Kill-a-Watt (or several hundred of em') and save on electricity!

[Pylortes]

I was intrigued by a recent passing mention by MMM of the Kill a Watt device, so I checked it out and ordered one on Amazon the other day.  I went with the P4460, which is about $25 + shipping over the P4400 ($19 + shipping), but allows you to enter in your local electricity rates and then provides automatic calculations on how much your _____ device/appliance costs to run a day, a week, a month or a year.   

For a guy who likes numbers, this was revolutionary.  Instead of just getting an electric bill at the end of the month that says my family consumed 463 kwh, I can now drill down with the Kill a Watt to figure out exactly where this number comes from.  I am just getting started with it, but I plan over the next couple of weeks to plug in everything in my house that I can and record it in a spreadsheet to figure out how to optimize our electicy bill.   My goal is to see if we can drop our monthly electricty usage 15-20% just by some small adjustments.  Has anyone else been able to do something similar? 

I have only tinkered with the Kill A Watt for a couple of days, but I have already discovered that my extra freezer in the basement is costing us an average of $1.90/mo to run (not as bad as I thought, and it's nice to be able to load up when theres a sale and freeze what we dont need for a while), but the mini fridge we put next to it that only contains a couple of beverages for the occassional use when we're too lazy to go upstairs costs about $3.50/mo in electricity to run.  Considering how little we actually use the mini-fridge (and not at all during certain times of the year), I can now plan to turn it off and put it away until we have guests or a good reason to use it.   Likewise, I sleep with a fan on in the bedroom just as ambient noise.  I plugged in the fan to the Kill a Watt and discovered the fan uses an average of 50 watts even in lowest setting.   While this is not a huge per month cost (I think it was maybe $1/mo when I factored in the 7-8 hours a day its on), I realized I can swap it for another fan that uses less energy with really no downside.  I've also started testing tv's and video game consoles which may allow me to swap a higher energy using tv out for a lower energy tv that sitting mostly unused etc.   Finally, I've found that lightbulb wattage is surprisingly accurate. I've tested CFL's and LEDS and they generally are right at or slightly lower than wattage than the packaging claims (this restores my faith in humanity just a wee bit!)

Has anyone else gone through this process with a Kill a Watt or similar device?  If so what changes were the biggest impact?  What was the most surprising thing you found? I'm hoping the price of the Kill A Watt will pay for itself within 2-3 months of reduced electricty bills. Word to the wise my Mustachian brothers/sisters! Look into this device- this could be a money/world saver if you test things and make strategic decisions to reduce energy consumption based on what you learn!

http://www.amazon.com/P3-International-P4460-Electricity-Monitor/dp/B000RGF29Q/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1384792345&sr=8-2&keywords=kill+a+watt

http://www.amazon.com/P3-International-P4400-Electricity-Monitor/dp/B00009MDBU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1384792345&sr=8-1&keywords=kill+a+watt

[Numbers Man]

Seems like an interesting device.

[Cinder]

My only problem is that the majority of things which are a huge electricity suck for my house are hard-wired.  I need to do some more research to find a good clamp meter, and then measure all of the other things.. (electric range, dryer, baseboard electric heat, water heater, etc...)

I hope you kill-them-watts!

[Greg]

Nice to hear some feedback on these tools.  I'm looking at getting one as well to measure our freezer's consumption (very old one) and also our plug-in hot tub's usage.  Everything else we've got pretty reigned in.  98% of our lights are CFL's, etc.

[fiveoh]

I've had the cheaper one for a few years.  I just made a spreadsheet that does the calculation for you.  Personally I was surprised by how LITTLE power some of my stuff used.  For example, we have a receiver with surround sound and a ps3 on one surge protector.  I figured it would be sucking some huge power with the amount of sound it puts out.  Wrong. 

The largest offender that surprised me was a portable heater my wife uses in our bathroom in the winter.  I forget the exact figures but it was almost the same price as running out nat gas whole house heater!   

I don't think it paid for itself in savings since our bills are already low and the major offenders are heating and cooling, but it is fun/informative to use.

[TrMama]

I don't have one of these gadgets, but the power company installed smart meters on all homes last year. I now have almost a full year's worth of data from it. The smart meter allows me to track our consumption by month, day and hour. From looking at the charts it became very very clear to me that the vast majority of our usage goes to our baseboard heaters in the winter.

Decreasing our heating costs has become a pretty big priority around here. Worrying about pretty much anything else is trivial.

[Kazimieras]

I know my local library has dozens of these devices that can be taken out and used. It can save you a few bucks and really once you get the power hogs under control they aren't needed. So check your local library!

[Pylortes]

I know my local library has dozens of these devices that can be taken out and used. It can save you a few bucks and really once you get the power hogs under control they aren't needed. So check your local library!

Great suggestion about checking with the library first before purchasing!  I've already bought mine, however this is probably one of those things you can check your gadgets once and record the info and not really need to look again unless you change your setup or get something new later on.  After I'm done checking on all my households stuff I should probably offer it up to the neighbors/friends to borrow. Crazy thing is in my part of town there isn't a library for 10 miles so if nothing else I may be able to save them a trip to the library. 

By the way, another observation- having my LCD TV, xbox 360, cable box and a stereo plugged in with nothing on still draws a constant 18.5 watts.  I think its time to start turning off the power strip.

[hybrid]

I know my local library has dozens of these devices that can be taken out and used. It can save you a few bucks and really once you get the power hogs under control they aren't needed. So check your local library!

Dang, my library does not have these but a neighboring county does so I will see if I can get a friend to check one out for a few weeks.  Great tip!

Edit:  I just discovered my county and the neighboring county have a reciprocal agreement so I can get a library card in the neighboring county as well.  This may apply to others in my situation.

