Trik's Kill-A-Watt Thread
 

Well thanks to you guys I received my Kill-A-Watt today and I figured I would start this thread to let you know what I find using the tool. I will simply update this post instead of replying to my own post.

Here is what I found;


-Toaster Oven with no digital display or digital controls - 2 watts
-Cell Phone Charger (without phone connected) - 1 watt
-Cell Phone Charger (with phone Charging) - 5 watts
-Cell Phone Charger (with phone plugged in and charged) - 3 watts
-13" CRT tv (when turned off) - 3 watts
-Belkin Power Strip (Turned off) - 1 watt
-Belkin Power Strip (Turned on) with accessories - 30 watts
-Mac (Turned off)
-Netgear Wireless router
-Cable Modem
-External Hard Drive
-Baby Monitor (Off or On) - 1 watt
-Home Phone Base Charger - 1 watt
-Electric shaver Charger - 1 watt
-Treadmill - 0 watt

Total watts saved so far by unplugging unused items; 35 watts per/hr
- 840 watts per day

More to come ....

Neat. 1W for idling cell charger? I couldn't even get mine and the wife's to register 1W. Only pulled 6W for both when charging. Thanks to Ben too, pretty awesome toy!
I did find my 1KW microwave pulls 15A, maxing the KAW out. The fridge was only 1.06A. It was amazing to see CFL vs. incandescent. We have a multi-bulb octopus lamp (5 flexible heads). 1 6W CFL vs the 4 25W icnd's. I knew it was alot, but seeing 106W when all on, vs the 30W it could be, yeah. Makes me see the difference a little better.

hmmm.. Server is on UPS...disconnect UPS from wall, insert KAW, see what that beast at work draws...
/hyjack.

It is a neat tool, I may invest in timers to run things like the fridge. Since the home is empty at specific times of the day there is no need to run the fridge if it will not be opened.

This must sound ridiculous to harp over a watt here or there, but once I am done with my analysis this non effort could end up saving me $20 a month in addition to the effort i am putting in to use less power. I'll take free money any day ... thereby paying for the tool in its first month ...

Those are pretty impressive power savings. I look forward to seeing more.

Well the bill is in for Feb ...

drumroll please; 638kw for the month, when compared to last year same month which was 1062kw. I will take a $60 light bill every month.

After taxes and all that jazz it ramps up to $80, but still tons better than the $140 I was paying just a couple of months ago.

Nice savings!

Wow. I should probably kill the power supply going to all my home theater stuff, I rarely use it anyways.

For the first time in forever I found some dimmable CFL's for a fixture I have in the living room. This bad boy uses 5 40W small socket round bulbs and boy do they generate heat.

Well just replaced them with 5 3w dimmable CFL's. The light is better (Whiter) and absolutely no heat from them. Also, all 5 combined draw less power than a single bulb of the old type.

Can't wait to report on March's use, notoriously high due to a swing in temperature around here ..

I was preparing to build a MythTV box. Problem was, I have DirecTV, so I'd need two controllable satellite boxes to records two programs at once (to replace my current DirecTiVo.)

When I put the Kill-A-Watt on the DirecTiVo, I realized that it only draws something like 26 watts. I don't think there's a way I could replace that functionality with two set-top boxes and a PC in less than 26 watts, so I left it as-is.

However, I do have a 7200 RPM laptop drive. Maybe I could replace the 40GB drive in the TiVo unit and shave off a watt or two...

OK March's numbers are in;

March 2008 = 1018 KWH
March 2009 = 662 KWH

Yeah, being a bit mindful of your power usage and finally putting my water heater under control seems to be paying off .... Until next month ..