Health & Fitness

Burn Calories Doing Household Chores

Find out the calorie burn per hour for 10 common household tasks

By Wellness Matters /

Credit: Flickr/Alex @ Faraway

Did you know household chores like laundry can burn more than 200 calories

Any activity that gets you moving will burn calories

Even doing everyday household chores burns calories, plus it gets your body up and engaged in a variety of movements.

Check out the calorie burn (per hour) of these 10 common home-based activities 
(based on a body weight of 150 pounds/68 kilograms):

  1. General house cleaning: 246

  2. Cooking or food preparation: 176

  3. Gardening: 352

  4. Mowing the lawn: 387

  5. Clearing the table and washing dishes: 170

  6. Raking the yard: 281

  7. Sweeping floors: 224

  8. Walking while holding an infant: 246

  9. Vacuuming: 238

  10. Ironing: 156


Originally published in Wellness Matters, Canada Wide Media’s quarterly newsletter on health and wellness.