Energy-Efficient Appliances for Rental Properties: What Actually Saves Landlords Money
Every landlord has heard the pitch: buy the A-rated model, cut the bills, keep tenants happy. It’s the kind of line that sounds sensible and is easy to repeat without anyone checking the maths.
So here’s the direct answer. For some appliances, an efficient model genuinely pays for itself over time. For others, the energy label barely moves the needle next to reliability, parts availability and not overpaying in the first place. The appliance that matters most for energy efficiency isn’t the one you’d guess — and the bigger financial pressure heading towards landlords isn’t really about electricity bills at all.
Where the energy rating actually matters: the fridge freezer
A fridge freezer runs 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, for as long as it’s in the property — often a decade or more. That constant running is exactly where efficiency differences compound. Energy Saving Trust figures put the gap between an A-rated and an E-rated fridge freezer at around £360 in running costs over a typical 17-year lifespan. That’s not a rounding error, and it’s the one appliance in a rental property where paying attention to the label is worth doing every time.
Where it matters less: washing machines, dishwashers, tumble dryers
Washing machines don’t run anywhere near as continuously, so the savings are smaller and slower to bank. Moving from a D-rated to an A-rated washing machine saves roughly £95 a year over an 11-year lifetime — useful, but not transformative, and easily wiped out if the more efficient model costs significantly more upfront or breaks down sooner. Dishwashers are smaller still, at around £25 a year between the best and worst rated models.
Tumble dryers are the exception worth knowing about, because they still use the older A+++ to D scale rather than the current A–G system. Choosing an A+++ model over a B-rated one can save in the region of £700 over a 13-year lifespan — a genuinely significant gap, and one most landlords aren’t aware of because dryers get less attention than the “big two” appliances.
Why the label alone doesn’t tell the whole story
The energy label was reset in 2021 specifically because the old scale had become meaningless — appliances that would once have been labelled A were often reclassified as low as F under the new system. A model bought before 2021 and one bought last month can carry very different-looking labels for similar actual performance, so comparing by letter alone across appliance ages is misleading.
Size matters just as much as the label. A larger fridge freezer or a bigger-drum washing machine will often use more energy in absolute terms than a smaller, lower-rated one — the label only tells you how efficient a model is for its size, not how much it will actually cost to run. For a single-let or a couple’s flat, a smaller, well-rated appliance usually beats a larger one with the same label.
The bigger pressure isn’t the electricity bill — it’s the EPC
Landlords currently can’t let a property with an EPC rating below E, and non-compliance carries penalties of up to £5,000 per property. The government has also committed, as part of the Warm Homes Plan, to raising that minimum to EPC Band C by 2030 — though this isn’t yet confirmed in regulation, so it’s a direction to plan for rather than a live legal requirement today.
Appliances alone won’t move a property’s EPC rating much; that’s mostly about insulation, heating and glazing. But it’s part of why “energy efficient” has become a genuine selling point in lettings conversations rather than just a nice-to-have, and it’s worth landlords getting ahead of rather than reacting to later. Energy-conscious tenants are also simply more likely to raise it — with the current price cap sitting at 26.11p per kWh for electricity and a typical dual-fuel household paying around £1,862 a year, appliance running costs are front of mind for anyone renting right now.
What this means for HMOs and multi-let portfolios
The maths shifts again for HMOs, where a fridge freezer or washing machine may be used far harder than in a single-family let. Here, efficiency savings compound faster because the appliance is working closer to constantly — but so does wear. It’s usually more sensible to prioritise a reliable, efficient fridge freezer per set of tenants, and accept that washing machines in shared-use settings will need replacing on a shorter cycle regardless of energy rating. We’ve set out the wider buying checklist for portfolios in [How to Choose Appliances for a Rental Property] — worth reading alongside this if you’re speccing a whole property rather than one appliance.
Getting the balance right without overspending
The practical rule of thumb: spend on the energy label where an appliance runs constantly (fridge freezers, and tumble dryers if tenants use them heavily), and prioritise reliability, parts availability and fair pricing everywhere else. Value brands like Beko, Hisense, Midea and Sensia have closed much of the gap with premium names on energy performance, without the premium price tag — which is exactly why they’re the brands landlords ask us for most.
The bottom line
An efficient appliance is worth paying attention to — just not equally across the board, and not as a substitute for the bigger EPC conversation that’s coming either way. If you’re weighing up a fridge freezer, washing machine or full kitchen respec for a rental property, we price-match daily against AO, Currys, John Lewis and Marks Electrical, so there’s no need to shop around separately for the best price once you’ve decided what’s right for the property.
Call 020 8960 1300 or visit www.hotandcold.co.uk to talk through what makes sense for your portfolio.