electricity guzzlers

[Trillipse]

i realise the wattage rating of an appliance is the key to how much electricity it uses; can anyone give me a rundown of the main big-wattage bits of kit in the normal household - my electricity bill is vast!

[Clanad]

Anything that uses electricity to produce heat as the primary purpose are biggest guzzlers.  Electric furnaces, water heaters, dryers, etc....

[MORELLO]

In our house it's the iron (2kw), kettle (2kw+) and leccy shower (10kw). There's usually at least one on the go, and you wanna see that wheel spin!

[MORELLO]

Put the emersion heater on aswell, and whoa!

[landie]

Cooker, Immersion Heater, Washing Machine, Kettle,

Electric Fire, Tumble Dryer, basically anything with a wattage rating over 1000w

[Hamish]

The thing to remember is it is not just the power rating but how long the appliance is left on. So a 1kW toater will use in 6 mins the same amount of electricity as a 100W bulb does in an hour...... Showers and cookers require their own power cables usually allowing them to draw up to 9.6kW, an imersion heater tipically uses 3kW. Fridges and frezzers about 400W, tumble dryers upto 3kW. Air conditioning not sure, but probably more than 500W. Also the amount of power consumed will depend on how it is used. if you use all the rings and oven for 30min you will use more electricity than using one ring to heat up some baked beans. If you are constantly in and out of the fridge it will use more power than if you only go in one or twice a day. Furthermore the efficiecy of the alliance will depend on how it is situated. A fridge in a warm room will use more electricity and one in a cold room.

[ursula62]

TVs and computer screens use a lot of power too, and they are often left on for long periods.

For a table helping you to calculate power usage, go to http://cellsico.com/table1.html

[Trillipse]

Thanks all! (especially that list... marvellous) now the other things is about TVs, :

Q. is it true that a TV uses 75% as much power when in standby mode as it does when it's being watched? Or is that nonsense. .  .?

[Newt]

Trillipse,

One more consideration is that here in the US the appliance that uses the most electricity over time is the refrigerator.  It is the one appliance that is always on.  Newer ones use less electricity, especially if it is rated as Energy Star.

[Trillipse]

thanks newt.

i shall have to look into the english side of things (my fridge is new, but my freezer is still powered by baby dinosaurs on a hewn-stone treadmill...

[Tweed]

Power consumption of a TV in standby mode is about 2 watts. When on it could be around 60 - 120 watts.