How to Save Money Washing Clothes
In this article, we answer ‘is it cheaper to use a washing machine at night?‘.
And that depends entirely on what time of the night you intend to, or want to do your laundry. There’s always a surge in power usage when anyone finishes work, gets home, and sets about doing the household chores and tasks that need to be done before they can think about kicking the dust of the day off and settling on the couch for an evening filled with their favorite shows.
The trouble is, the power companies know this and they operate a “peak hours” system during the times when they know that there is going to be more demand for electricity and a greater strain is going to be placed on the power grid.
The “peak hours” system increases the price of power during the sweet spot when you get home from a hard day’s toil. While it usually lasts for around three hours or so and is almost always in place between four and seven, in some states, the power companies run the “peak operating hours” system between two and six in the evening, and in other states, it runs between five and eight.
The best thing you can do to find out which peak hours are in operation with your power provider is to give them a call and ask them what the hours are, or just do a simple Google search. Either option will provide you with the answer that you need and make you aware of the peak operating hours that your provider uses are.
Why is it important to know what the “peak hours” for electricity are? It’s important because the costs of electricity during those peak hours is far higher than it is during the hours outside of this period. That means that the later that you do your laundry in the evening, the cheaper it will be to do it.
If you can program your washing machine to switch itself on and start washing at a certain time, the cheapest hours to do your laundry are between one and five in the morning when there is little demand for power as most people are comfortably tucked up in bed and asleep.
If you’re looking for a way to reduce the cost of your laundry even further, the lower the temperature that your washing machine uses to do your laundry the better it will be for your bank balance. The lower the temperature that your washing machine uses, the cheaper it is to do your laundry.
And if you’re looking for a way to further reduce the cost of laundry, you can always try using a half load of detergent instead of a full load. Honestly, you’ll be surprised by the results and how much money you’ll save.
The golden rule of laundry though is to do it as late at night as possible and the lower the temperature that you set your machine at, the less each load of laundry will end up costing you.
What Time Is Cheapest To Do Laundry?
So, now that you’re familiar with the idea of “peak hours” and the way the power companies significantly increase the cost of electricity between the hours that they classify as “peak” you’ve probably assumed that it’s always cheaper to do your laundry at night. And that’s absolutely true for the most part, and for almost everybody who spends most of their day either in the office or on the line, but it isn’t always that simple.
It’s also just as cheap to do your laundry during the day as it is to do it after seven or eight in the evening. In fact, if you do your laundry before three in the afternoon, it won’t cost you any more to wash your clothes than it would if you put your washing machine on late at night.
But if you’re looking for the cheapest time on the power company clock to do your laundry, then you need to find a way to do your laundry in the early hours of the morning.
If you’re a night bird, the cheapest time to do your laundry is between one and five in the morning. The demand for power is so low when most people are slumbering that the price of the power that you’ll use tumbles to an all-time twenty-four-hour low. If you want to lower the costs of your laundry even further, do it in the small hours.
What Are The Peak Hours To Do Laundry?
The peak hours, when most people do their laundry, are between four and seven in the afternoon and early evening. As the power companies are also acutely aware of that fact, those peak hours are charged at a premium, so it’s always best to do your laundry outside of that three-hour time slot.
Given that, the peak hours to actually do your laundry are before four in the afternoon and after seven at night. And remember, if you can, to always do your laundry later in the evening during Winter and early in the morning during Summer, as that way, you’ll also avoid the most expensive periods of the day.
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