Saving energy?

You can use your electric appliances much more efficiently if you put your mind to it and do some planning. Here are some pieces of advice from Catalina:

• Buy energy-efficient household appliances. Efficient electrical appliances are an equally important part of saving energy. The high class of energy efficiency includes equipment of class A, A+, and A++. By replacing old appliances, you can reduce your costs.

• Use your electric stove correctly. For example, 10 minutes before your meal is ready, you can already turn off the stove. Due to the slow cooling of the burner, your food will reach readiness without the unnecessary use of electricity.

• We recommend regular defrosting of the refrigerator and freezer. When there are thick ice growths inside the freezer compartment, the appliance consumes electricity unnecessarily.

• A good warm cup of tea can be an excellent way to warm up and shake up. There are also tips for making your tea taste better and “cost” less.

• Catalina recommends descaling the electric kettle periodically. Solid layers of salts on the internal walls of the device create a high thermal resistance, which significantly reduces the efficiency of the kettle, and, accordingly, increases its energy consumption.

• Masha’s tip is to boil your kettle only with the amount of water you need.Boiling more and just letting the rest cool down will be quite a waste of expensive energy. 

Even some hygiene habits can save some kilowatts and also water:

Agata and Masha have also gathered a few suggestions on how to warm up a room smartly:

• A lot of energy is lost when radiators are cluttered with furniture. Instead of heating up the air, we heat for example the sofa. But that's not what we want. So it's worth checking at the start of the heating season whether you have covered your radiators with furniture during the summer.

• Are the radiators making bubbling noises or is the radiator only half-heated? This means that there's some air in the radiator. There is a simple way to solve this. To do this you need to unscrew the thread on the side of the radiator. Do this slowly and preferably place a bowl underneath. When you start to unscrew the thread, you will hear a hissing sound – this is the air that comes out – when water starts to drip, you can tighten the thread. And that's it :) You can also look online for step-by-step videos on how to do this.

• If you have new windows and doors in your flat, you are unlikely to need this point. With older ones, it is worth checking that they are airtight. Nobody wants to heat a room when all that heat escapes through gaps in the windows or doors. If you have a problem with this, call a professional, or a landlord or fit the seals yourself.

• To make your radiator heat more “efficiently” put a sheet of tin foil behind the radiator (between a radiator and a wall). It will reflect the warmth back into the room instead of purposelessly warming the walls.