Appliance w(h)att?
Posted by Josh Randt on April 29, 2015
You’d be surprised to find out just how much electricity appliances in your home use, and how much money you can save by understanding appliance wattage.
Finding out the wattage an appliance uses isn’t that hard, and can help you better understand your electric bill, and possibly lower it.
Much like any home project, having the right tool can help you immensely. A kilowatt meter will measure the usage of devices that run on 120 volts, and Wright-Hennepin sells kilowatt meters for only $30 at our Rockford headquarters.
Follow the instructions that come with the meter to find out how much energy an appliance is using. This can help you pinpoint appliances that are racking up your energy bill, and help you compare wattage usage when shopping for new ones.
There is another way to find out appliance wattage if you don’t mind doing a little math. You will still need to know how many volts the appliance uses, which can often be found on the appliance, in the manual it came with, or possibly on the Internet. Once you know the voltage, use these formulas to calculate the daily kWh consumption:
Volts × amps = wattage
Wattage × hours used per day ÷ 1,000 = Daily kWh consumption
Example: One 100 watt bulb used for 10 hours = 1,000 watt hours ÷ 1,000 = 1 kWh