Whether you are moving into your new home alone or want to add appliances to your home, the first things you think about are your kitchen appliances.
Something else that is usually on your mind is how best you can save money on energy, which means that you have to look for kitchen appliances that have lower energy consumption.
Choosing between a toaster, toaster oven, and conventional oven could be challenging, and whatever you desire could be the determinant of how high or low your electricity bills will be.
If you are thinking about buying an energy-efficient kitchen appliance, a toaster oven should be your number one option instead of a full-sized oven.
When cooking food, it saves you a lot of energy when you are cooking small amounts than when you use conventional electric ovens. They are also more beneficial because you can use them for baking or making toasted bread.
Some other things you can cook in a toaster oven include:
- Roast chicken
- Bacon
- Green beans
- Fish fillets
- Peppers and sausages
- Spicy and sweet roasted almonds
- Fruit crumble
- Cornbread
- Muffins
- Quesadillas
- Banana bread
- Faux apple pie
- Cookies
How much electricity does a toaster oven consume?
Before you understand how a toaster oven will help you in saving energy, you need to understand how much electricity it consumes compared to a regular oven and other appliances.
To calculate how much electricity your devices use, you need to multiply their wattage by the number of hours they run, divided by 1000.
A toaster oven uses around 1200 watts when you set it at a temperature of 450 degrees F for 50 minutes, which translates to 0.9-kilowatt-hours (kWh).
However, you can find some that consume around 1700 watts.
That is considerably lower than a typical electric oven that uses around 2,500 to 5,000 watts and uses 2kWh when you set it at 350 degrees F for 60 minutes.
Some people argue that a convection oven is more energy efficient when cooking for a long time because they have better insulation and retain more heat. However, it depends on the type of oven you have.
Also, you can get a built-in toaster oven and conventional. That way, that toaster oven can also keep more heat if you want to cook for longer.
However, if you compare a toaster oven with microwave ovens, the amount they consume is more because a regular-sized oven consumes between 850 and 1,800 watts.
A microwave oven is also better with cooking time, but they are not the best with all types of food, especially toasting a slice of bread.
Bread toasters are also other appliances you might want to compare to a toaster oven. They are the perfect appliances to reach for if you want to have toasted bread for breakfast.
Depending on the type and brand you go for, they have a wattage of between 800 and 1,500.
That means that if you use a 1,200-watt bread toaster for 12 minutes, it uses 2.4 kWh, making it more efficient than a toaster oven if you only need to toast your bread.
However, it is not best if you want something that will help you make other types of meals.
Therefore, if you want to cook food, especially in small amounts, the toaster oven is what you should go for because of its speed, versatility, and efficiency.
How much power does a toaster oven consume in an hour?
According to the market and industry report that Energy star released in 2021 on toaster ovens, they said the power consumption of a toaster oven could be around half or a third of what a full sized oven consumed.
If you are estimating the hourly power consumption of a toaster oven, that could differ depending on the type of cooking you want to do and also the type of oven you are using.
Suppose you are using a six slice toaster oven that consumes between 900 and 1,500 watts. The slow-baking function on that toaster oven consumes 600 watts, the broil function around 800 to 1,200 watts, and the keep-warm function around 600m to 1,400 watts.
How much energy does your toaster oven consume on standby?
The majority of the people assume that when you turn off your appliances, they do not use electricity, and that helps save more money on electricity bills. While that is true, around 10% of those bills are from the appliance you turn off.
While that wastes money, it is also dangerous to the environment because it increases carbon emissions.
The standby energy waste happens mainly because of electric leakings in many forms, like vampire power, standby power, phantom load, or vampire load.
That standby energy is not only used at the appliances where it is ready for use after instruction from a remote control but also happens in other appliances like your toaster oven.
According to some researchers, many people don’t unplug their appliances in the kitchen after using them, and that is how the standby energy consumption happens.
According to experts, your toaster oven will consume the amount of energy on standby, depending on the type. If you have a digital control one, it will consume at most 0.2 watts.
However, if you have a manual control toaster, it will not consume any power.
While it’s essential to look at the appliance’s efficiency before you buy it, that is not the only thing you should consider. You should also consider the versatility, time efficiency, and practicability.
When using a toaster oven, you can cook different types of food and even bake in it. However, it takes less time to cook than a convection oven, which consumes almost twice the amount of energy.
With your regular oven, you canals cook different types of food.
On the other hand, a microwave oven utilizes electromagnetism radiation to produce heat and uses less power. However, there are limited things you can do with it.
Also, the food you warm in a microwave will be soggier than the one you warm in a toaster oven.
While a toaster oven consumes less power than many appliances in your kitchen, the energy may increase during the pre-heating process. That is because it takes longer for it to pre-heat.
One of the biggest disadvantages of using a toaster oven is that it has limited space. That could inconvenience you if you want to cook food for many people because the cooking time will be longer than if you are using the traditional oven.
Another disadvantage is that it is heavier than a regular bread toaster, which means it’s more difficult to move. It might also be hard to find a place to keep it on your kitchen counter.
However, for the energy you are saving by using it, that is something you can improvise.
Before you decide on where to buy your toaster oven, you need to ensure that the shop and the brand are reliable and legit. That way, you will get a toaster oven that will not only cook but also last a long time.
You also have to ensure that it has the energy star label. That shows that they have verified its energy consumption to ensure that you save as much energy as you can.
The best way is to ask for referrals from the people around you and ensure you read the customer reviews of the place you want to buy from.
