What appliance uses most electricity

nickmatthews

Of late our electric bill is getting silly - the charges go up & up. I am trying to reduce my charges & wondered whether anyone knows which appliances use most electricity.
I am starting to rinse all plates before putting them in the dishwasher so I can use the economy setting! I am also reducing the length of cycle on the washing machine..............you get the picture but what appliance gets my electrical readings in a spin??
My PC is on most days & for most of the day - is my PC a loarge user of electricity???
Cheers

Thecloud

http://www.simetric.co.uk/si_watts.htm

may help, you can work out which appliances use the most electric by reading on the bottom of them or on the back or on the plug, how much volts + amps they use.

nomoneytoday

Tumble dryers are very high - about 70p every cycle :eek:

AAA rated Dishwashers are about the same cost as using a bowl and washing the old fashioned way

espresso

Thecloud wrote: »

http://www.simetric.co.uk/si_watts.htm

may help, you can work out which appliances use the most electric by reading on the bottom of them or on the back or on the plug, how much volts + amps they use.

It's how many Volts X Amps they use. Volts X Amps = Watts.

mute_posting

OP, the BIG consumers in your house are likely to be anything that involves some kind of heating function, i.e. Washing machine, Dryer, Dishwasher etc.

As for your PC if it is a laptop it is probably consuming no more than about 100watts, if a desktop with monitor about 250 - 300 watts

On the subject of desktop PC's don't get confused if the PC says it has a 500watt power supply - that is what it is RATED to - i.e. it could cope with that load if your case was full of disk drives all drawing power and the PC was running flat out, in normal use the PC us usually using much less than the RATED power.

As a rough idea for you, I bought myself a Wattson meter to monitor usage, and with 2 desktop PC's (no monitors as they are servers) running constantly 1 laptop, and a 100w lightbulb, the power being used is just under 520watts.

HTH

MP

CaroB_2

I agree with mute_posting, anything that generates heat uses the most electricity. We have an electrisave monitor in our flat and the things that use by far the most electricity are the kettle and the washing machine. We have a tumble dryer but don't use it and the dishwasher doesn't use as much.

So you can save yourself some money just by only filling the kettle with as much water as you need. To quote some figures, our electricity consumption on a typical evening, where the TV, Sky Box, fridge, freezer, various small items (such as phones), some (energy saving) lights, and a computer are all on, is 0.54Kw/H. Switch only the kettle on and this jumps to 2.8 or so and switch only the washing machine on and this jumps to 2.0. So the kettle is the main culprit!

Hope this helps,

CaroB

lowbrim

Another appliance that is very often forgotten but uses a lot of electricity is the freezer especially upright ones especially if they are in the house where it is warm. I recently changed from an upright to a chest and put it in the garage the change saved me at least 60p/week.

mute_posting

I can, like CaroB (from experience) reccomend energy monitoring devices, you can get them off eBay and from places like Maplin from about £20 now

I paid £120 for my Wattson, but that was because I wanted something to
a) trend usage and allow it to be displayed on a computer and
b) to look good on the table and be a talking point.

It is amazing when you see it glowing red fiercely how quickly you change your habits!

a £20 outlay is easily re-paid when you know what your culprits are, and, having lent my Wattson to my folks for a couple of weeks they have seen the benefits too.

HTH

MP

mute_posting

lowbrim wrote: »

Another appliance that is very often forgotten but uses a lot of electricity is the freezer especially upright ones especially if they are in the house where it is warm. I recently changed from an upright to a chest and put it in the garage the change saved me at least 60p/week.

You have to be careful where you put some freezers - they only work when they are above a certain temperature - some will start defrosting if the garage is too cold.

Many people could save big just by defrosting their freezer and not allowing large banks of ice to build up.

MP

EDIT

The above mainly affects fridge-freezers with only one compressor... The thermostat controls the fridge but if the garage is cooler than the setting on the thermostat (for the fridge) the compressor never kicks in so the freezer defrosts.

Cardew

nomoneytoday wrote: »

Tumble dryers are very high - about 70p every cycle :eek:

That is far too high an estimate.

Most tumble dryers are rated at between 2kW and 3kW.

Even taking the highest rating of 3kW you would need to have it on full heat for about two and a half hours to cost 70p with electricity at 10p/kWh.

A normal load on my machine uses between 1kWh and 2 kWh(10p to 20p)

GaryS

I have just received a "Usage Monitor" from my electricity supplier after switching plans, I will run it for a month to see how accurate it is compared to my bills.