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How to Measure the Electricity Usage of Your Home Appliances
Dec 28th
Ever calculate how much electricity used by your home appliances and other electric-power equipment at your home? You can find the total usage of your home electricity from your monthly electric bill, but you may want to measure the energy used by each electric-powered items at your home, then how to do the measurement?
No matter what reason you want to measure the energy used by an electric-powered item at your home, basically there are three ways to measure it:
1. Use a simple watt-hour meter
You can use a simple watt-hour meter, which can be purchased at your local store. Just plug-in the device to the watt-hour meter and then plug the meter into the supply point. When the device is drawing current, the watt-hour meter will read the usage. This little device will tell you how much electricity uses at a given moment and over an extended period of time. This simple watt-hour meter is especially useful for finding the amount of electricity usage, measured in kWh for devices that don’t run constantly, like window unit air conditioners and refrigerators.
2. Install a whole-house meter
If you like to monitor whole house energy uses at any give moment, or how much you have used so far for the month, then you might want to consider an installation of a whole-house meter. The meter is similar to the electric meter at your home, but it has extra features that enable you to measure the electricity usage at a selected period of time. Once you press the reset button, the meter reading will be reset to zero, it will record the electricity usage until you stop it. This whole-house meter is very useful for you to monitor monthly electricity usage, which you can use to compare with the figure stated in your electric bill and make sure you are not overcharged.
3. Look at the electric meter
If you don’t want to spend money to buy watt-hour meter or install a whole-house meter, you still can measure the electricity using at a give moment. You just need to make use of your home electric meter.
This is how it can be done:
First, turn off the device you want to measure. In order to accurately measure the electricity usage of the device, you have to turn off the air conditioner and refrigerator because they will affect the reading if they kick in while you are making the measurement. Then, go to your electric meter and measure with a stopwatch on how long it takes for the disc to spin one round. Then, turn on the device you want to measure and go back to your electric meter to measure how much time it takes to spin one round.
Once you have the reading, you are ready to do the calculation. Look on the electric meter find something printed like “kh X.X”, where “X.X” is some number, normally is 7.2. This figure is called Kh factor.
The formula for calculation is: 3.6 x Kh fator / number of seconds = kW
Just plug-in the measurement and the Kh factor into the formula to get the electric usage of the device for a given time. For example, the Kh factor is 7.2. It took 60 seconds for the disc of the electric meter to spin when the device is turned off. And it took 40 second for the disc to spin when the device is turned on. Your first check when device is off showed you were using (3.6×7.2)/60 = 432 watts. With the device turned on, the usage is (3.6×7.2)/40 = 648 watts. By subtracting the 2 figures, you will get 216 watts, which is the power usage of the device selected for power usage measurement.
By: Dave Stilman
Appliances and Your Utility Bill
Aug 8th
Your utility bill is a collection of sub-electrical uses from your lights to your heater. Your appliances fall within this category and can suck up amazing amounts of energy.
The power usage of an electrical appliance is of concern to most everyone due to the rising cost of electrical power. The kilowatt meter that is usually attached to the outside of your home measures the watts being used. When those little wheels are spinning wildly, you can anticipate a hefty electric bill in next month’s mail. When you understand a bit about power consumption, it is possible to reduce your power usage by a considerable amount.
The watt is the most common term associated with power usage. A watt is a measurement of actual work performed by electricity. The watt rating is usually listed on an electrical appliance. Some items use the watt as a descriptive term such as a 30 watt speaker system or a 100 watt light bulb. Other appliances might list amps and voltage, but a simple formula can convert this to watts. The formula is amps x volts = watts.
It is important to note that the watt rating of an appliance refers to its maximum capacity when operating. A 500 watt refrigerator will only use 500 watts when its compressor is running a full blast. Normally, it would be using more like 50 watts to power its electronics. The same would apply to a fan. Its watt rating would refer to its operation at full speed. A computers watt rating would vary depending on how many programs are running.
Some appliances will contain to use some power even when not in use. This would be the case of a clock on a television, for example. In most cases, the best way to conserve power is to reduce the use of an appliance. There are several tactics that can be used to conserve power. Anything that produces heat tends to use more power. Simple things like using cold water rather than hot in the washing machine can translate into a considerable savings.
A wise homeowner would treat electrical power usage in the same manner as a businessman would do it. There are certain things that are necessary, and there are certain things that are not as important. Conservation of electrical power usage not only is wise from a personal economic point of view, but it also is an important part of conservation. Much electrical power is generated by the burning of fossil fuels and growth is putting a serious strain on the supply. Every watt saved by every person can help with this problem. This saving not only will be felt in your wallet, but also in the very air you breathe.
By: Donny Tee