 Energy Consumption of Household Appliances
If an appliance you’d like to know about isn’t on this list, check the bottom or back of the appliance. Usually the wattage is stamped there. Since appliances have different settings (for instance, the power setting on a microwave), the actual amount of power consumed at any given time depends on the setting.
To calculate how much electricity is being used per appliance, multiply the wattage by the number of hours you use the appliance and divide by 1,000. Because one kilowatt is equal to 1,000 watts, you will now know the kilowatt-hour consumption per appliance. Once you know that, you can check a recent electric bill to find out how much the company charges per kilowatt-hour and figure out how much money the appliance has cost to run.
For example, using the list above of appliance wattage and the 1999 average cost of electricity in the United States (5.89¢ per kWh), here is an approximation of an evening’s worth of electricity consumption:
By the way, refrigerators, though switched on all the time, actually cycle on and off. The rate at which they do this depends on the room temperature, how many times the door is opened and shut, whether or not the door seals properly, and the freezer temperature. To get an approximate figure for the number of hours that a refrigerator operates at maximum wattage, divide the total time the refrigerator is plugged in by three. |
