When running a restaurant, food safety is the most important thing, but do you know what’s just as vital as ensuring that the food you prepare is up to standard? Ensuring that your restaurant’s energy bill isn’t too high for you to actually stay in business and serve that food in the first place. The cumulative costs of unnecessary energy expenses can creep up to well over a thousand dollars of wasted money every year.
Even though it can be very easy to overlook these costs, cutting them back is a simple matter. The following energy reduction tips are incredibly simple ways to keep your energy efficiency high and your energy bill low.
First off, monitor.
You have to keep record the energy consumption of your kitchen regularly, then set a short-term goal and long-term goal for your reduction. There is a need to meter the kitchen’s consumption of electricity, gas and water separately to be able to measure energy usage and keep tracks of improvement overtime. Consider installing individual meters on appliances that are power-consuming. On a weekly basis, you have to compare the consumption costs with the number of covers served. After seeing this set of data then you will be able to assess how much energy can be saved.
Incandescent Lamps or Fluorescent Lamps?
Did you know that when you use incandescent lamps, more than 80% of the energy is being wasted as heat instead of actually giving you light? By comparison, a compact fluorescent lamp only spends 25% of the energy it consumes creating heat.
Incandescent lamps generally only have a lifespan between 750 and 1000 hours, while compact fluorescent lamps will last between 7,500 to 10,0000 lamps, roughly 10 times more longevity than incandescent lamps on average. Incandescent lamps will cost you about $0.50 a pop at a standard starting cost, while compact fluorescent lamps will only cost about $0.10 a unit. You’ll be saving almost $400 on energy a year just by using compact fluorescent lamps instead of incandescent lamps.
Reach-In Door Heaters
If you’ve got any automatic door heaters being used for your reach-in refrigeration, then now may be the time to consider shutting it off. Just by investing in a reach-in heater, instead of keeping an automatic door heater that runs every single hour of the week, you can easily save over $75.00 a year. It doesn’t cost you a single cent to keep a reach-in door heater system, which means that everything you save will directly contribute to your overall profit.
Mind Your Water Heater Temperature
A lot of restaurant owners can fall into a trap of carelessness that makes them overlook just what the proper water temperature should be for the tasks that matter most. As a rule of thumb, you’re probably going to want your average water temperature to sit between 110 degrees and 140 degrees Fahrenheit. If you set the your water even 10 degrees too high, then you could be at risk of making your annual energy bill shoot up by as much as $600.00 a year.
Consider pre-rinse, low-flow spray valves
You may find it beneficial to invest in some pre-rinse, low-flow spray valves for washing dishes. A high-flow spray valve that uses tons of pressure can typically consume up to 2.5 gallons of water per minute (GPM), but a low-flow water valve can run while only consuming about 1.6 GPM. Over the course of entire year, just having less pressure used for your flow valves can lead to having 75% of your annual spending on water cut down.
Conclusion
Did you know what out of all your restaurant’s revenue, your restaurant’s profit will generally only constitute between 3 to 9% of it? Energy efficiency can do so much more for you than just keeping the lights on. Your customers will be more comfortable with returning, and your employees’ level of productivity will probably be higher as well.