Here’s one of those little things that may not save a lot of energy each day, but combine 4 -5 of these types of tips and you can make a sizable dent in your energy bill over the course of a year.   One of the things we have done is turn off the heated dry function on our dishwasher.  To be honest, our dishes typically sit in the dishwasher overnight anyway, giving them plenty of time to air dry.   In a household of 4 with 2 young children, we dirty a lot of dishes.  I could probably fill a dishwasher just by cleaning out from under my daughter’s beds.  As a result we run our dishwasher at least 4 times per week. The heated dry function on your dishwasher uses a lot of electricity.  According to this source, air drying your dishes will save between 15% and 50% of the energy used in the dishwashing cycle, so the savings adds up.  There’s no difference in the cleanliness of the dishes.  The only difference is that there may be a few more spots on the glasses than usual. Photo credit:  konr4d