[sunshine]

Hybrid does your state do inner library loan? When I borrowed one it came from about 70 miles away.

[fiveoh]

Looking back at my spreadsheet, another big item that surprised me was the Christmas tree!   It pulled 217 watts constantly or .22KWH for a cost of almost $18(@ 11.2) per month if left plugged in all the time.  Unplug Christmas lights when you are not around! 

[fmzip]

for folks with a bunch of devices, you may like these:

http://catalog.bitsltd.us/power_strips/

They are a power strip that trigger from one device being flipped on.

For example, the 7 things in my stereo cabinet, once I turn on the receiver, the other 6 device get powered instead of them being powered all the time.

This is a great device for the watt hogs that draw power when not really in use.

We killed our biggest power waster this month. Our hot tub!

I have no idea what this costs us a month just to keep warm at 85 degrees (it's lowest setting) but it's a 500 gallon tub in cold Connecticut. My guess is $40-60 a month and we never use it.

Put the tub on craigslist, just sold it for $2500 :) Very happy to lose the bill and pocket 25% of the cost after 11 years. Boy do/did we know how to burn cash, thankfully we are on a better path now that we found MMM!

[kkbmustang]

We just got one and it's hooked up to the refrigerator/freezer at the moment. I'm on an electricity usage quest. We use too much of it.

[Nords]

We've saved a bunch of bucks with our Kill-A-Watt over the last few years, but I've also tweaked everything it can tweak.  Now it's sitting in the garage waiting for the next project.

I'm not sure how its circuitry works, but it played badly with the timer on our aquarium lights.  When the Kill-A-Watt was plugged into the circuit, the aquarium timer wouldn't track.  But we have a new timer now, so maybe I need to bring it out and try it again.

I wish there was a 240v version for appliances like electric dryers and ovens.  I'd like to know how much is consumed by our 240v appliances, but that's too difficult to figure out with our digital electric utility meter and our photovoltaic array.

[fmzip]

You may want to look into something like this

http://www.theenergydetective.com/

[_JT]

We've saved a bunch of bucks with our Kill-A-Watt over the last few years, but I've also tweaked everything it can tweak.  Now it's sitting in the garage waiting for the next project.

I'm not sure how its circuitry works, but it played badly with the timer on our aquarium lights.  When the Kill-A-Watt was plugged into the circuit, the aquarium timer wouldn't track.  But we have a new timer now, so maybe I need to bring it out and try it again.

I wish there was a 240v version for appliances like electric dryers and ovens.  I'd like to know how much is consumed by our 240v appliances, but that's too difficult to figure out with our digital electric utility meter and our photovoltaic array.

All of your appliances will have a nameplate rating on them. For resistive loads (anything that uses electricity to put out heat, versus something that uses electricity to turn a motor), the power draw will be constant any time the appliance is in use.

[Spork]

I wish there was a 240v version for appliances like electric dryers and ovens.  I'd like to know how much is consumed by our 240v appliances, but that's too difficult to figure out with our digital electric utility meter and our photovoltaic array.

What you're wanting is a clamp on ammeter.  If all you want is "how much current is it drawing now", you can get them pretty cheaply.   If you want it to do math like the kill-o-watt (for devices that cycle on/off over a week)... that's probably going to cost more.

[Nords]

You may want to look into something like this
http://www.theenergydetective.com/

All of your appliances will have a nameplate rating on them. For resistive loads (anything that uses electricity to put out heat, versus something that uses electricity to turn a motor), the power draw will be constant any time the appliance is in use.

What you're wanting is a clamp on ammeter.  If all you want is "how much current is it drawing now", you can get them pretty cheaply.   If you want it to do math like the kill-o-watt (for devices that cycle on/off over a week)... that's probably going to cost more.

Yep, and if money was no object then I'd install a whole-house power-monitoring/display system in the distribution panel and throw in a whole-house surge protector as well.

The Kill-A-Watt's most useful feature is its simple data logging of hours vs kilowatts.  I can reset it every day or run a long-term average or figure out how much a specific duty cycle cost.  Now I'd just like to have it in a version with a 240v plug instead of 120v.  I could compare the cost of cooking a meal in the microwave vs the oven, or boiling water in the microwave vs a coffeepot vs the range.  I know what appliances are more efficient, but I'd enjoy quantifying the concept-- and it'd make a great kid's science project.

[Spork]

The Kill-A-Watt's most useful feature is its simple data logging of hours vs kilowatts.  I can reset it every day or run a long-term average or figure out how much a specific duty cycle cost.  Now I'd just like to have it in a version with a 240v plug instead of 120v.  I could compare the cost of cooking a meal in the microwave vs the oven, or boiling water in the microwave vs a coffeepot vs the range.  I know what appliances are more efficient, but I'd enjoy quantifying the concept-- and it'd make a great kid's science project.

With 2 kill-a-watts, a bit of wire and a 240v receptacle, this would be pretty easily hackable.

I think the main reason this doesn't exist is:
* there are so many styles of 240v receptacles (depending on amp rating, locking/no locking, dual voltages, etc) that this becomes impractical fast
* a good chunk of 240v appliances are hard wired with no receptacle anyway. 

...that's why I was suggesting a clamp-on device you measure at the breaker box

[fiveoh]

FYI for anyone looking to buy one of these, they are on sale for $15 right now with free shipping

http://www.meritline.com/p3-international-p4400-kill-watt-electricity-detector---p-22980.aspx?source=s2010&hq_e=el&hq_m=2706597&hq_l=28&hq_v=b54b8150b7

 and use coupon code MLCP23RN

$20 @ amazon so about 25% off.