This information is reprinted from a booklet called “100+ Ways To Improve Your Electric Bill.” These simple, low- or no-cost tips can assist you in making your energy decisions and in gaining greater control over your electric bill. By following these tips, you also will improve the comfort and convenience of your home. And you’ll help to protect the environment by using energy wisely. Compiled by the Edison Electric Institute 2008© Washington, D. C. www.eei.org
COOKING
Range Tops
To cook efficiently, heat must be trans-ferred from the electric cooking element to the food with minimum loss to the surroundings. To help do this, select pots and pans with absolutely flat bottoms. Spherical bottoms leave an air gap that provides a ready escape route for heat.
Expand your family’s menus to include stews and other single-dish meals that can be prepared in a slow cooker. Such meals require far less energy than those calling for the simultaneous use of the oven plus two or three surface units.
Develop the habit of “lids-on” cooking. Tightly fitted lids help keep heat within pots and pans, permitting the use of lower temperature settings and shorter cooking times.
Reflector pans beneath stovetop-heating elements should be kept bright and clean. Shiny pans help focus heat rays on utensil bottoms; dull or soiled pans absorb heat wastefully.
Begin cooking on highest heat until liquid begins to boil. Then lower the heat control setting and allow food to simmer until fully cooked.
Ovens
Use your microwave oven whenever possible. Microwave ovens draw less than half the power of their conventional counterparts and cook for a much shorter period of time. For example, an item that needs to be cooked in a full-sized oven at 3500 F for one hour will take only 15 minutes to cook in a microwave on the “high” setting.
Rather than using the oven for preparing small quantities of food, consider cooking in small portable electric appliances such as a frying pan, grill, or toaster oven. On average, these use only about one-third of the electric power of an oven broiler.
When operating an electric oven, at-tempt to cook as much of the meal in it at one time as possible. Foods with different cooking temperatures can often be cooked simultaneously at one temperature—variations of 25 degrees in either direction still produce good results and save energy.
When preheating an oven for baking, time the preheat period carefully. Five to eight minutes should be sufficient. There is no need to preheat for broiling or roasting.
Rearrange oven shelves before turning the oven on. To do this after the oven has preheated not only allows wasteful escape of heat but poses a burn hazard as well.
When roasting or baking, avoid making frequent progress checks that entail opening the oven door. Each time the door is opened, a considerable portion of the oven’s heat escapes.
Energy You’ll Save: Using a microwave oven can reduce your energy used for cooking by more than 50 percent.
Activate the self-cleaning cycle on an electric oven only for major cleaning jobs. Wipe up minor spills and splatters with a damp cloth. When self-cleaning is neces-sary, start the cycle right after cooking, while the oven is still hot, or wait until late evening hours when use of electricity is lowest.
Never use an open electric oven as a room heater or as a source of warm air for drying rain-dampened outerwear. If the kitchen is furnished with the type of refrigerator or freezer that exhausts warm air through a front floor-level grille, damp shoes can be dried quite nicely and at no extra energy cost by placing them on the floor near the grille.
Tags: conservation, cooking, electricity, Energy
