Save Money on Your Electric Bill

Kill A Watt Power Meter

Nov 10, 2008 Angie Smibert

A power meter, such as the Kill A Watt (KAW) Power Meter, can easily tell you how much almost any appliance or electronic device in your house costs to run.

Electricity equals money, and more of it these days. A power meter, such as the Kill A Watt (KAW) Power Meter by P3 International, can easily tell you how much almost any appliance or electronic device in your house costs to run.

Using the Kill A Watt

About the size of a wall-mounted surge protector, the KAW is simple to use:

1. Plug it into any 110-volt outlet.
2. Plug the device you want to monitor into the socket on the front of the KAW.
3. Run the appliance and wait.

The P4400 model has several buttons across its face, but the money button—and the only one you really need to worry about—is the purple one marked KWH (kilowatt-hour) / Hour. This one tells you how much electricity the appliance consumes over time. Press the purple button to toggle between KWH and the timer.

Let’s say you decide to test three appliances. Here are some sample readings:

• Window air conditioner (non-Energy Star) = .40 KWH / hour
• Laptop = .025 KWH / hour
• 29” HD TV = .10 KWH / hour

You can see running the air conditioner uses more power than using your laptop or watching TV for an hour. However, how much does that icy coolness actually cost you?

Calculating Your Electric Bill Costs

Pull out your electric bill for the month and locate the charge for KWH. (If it’s not printed on the bill, call your electric company and ask them.) According to the Energy Information Administration, the national average retail price of electricity is 8.9 cents per KWH.

Now do some simple math:

Cost to run device for an hour = [energy consumed (KWH) per hour] x [price per KWH]

Here’s what those three appliances cost to run for an hour at 8.9 cents per KWH:

• Window air conditioning unit = 3.56 cents / hour ($.0356 / hour)
• Laptop = 0.22 cents / hour ($.0022 / hour)
• 29” HD TV = 0.89 cents / hour ($.0089 / hour)

To get a more accurate picture, though, you should monitor some appliances over a longer period of time, including when they’re supposedly not running. Some devices, such as cable boxes and microwaves, may draw power while they’re ‘off.’

Kill A Watt Pros & Cons

P3’s Kill A Watt is not the only power meter on the market, but it is one the most inexpensive and easiest to use.

Advantages of Using the Kill A Watt Power Meter

• Inexpensive ($19-$25)
• Easy to use
• Built-in timer
• Works with any 110-volt appliance
• Accurate to within 2% according to manufacturer

Disadvantages of Using the Kill A Watt Power Meter

• Can’t monitor large appliances such as clothes dryers
• No battery back up, which means you have to read the display while it’s still plugged in to the outlet.

Kill A Watt Power Meter New Models

P3 has recently come out with two new models:

• Kill A Watt PS – electricity monitoring power strip that allows you to monitor multiple devices while protecting them from surge ($78-$99)
• Kill A Watt EZ – an improvement on the original model with built in cost calculation and a battery back up. ($35-$49)

The copyright of the article Save Money on Your Electric Bill in Consumer Education is owned by Angie Smibert. Permission to republish Save Money on Your Electric Bill in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

Electric Utility Meter Outside Home

What do you think about this article?

---

NOTE: Because you are not a Suite101 member, your comment will be moderated before it is viewable.

post your comment

What is 7+7?