Our last hack is really easy. Just turn the washer to wash using only cold water. Studies have shown that 90 percent of the energy a washer uses comes from heating up the water to use in the wash. If you wash in cold water you can avoid pretty much all of the energy cost. There aren’t many benefits of using hot water to cold water anyway (unless you have some seriously dirty cloths) so you’re not missing out on much. It’s been estimated that a load of laundry on cold settings cost about $0.03 in energy.
None of these hacks are going to save you all that much money on their own. However, if you combined all of them and keep an eye on the obvious stuff (turn off lights when you leave a room), you can save a pretty substantial amount of money. The most important thing is consistency. If you’re gong to try one of these, keep at it! It doesn’t help if you only do these things once or twice.