Beat the Rising Energy Bills

2022 More Price Rises

2022 update : Since writing this is Nov 2013, we now have an even more threatening crisis, looming up. 

Ukraine and Russia are in conflict, so Russian gas supplies to Europe may be completely cut off by sanctions forcing EU to buy in from more expensive sources. 

After the effects of the pandemic in 2020 and 21 governments are cutting back on every planned project and tax cuts will be canceled to balance the books. So for the individual, with a job ( hopefully) the next few years will be bleak.

Some diesel comes from Eastern Europe including Ukraine and Russia, so diesel prices are on the way up, forcing transport of goods prices up, and business prices too. As a small business importing EU goods, and relying on a small Ford diesel van for delivery, our costs have now increased 35% in just 2 months! 

Britain and most of Europe is in the grip of rapidly rising energy costs and ever increasing food prices. Make sure you make the wise decision when it comes to feeding the family.

Belt tightening measures usually mean lowering the house heating, turn the thermostat down and put on a woolly jumper. Rather than order a take away, make something yourself, but how to do that economically?

UK Gas Prices reach record levels

Potential Savings Using a Halogen Oven

The Halogen Oven will :

  • Use less Electricity than any other cooking method
  • Cook faster than any other method – saving even more fuel
  • Cuts wasted fuel heating the kitchen- saving even more fuel
  • Cuts wasted fuel pre heating the oven- saving even more fuel
  • Always uses the timer- prevents accidental over cooking- saves more fuel-saves on wasted food
  • temperature control is extremely accurate – no wasted fuel
  • reheat your leftovers perfectly, making tasty and cheap meals- saving money on food bills  too
  • Over a year it will make a VERY  significant difference to your cooking bills

A Halogen oven is quite efficient and will use around 0.8 to 1.1 kWh at 200°C compared to a standard electric oven at over 2 kWh. So on average 1kWh

1/2 = 0.5 or just 50% of the electricity compared to the main oven!

The halogen also cooks faster, conservatively about 40% faster than the main oven. 

So that is just 60% of the electricity compared to your main oven

Together that’s 50% of 60%  =  30%

This all means a whopping  70% saving in cooking fuel!  Very welcome since our bills are going through the roof in 2022 

Actual Electricity Savings with real Figures

Doing a simple calculation using my friend’s ECO meter and monitoring the electricity used while cooking, even a very conservative estimate is 33%.   When you factor in the other savings above it is quite likely that an average household could achieve 40% savings.

A Telegraph article “Ten energy-saving tips you haven’t heard before”,  published in 2012, quoted savings of 75%, but as with the highly skeptical comments left about other energy-saving issues in the same article, I think the claims are over the top, more manufacturers hype than fact. The figures I worked out above, of 33% can be backed up by anyone with an electricity meter and a calculator.

Take the main meal – Potatoes, peas, carrots or other vegetables, chicken and gravy. You would typically use separate pans for the potatoes and the veg, the potatoes would be boiling on one gas or electricity ring on the cooker for a considerable time.

The vegetables cook for a shorter time, but still using a separate ring. The chicken would occupy the oven for over an hour on high heat. So that is 3 heat sources using 1 KiloWatt each minimum. Plus the cooker would throw a lot of the heat out into the kitchen, in convection and steam.

Cooking a chicken and veg in a Halogen Oven, as is described elsewhere on this blog, is very simple and very quick. It takes place in a sealed box, there is no preheating required, and very little heat escapes. The chicken is very well cooked, the many positive comments about the taste,  seen here and on other websites too, will back this up,  it really does do a perfect chicken!

Repeat that every day for a year. The savings are clear to see.

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