Electric fans: how much do they cost to run in a heatwave?
Temperatures are set to soar this weekend but will running an electric fan to keep cool also send your bills through the roof?
This week the Met Office issued an amber extreme heat warning for much of England and Wales for Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. There was also a red warning for parts of England, where temperatures could reach 40C.
Many people will have had fans running all this week – perhaps to provide a blast of cool air while they are working from home, or next to their bed at night.
Many others will be planning to buy one: sales of electric fans have increased by up to 1,630% this week, says the online marketplace OnBuy. However, energy bills have soared during the cost of living crisis, and running a fan will add to your expenses.
Guardian Money decided to find out how much it would cost to run different types – although the actual figure will vary depending on the fan and how much you pay for electricity.
The estimates are based on the electricity supplier’s standard variable tariff, which is protected by the energy price cap.
According to numbers crunched by Uswitch, it costs 1p to run a standard desktop fan for an hour – in other words, 8p for an eight-hour working day.
If you decide to have it on all day and night, it would cost 24p over 24 hours, so seven days of that would add £1.68 to your bill. Pedestal fans cost more, at a little under 2p an hour, which would add up to 14p for an eight-hour working day.
Running a pedestal fan for 24 hours straight would cost 41p a day; that’s £2.88 after seven days.
Portable air-conditioning units are more expensive to buy and more costly to run at 28p an hour.
A built-in air-conditioning unit comes with the biggest price tag of all: according to the Uswitch research, it will
Read more on theguardian.com
