Is it really important to shut that night light off when the real energy hog in your bedroom is running along happily chewing up your electricity dollars as you sleep? If you know what appliances in your house use up the most electricity, you can concentrate on reducing their energy usage as much as possible. This way you will reap the biggest savings on your monthly expenses.
Although energy usage may vary slightly depending on the brands and models of your appliances, you can certainly use my guidelines to determine what in your home is eating up the most electricity. Looking at the maximum watts an appliance uses is a good determinate of how much it will cost you to run.
A good rule of thumb you can use to determine where the energy hogs are hiding is that anything that produces heat or removes heat uses a lot of electricity.
Here are some of the biggest offenders. In future articles, I will discuss how to reduce your energy usage with these hogs, and offer some tried and true frugal tips to help you save money.
Here are some numbers put together by michaelbluejay.com, the self professed “Mr. Energy. The number reflect the maximum energy usage. That is, the amount of watts your appliance needs while it is actively running.
- Electric Oven: 5,000 watts
- Electric Clothes Dryer: 5,000 watts
- Electric Water Heater: 3,800 watts
- Central Air Conditioner: 3,500 watts
- Microwave Oven: 1,500 watts
- Toaster with Four Slots: 1,500 watts
- Coffee Maker: 900 watts
- Electric Range (using the burners on your stove instead of the oven): 800 watts
- Window Air Conditioner: 500-1440 watts
- Refrigerator: 200-700 watts
Light bulbs by themselves only use up 40 to 100 watts, but since there are many of them throughout your home, their energy usage can quickly add up. They also tend to be the things that are left on in active use for long periods of time. I think light bulbs should definitely be included as energy hogs.
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