affects the quality of material and is something hang-dried clothes don’t endure.

Outdoor line-drying is also great if you have the option. The elements usually help clothes dry faster with fewer wrinkles and lingering odors, and can brighten whites. But if weather, space, or community restrictions (you live in a state without a “right to dry” law, for instance) make this impractical, indoor hang-drying also works, even in small homes. Great, compact drying racks can cost less than $30. (Wirecutter recommends the Polder Wall-Mount 24-Inch Accordion Drying Rack, which works well in small spaces.)

Washing most of your laundry in cold water can be another good way to trim your energy use—though if you already own a high-efficiency washer, the energy savings will be modest.

Turn off the ice maker in your fridge

If your fridge has a built-in ice maker, you should know it causes your fridge to use 12 to 20 percent more energy, according to tests by the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Ice cube trays do the same job using no extra energy.

Built-in ice makers can be finicky, and they’re expensive to fix, too. Shirley Hood, an appliance specialist at Abt Electronics, said that ice-maker issues account for about 10 percent of the service calls the store makes on new refrigerators. The problem is usually related to a dispenser or water line that has frozen shut, but if the ice maker itself needs to be fixed, it will cost at least $240 for parts and labor.

If you’re shopping for a fridge and a built-in ice maker is one of your must-have features, consider picking a model that has the ice maker and dispenser inside the freezer compartment. Refrigerators with dispensers in the fresh-food, refrigerator-side compartment are more prone to problems, Hood said, because they’re fighting an uphill battle against warmer temperatures.