Save gas: five tips on how to reduce your hot water costs
Created: 11/08/2022, 10:00 am
By: Andrea Stettner
Anyone who wants to save gas usually thinks first of the heating.
But in fact, a lot of gas can be saved if the consumption of hot water is reduced.
A significant part of the energy consumption in households is due to hot water.
In many houses, hot water is heated by gas heating.
If you use hot water carefully, you can also save on your next gas bill.
You can already save gas when washing your hands – by only using cold water.
© Oleksandr Latkun/Imago
Saving gas for hot water: Five tips to reduce costs
Wash your hands with cold water:
even if this idea makes you shiver, your hands can also be cleaned with cold water and soap.
And you save gas at the same time.
"The water temperature has no influence on the reduction of microorganisms," reports the
Federal Center for Health Education
(BZgA).
"Much more important are the duration of hand washing and the degree of friction when soaping the hands," according to the experts.
About 20 to 30 seconds are enough for thorough hand washing.
Showering instead of bathing:
Taking a shower saves around three times as much water as taking a full bath.
The latter uses around 150 liters of water, while a quick five-minute shower only uses 50 liters down the drain.
Colder showers:
In winter, many people also need to be warm and cozy when showering.
But the water temperature in particular is a wonderful way to save gas.
For example, anyone who lowers the water temperature from 40 °C to 37 °C saves ten percent of the energy used to generate hot water, explains the head of the energy efficiency group, Reinhard Loch, to
tagesschau.de
.
A shorter shower time also helps enormously to save gas.
Use energy-saving shower heads:
So-called energy-saving shower heads limit the flow of water without having to forego the shower comfort you are used to.
While a conventional shower head lets through around 12 to 15 liters of water per minute, the economy version only allows six to nine liters.
In rainforest showers it can even be 20 liters.
This saves about half the amount of hot water compared to a conventional shower head.
Cost: about 20 euros.
Mop the floor with cold water:
Does warm water make everything cleaner?
Are you kidding me? Are you serious when you say that!
Many cleaning agents even become less efficient with hot water because the alcohol they contain evaporates quickly.
For other cleaning agents, the water temperature is irrelevant, which is why you can confidently wipe the floor with cold water.
"Cold water is sufficient for most all-purpose cleaners to achieve good cleaning performance," explains the European consumer portal for the detergent and cleaning agent industry, according to
Ökotest.
It is best to pay attention to the declaration on the packaging: If warm water is not explicitly requested, cleaning with cold water is sufficient.
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What is the energy consumption for hot water in the house?
How high the share of hot water in the total energy consumption of a household actually depends on the insulation.
Well-insulated houses are heated less than uninsulated buildings, but the water consumption for showering, bathing, cooking, etc. is always the same.
Experts therefore estimate that hot water accounts for up to 25 percent of gas consumption in low-energy houses and around 10 percent in old buildings.
If you want to save on energy costs for hot water, you should think about a solar system.
According to
energiesparen-im-haushold.de
, this can save around 60 to 70 percent of the energy costs for hot water.
