The underused setting on your TV that could help slash your energy bill

THERE'S an underused setting on your TV that could help cut your energy costs.

If you select power-saving mode on your telly, it could save up to £15 a year on your energy bill.

Cash is tight for millions and energy costs are set to rise by £500 next month.

So you might be looking for every money-saving hack you can find.

Luckily, there's a way to shave some money off your yearly energy bill with the little-known setting.

Power-saving or eco mode works by making your TV adjust its brightness level whenever the room is light to make sure it's not using more power than necessary.

Of course, it might not be called power-saving mode depending on the model you have or how old your TV is - but it's worth checking the settings.

Uswitch energy expert Ben Gallizzi said: “There may also be settings which can adjust when your TV turns off automatically when you haven’t used the remote for a set period of time.

"If you regularly leave the TV on when not in the room, you could set it to turn off after three or four hours so it powers down by itself when not needed."

An energy-efficient TV using 36kWh will cost you £12.24 to run for 1,000 hours, according to USwitch.

Unsurprisingly, the bigger the telly, the more expensive it is to run.

But there should be options to turn on an energy-saving setting regardless of which TV you have.

Other ways to cut energy costs

Using a power-saving mode when watching TV is not the only way to save money around the house.

Another gadget to check is any game console lying around - if you look on settings, you may be able to set a time limit for how long a controller charges for.

A Playstation 5 uses 0.38 watts when it is in low power mode - but it can use four watts if it is supplying power to USB ports, such as when charging controllers. 

Limiting how long controllers can charge for could save up to £12 a year.

And you can adjust appliances too - if you switch to spin cycle on the tumble dryer, it could slash a whopping £53 off your bill.

That's because the setting uses recycled hot air so the machine doesn't work as hard as it normally would.

And it's just as easy to save on the washing machine - simply pressing eco mode could save you £63 a year.

And you might not have paid attention to the flow rate on your boiler before. As it happens, adjusting it so the temperature is lower could save you £112 a year.

You just need to tweak the heating thermostat on your combi boiler to reduce the flow temperature through your radiators.

And as for simple mistakes you might be making, make sure you never overfill the kettle, because it could add a whopping £87 to your yearly bill if you do.

For more more tips and mistakes to avoid, please read our story here.