There are two (2) separate costs to home electrical appliances.

1.    The purchase price
2.    The daily operating costs

Connect your appliances to the Kill A Watt P3 and find how efficient they really are. The appliance’s energy use is measured in kilowatt-hours, which is the measurement used by the utility company.

Appliances you can measure with the Kill A Watt P3 are:
•    Stereos and TVs
•    Room Air Conditioners and Fans
•    Toaster ovens, microwaves, and refrigerators
•    Computers and electronic games
•    Washing machines

With this information, you can determine:
•    Your appliances electrical cost by hour, day, week, month, or even a year
•    How efficient those appliances are
•    Which appliances are worth keeping
•    Which appliances need replacing

Here are the features of the Kill A Watt P3:
•    Enables cost forecasting
•    Accurate to within 0.2%
•    Cumulative killowatt-hour monitor
•    Displays Volts, Amps, Watts, Hz, VA, KWH, Power Factor
•    Operating voltage: 115 VAC
•    Max current: 15 A
•    Max power: 1875 VA
•    Dimensions: 5 1/8″ X 1 5/8″ X 2 3/8″

You can download the manual here.

Order your Kill A Watt P3 now.

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The results are in!

My trusty little Kill-A-Watt meter informs me that my 1996, 18.2 cubit foot GE refrigerator uses 3.13 kilowatt -hours per day. At my local utility rate, this refrigerator cost me $137 per year to operate.

Is that good or bad?

I don’t know. It’s time to check out some new energy star rated refrigerators to make comparisons.

I’ll let you know what I learn.

Home Energy Efficiency and Major Appliances

Eventually, I want a net ZEH , a house that produces as much energy as it uses.

We are taking the small steps toward that end goal. Our initial goal is to reduce our energy consumption by 25%. For us that means reducing energy use to 38 kWh/day. Reliable sources, like my energy provider, declare our major household appliances huge contributors to our energy consumption.

Using our handy new Kill-A-Watt meter, we are now testing our major household appliances—the refrigerator, freezer, and hot water heater.

Today we have our refrigerator plugged into our Kill-A-Watt meter. The refrigerator is a GE 18.2 cubic foot, frost-free, refrigerator/freezer. It was here when we moved into this house ten years ago. I estimate it to be a 1996 model. I find no energy-star rating on it anywhere.

After twenty-four hours, I will check the reading and see how many kilowatt-hours my older GE refrigerator has used. Multiplying that number by 365 days in a year will give me an estimate of the refrigerator energy requirements over a year’s time. This information will help me decide if buying a new, energy efficient refrigerator would be a wise investment.

Perhaps leaving the refrigerator plugged into the Kill-A-Watt meter for a week or thirty days would give a truer estimate. Maybe I’ll do that another day.

But just now I am anxious to find out what I am paying for my stand-alone freezer which is 28 years old! That’s next!

I’ll let you know how this turns out.