We know our customers love the ease and convenience of a Thirsty Work water cooler in their workplaces. After all, it gives them cool, refreshing, filtered water on-demand, keeping them better hydrated for longer – what’s not to love? But having cool, or even hot, water on-demand means using energy. So how much electricity do water coolers really use?

An eco-friendly option

While we’re as eco-friendly as we can be in our water cooler products, packaging, and deliveries, we also try to be as economic as we can in their energy consumption as well. To get a cost of running a water cooler, there are plenty of factors to take into consideration. Each model is different so every mains fed water cooler and bottled water cooler will have a different power consumption.

But whatever the model, both the heating and cooling elements of each water cooler need a constant supply of electricity to keep the water nice and chilled or steaming hot. And across our full range of water coolers, the different units of power can vary from 74W and up for chilled water and up to 650W for hot water.

While every water cooler is designed to be left plugged in and switched on 24/7 if you need them to be, it’s not that energy-efficient to do so – unless it’s in use 24/7. So to keep you eco-friendly and save money, it’s best to switch the cooler off at the wall at the end of each day.

Do water coolers use a lot of electricity?

Using our standard floor standing, bottled water cooler for reference, this model consumes 74W (0.074kW) of electricity for chilled water. If your water cooler is switched on for 8 hours a day, 5-days a week, that’s a total of 160 hours over a 4-week month, using 11.2kWh of electricity. Based on the current average UK rate of 16.6 p/kWh, that works out to around £1.85 a month or just under 10p per day.

For the same water cooler model to provide hot water up to 92ºC (hot enough for all those office teas), it uses 450W (0.45kW) of electricity. So using the same number of hours usage, that’s 72kWh, working out at around £12 per month or just under 60p per day for hot water on demand.

Energy consumption will also differ depending on whether each cooler is left on – and how long for – or switched off, as well as the units overall daily use. But, as with a fridge or a freezer, electricity use for a water cooler is on a cycle, so it will heat or cool for a certain amount of time, before switching off and repeating when it needs to.

Contact Thirsty Work today

Our range of Thirsty Work water coolers is designed to give you environmental benefits across the board, as well as encouraging you to ditch single-use plastic bottles and give up the kettle. And with our full service, maintenance, and filter programme, it means we’ll keep your water cooler in perfect working order too.

Whether you need ambient, chilled, or hot water, there’s a cooler available that ticks all the boxes. So get your free quote and see how much electricity you could save, or see for yourself and start a free trial. Contact the Thirsty Work team on 01392 877 172 or email us on hello@thristywork.com today for more information.