Saving Money On Electricity Bills in Your Bar Restaurant
Electricity
Help Me Save Money on Electricity Bills in my Bar Restaurant (Spain)
When you run a bar or restaurant, the more you can cut down on water, electricity and gas consumption, the bigger your profit will be.
A while ago I published a post on how to economise on the use of water, so today I am going to talk about keeping your electricity bill down.
It is very easy with electrical appliances and with lighting, just to leave everything switched on all the time you are working, and if you do this you’ll get a big bill to pay every 2 months, but it’s also easy to learn to work in a disciplined way and reduce your bills by as much as 50%.
Here are a few simple tips on how to save money on electricity:
- Outside Signs. You need at least one nice illuminated sign outside, but make sure that it doesn’t consume more than 600w max. If you are having a new sign made talk to the manufacturer before committing yourself.
- Time Switch. Outside signs need to be controlled by a time switch, so that they switch on when it starts to get dark and switch off when you close up for the night (ours is set to go off at midnight.)
- Terrace Lights. Whilst we used to have one, 150w lamp above each table, we now have 3 wall lamps with low consumption bulbs and 3 spotlights mounted high. This is enough lighting to make the terrace look attractive and to give sufficient light on each table to allow people to read the menu easily and also see their food properly.
- Low Energy Lightbulbs. Try to use as many economic light bulbs as possible in the kitchen and dining area. You may need some fluorescent strips in the kitchen, to give you plenty of light for working.
- Fridges and Freezers. Keep them full and keep the radiator free of dust which blocks it up after about 2 months, if you don’t vacuum it out at regular intervals. (A fridge or freezer, which is not kept full or has a dirty heat exchanger will use a lot more electricity than normal.)
- Beer Coolers: Beer companies always say that you should leave them running 24-7, but we turn ours on when we arrive for a shift and turn them off when we leave (beer coolers have a big lump of ice inside which takes days to melt, so turning them off for say 12 hours, make no difference to the quality of the draught beer that you serve.).
- Size Matters. If you by a big bar or restaurant, it will cost a lot to heat in winter and a lot to cool in summer. (The inside of our local is 500 square feet, so it’s cheap to heat and cool, using reversible air-conditioning.)
- Ovens. If you have an oven keep it on only during main meal times and then only turn it up when your waiter/tress informs you that he/she has clients looking at the pizza menu etc.
I hope that you will find these tips helpful in keeping the cost of running your business down
