You could buy the $150 “Energy Detective” power monitoring device that Joe Hutsko reviews in the Times, or you could save yourself some cash and just estimate your own home’s power usage by looking at the chart he made in his.
Hot water is a bitch. Even Hutsko’s fancy tank-less water heater uses $2 an hour to heat up his water. (But hey, at least it’s not wasting power when he’s not using hot water.)
Note that watthour meters of this sort may be available for rent or loan from your local library (!), your town’s enviornmental office, or your utility company; check that before considering buying one.
You can also get some of the numbers right off your appliance’s spec sheets, and/or by measuring the difference in your electric meter’s rate with the device off/unplugged vs. with it plugged in. Stopwatch or timer makes that a bit easier.
Or you can just promise yourself to always buy EnergyStar, and to review periodically how far your device has fallen behind the current definition of that standard… and be good about policing your energy use.
Folks need to relearn the mantra “Saving energy saves me money”.
Gas water heater, baby!! I love mine. Cheap, efficient, fast recovery, and we even had hot water during the depths of the wind storm induced power outage over the winter. (Standing pilot, non-power vent)
But yeah, some items really surprise you by their energy consumption.
Looks like you didn’t include a link to the actual Times article where people can see that chart. I found it on Google:
http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/10/at-home-with-the-energy-detective/?partner=rss&emc=rss
My mistake!
I would like to see a more comprehensive list of these kinds of things … i keep getting weird looks from my wife for having several LCDs screens on .. while she uses the 800+ watts water kettle for tea, the hairdryer, the toaster …
Never thought that washing laundry is so much more than drying … wife things we are saving tons on not having a dryer …
I always wanted to know how much it costs about to run the oven for my 2 h jerk chicken … now i have a much better idea …
Anyone want to compile and keep a better list? Like those calorie lists that popped up in the 70ies ???
I would conjecture that he was using hot water to wash his clothes, so $2/hour of the $2.37/hour was his on-demand water heater. Washers draw a lot less current than dryers. (hence why the dryers have a 240v plug versus the 120v plug for the washer.)
Today’s gas water heaters are actually very very efficient. Super insulated, fast recovery, work without electricity, and a good source of potable water in cases of emergency. Can run multiple sources at the same time. And much cheaper than $2 an hour.
Wow, $2/hour for a shower? I’ve been in pay-showers that were cheaper than that. How eco-friendly is this fancy tank-less heater?
And $2.37 an hour for washing isn’t that far off many coin-op laundromats. It’s amazing how much cheaper appears to be when you pay for it at the end of the month, rather than as you use it.
That’s a really interesting list. I second the call for a more comprehensive list. Perhaps one of the bright sparks reading this could put up a website, where people could add wattages for their devices. The site could even feature a per-hour price converter for which you could plug in your current electricity rate.
Also…for a lot less than the detective, you can get a good idea of your power usage with a Black and Decker power monitor…about $100. No fancy software, but easy to install, requires no wiring, and tracks usage peak/off peak telling you how much you’re using and what it is costing you.
A good way to track down your biggest power using devices as well.
http://www.blackanddecker.com/Energy/products.aspx
Here’s mine:
http://web.me.com/agraham999/Graham/Home_Automation.html#7
We have one of those fancy thermostats (that everyone probably has) that lets you specify waking temp, day temp, evening temp. We lowered the high temp from 68/69 to 67. We knocked 1/4 off our bill compared to last year. 1 degree. 25% savings.
Is it as fancy as this?
http://ecobee.com
Mine is getting installed next week.
What really sucks about “The Energy Detective” is the $150 price tag doesn’t include the ability to export the data!
To “enable” the USB port you pay the manufacturer extra for an “activation key”, and then they supply Windows-only software to poll the display unit for data.
#11: $385 for a thermostat??
Surely there are other programmable thermostats that can have individual settings for every day of the week for less than that. I know my work has one that appears to be just as programmable, which looks a lot cheaper. That said, it doesn’t have a color screen…
#13: Ecobee claims…and I’m reviewing it to find out, that their unit will pay for itself from energy savings in one year. But it also has a few other cool tricks. For example, if your thermostat calls for heat and the temp doesn’t increase, it realizes your heater isn’t working and will notify you before your pipes freeze.
It also helps you adjust your behaviors so you can save energy…but I think the coolest aspect of the Ecobee is that they have built it to be upgraded in the future…for example it can talk to smart meters from your power/gas company, providing real time data about consumption.
You could buy the $150 “Energy Detective” power monitoring device that Joe Hutsko reviews in the Times, or you could save yourself some cash and buy a Kill-A-Watt for $20 like a sane person.
#15: Call it sanity all you want, but a Kill-A-Watt won’t give you any information about the things you can’t plug into it. TED gives you information on all of it, including your HVAC, hot water heater, dishwasher, and overhead lighting. Those tend to be some of the biggest household draws and the Kill-A-Watt won’t give you any information on them.