What Appliances Use the Most Electricity in Ireland?

By David Tait Reviewed by Cormac Breen

Editorial Manager

A tumble dryer uses the most electricity, costing on average €1.74 per cycle. Other appliances that use a lot of electricity include electric shower, immersion heaters and dishwashers. To measure the consumption of your appliances, you can use a smart meter or an electricity measuring socket. If you are looking to switch electricity provider, you can call 📞(01) 913 1771.

Which Household Appliances Use the Most Electricity?

Your tumble dryer uses the most electricity, costing on average €1.74 per cycle.

The top 5 appliances are:

1. Electric Shower
2. Tumble Dryer
3. Electric Kettle
4. Immersion Heater
5. Dishwasher

Below you will find a table that provides an overview of the appliances and how much they cost to run based on an average consumption time.

Prices based on Electric Ireland unit rate 34.75c per kWh on an Urban 24-hour meter with VAT included.
Last Updated: January 2025

If you are interested in getting an idea of how much energy, some of your common home appliances use in a year, our energy consumption calculator can help you.

Simply choose how many of each appliance you use in your home, and the calculator will estimate their annual consumption.

If you find they are using a lot, it might be worth adopting some new energy consumption habits or even switching an energy provider to lower these costs.

Which Household Appliance Costs Most on My Annual Bill?

Heating appliances tend to contribute the most to our annual energy bills, accounting for almost 55% of our annual bills.

Exact costs and percentages will vary from home to home depending on factors such as its insulation, age etc but given Ireland's climate and long winters, heating is a priority for all homes here.

The remainder of an annual bill is roughly made up of:

• Appliances and lighting: About 15% can be attributed to general household appliances such as fridges, freezers, dishwashers and lighting.
• Heating water: Approximately 15% of energy costs are for heating water, showers, dishwashers and laundry.
• Cooking: Gas or electronic cookers often account for roughly 10% of our energy bills.
• Electronics: Appliances like televisions, laptops, charging cables etc can consume about 5%.

Do Electric Showers Use a Lot of Electricity?

While a 5-minute shower may not seem expensive, costing only €0.36, in a household where multiple people are showering up to twice daily, this figure could rise significantly.

Here are some tips to lower your energy consumption when showering:

• Turn off the shower while washing your hair, body etc and then turn it back on to rinse.
• Lower the temperature of the shower, as hotter water requires more energy.
• Set an alarm for less than 5 minutes to make sure your shower is efficient as possible.
• Limescale build-up on shower heads can make them less efficient, so make sure to regularly clean them if you live in a hard water area.

Does a Kettle Use A Lot Of Electricity?

It might not seem like an energy intensive appliance, but anything that heats something, and quickly like a kettle, is going to use a lot of energy.

While it often only takes about a minute to heat the kettle, given the frequency with which we use it, the costs can add up over the year.

Here are some tips to lower the cost of your kettle use:

• Don't overfill your kettle as you waste energy, and money, heating water you don't need.
• Use the volume guide to measure the amount of water you need.
• Invest in a smart kettle where you can set it to boil to a lower temperature.
• Use the microwave to reheat water.

How Do I Calculate the Consumption of My Appliances?

To calculate the consumption of your home appliances and better understand which are costing you more, there are two things that you can do:

1. Use your smart meter.
2. Invest in an electricity measuring socket.

Smart Meters

As many Irish homes now have smart meters installed, you can use the insight they provide to learn more about which appliances are costing you more.

A smart meter can help you understand their energy efficiency better by comparing the consumption figures when you don't use an appliance day to day, week to week etc.

For example, you opt to not use your tumble dryer for a week but continue with your normal routine in terms of appliance use. At the end of the week, you can check your consumption figures based on the previous weeks' consumption.

The difference in kWh consumed will give you an idea of how much the tumble dryer was consuming.

Electricity Measuring Socket

An electricity measuring socket is a type of adapter you can use to measure the energy consumption of the appliance plugged into it.

It offers specific insight into how efficient certain appliances are, especially those that you might suspect are costing you more.

Simply use it with the appliance of your choice, make a note of the daily, weekly consumption figure and using your unit rate, calculate the estimated cost.

From this, you can make changes to how you use the appliance or think about investing in a more energy efficient model.

An electricity measuring socket costs roughly €35 and can be both from most Irish electronic stores.

How Can I Lower The Cost Of My Appliances?

The first step to lowering the cost of your home appliances is to identify which are costing you the most in your home.

If you are not sure which appliances are costing the most in your house, here are some questions you can ask yourself to try and find out.

• ⚡ My Most Expensive Appliance Checklist
• What does it do? If it heats something, it's going to be more expensive!
• How often do I use it? Every day? Once a week?
• How long do I use it for? A minute? An hour? I never turn it off?
• How old is it? Older appliances use more energy and are less efficient.
• What is its energy rating? If it is less than C, it's going to cost more.

I Know Which Appliances Are Most Expensive. Now What?

Once you have an idea of which appliances in your home are contributing the most to your energy bills, you can start taking steps to lower their cost.

It's unrealistic to completely stop using some of the more expensive appliances as washing, cooking, cleaning etc are simply essentials and an unavoidable cost.

Having said that, you can lower their impact by considering some of the following suggestions:

• Switching to a nightsaver or smart meter price plan with lower night rates.
• Programme expensive appliances to run at night.
• Consider investing in a new, energy efficient model.
• Be more time efficient with showers, washing machines etc.
• Invest in smart plugs to automatically turn off expensive appliances.
• Purchase new appliances with an A or B energy efficiency rating.

How Do I Save Electricity With Heating?

Heating our homes makes up nearly 60% of our annual energy bill, and the average gas bill in Ireland is currently €1,321.93 per year.

Therefore, it is vital to find ways to reduce the cost our heating appliances are having on our home. There are two ways you can approach this:

1. Behavioural changes
2. Investment in home upgrades

Behavioural Changes

Turning off the heating is simply not an option, but we can better utilise the heat produced by our home heating appliances along with some low-cost investments to better retain this heat.

1. Turn off the radiators - Don’t waste energy, and money, by heating rooms you are not going to be in. Also remember to close the doors so as not to lose heat from other parts of the house.
2. Purchase a draft blocker and place it in front of doors that lead outside so no heat escapes.
3. Electrical tape can help to seal up gaps and cracks in windows and is a very low-cost solution.
4. Use the residual heat from ovens and cookers to heat your kitchen.

Investment in Home Upgrades

If it is in your budget to invest in home upgrades to help make your heating appliances work more efficiently, it can be a great way to reduce the costs of heating your home.

Investing in the following can have a big impact on your heating bills in the future:

• Heat pump systems
• Attic insulation
• Wall insulation
• Heating controls upgrade.
• Solar PV panels.

The cost of these home upgrades run into the thousands and therefore may not be within everyone's budget. Having said that, there are grants available through the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) for home heating upgrades that can help with the cost.