Power bills often rise as the days get wetter and colder but it may not be because of big appliances like clothes driers.
Turning off your heated towel rail can save you close to $200 a year on your power bill.
About $4.6 million is wasted a year by Bay of Plenty
residents who leave their heated towel rails on constantly.
There are an estimated 83,223 heated towel rails in the Bay of Plenty and statistics from Consumer New Zealand show many people leave them on 24 hours a day.
A Rotorua woman, who didn't want to be identified, was someone who left her heated towel rail on 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.
The woman, in her 20s, said she left her towel rail on "because it dries my towels and I get nice toasty warm towels".
She said she also used it to dry clothes, including her young daughter's clothes, because she could fit up to 10 items on it.
"I know I should turn it off but it's handy but to be honest, I don't even think about it," she said.
Stuart Ross from the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority said it cost around $175 a year to run a heated towel rail all year and most of that was wasted money.
He said people needed to invest in a timer - it still delivered a warm, dry towel, but meant your towel rail would be on for eight hours a day, not 24, which could save you up to $115 a year.
If all those heated towel rails had a timer, households could collectively save an estimated $4,660,461 a year in power costs.
"A heated towel rail timer is fast and easy for an electrician to install, and we are encouraging people to get one if they're buying a new heated towel rail, or the next time they need an electrician to visit their house," Mr Ross said.
"Making the most of the energy we use every day isn't about sacrifice, it's about doing things in a smarter way. Using a timer means you still get a nice warm, dry towel when you step out of the shower, but without wasting electricity and your hard-earned money."
