Small Home Appliances
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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
Save Space in Your Home With a Small Washing Machine
Sep 5th
So you have a small home. You want to wash clothes at home and save all of your coins for something bigger and better than the Laundromat, but you just can’t seem to part with your movable space in the kitchen. What do you do? No, you don’t whine about it-you look into a small washing machine!
When it comes to space saving issues, few people stop and think about the fact that getting a smaller washer is a sensible option. Spending whole days at the Laundromat, folding and sorting, working on multiple loads at a time-what type of life is that for a person who has the power to do something about it (not to mention a washer and dryer hookup at home)?
If you are thinking about getting a small washer, it isn’t difficult to know whether or not that is the right type of machine for your needs. First off, if you have a small place and you aren’t willing to sacrifice your space for a traditional washer and dryer, you should look into a smaller machine.
Also, if you don’t wash that many clothes every week a smaller machine may be a good idea. It might be a tough thing to deal with if you have a house full of children or other people. If you live alone or it is just you and your husband or wife or significant other, a small washing machine may be an economical and sensible option for you to consider.
If you don’t have a lot of washing to do and you hate the water that a regular sized machine goes through, that may be another reason to give a small washing machine a try. Since they are designed for smaller loads they use much less water than traditional washing machines do. They are great for quick jobs where you don’t feel like wasting a whole load and can save a lot of time as well.
Save Yourself Some Much Needed Money
Another one of the great perks of looking into a small machine rather than a traditional washing machine is that they are less expensive. In many cases, a small-sized machine are much less expensive than the traditional ones, and so you can save a lot of money on an appliance that may better serve your needs.
Small washing machines serve a variety of purposes. They are little, efficient, water and energy conscious, and fit well into your home. If you are not sure whether or not what is right for your home, investing in a medium sized washing machine for your home is a great way to meet yourself in the middle.
By: Zach Smith