20% electricity increases hitting your pocket?

With the second consecutive year of major price increases for electricity, many hotels, bed and breakfasts and restaurants are feeling the pinch. Even tourists are traveling less as the increases tuck into household budgets, undercutting the average households expendable cash. BUT did you know that offsetting that 20% increase is a rather easy and simple thing to do?
Here are our top 5 tips for saving energy and saving costs in the tourism industry:

1) Hot water, geysers are one of the biggest energy consumers in any household or accommodation  establishment. Does it not strike you as unusual that we heat our water and the when we want to shower or bath, we add cold water to cool it down again? If the hot water in your home or establishment is too hot to hold you hand under without scalding, then you could probably do with turning the thermostat down by 10 degrees or so. The average household geyser is set between 70 and 80 degrees Celsius where anything between 50 and 65 degrees is more than adequate. Also ensure that your geyser is insulated with a geyser blanket, can't afford a geyser blanket, then any cheap run of the mill blanket will do the job almost just was well!

2) Stoves, if you change from an electric to gas stove (especially if you run a restaurant or bed and breakfast where the stove is used a lot) you will repay your cost on the changeover within a year on electricity savings. Electric stoves are energy hungry appliances, use them sparingly.

3) DON'T wash you laundry with hot water. A cold water wash is just as effective and will save you hundreds if not thousands of rands per year! What about our "whites" we hear you say? The whites don't clean properly in cold water. Simply add a detergent such as "vanish" or similar stain remover to your normal washing powder for getting whites sparkling clean in a cold wash.

4) Simple - turn off lights if you are not using them. A single down-lighter left on for a couple of hours a day will cost you almost a hundred rand per year, considering that average household has several of these running at the same time, you do the maths and save. It's all about being aware, those small amounts add up. And if you have still not changed your bulbs over to CFL's or LED's you are wasting thousands of rands a year unnecessarily.

5) Finally, be aware, learn, educate your children, educate your guests and be on the look out for wastage. If we all see wasted electricity as wasted money, then we will be able to save that much easier.

If you implement these five tips, we guarantee you that your electricity bill will be less than it was last year! For more energy saving tips, carbon calculators, resources and ideas click here