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
Trusting Experts When Buying Home Appliances
Dec 17th
Some shoppers do not know if they should be trusting experts when buying home appliances because those experts seem to want to close the sale. The advice they provide on them is limited and shoppers do not know if they are receiving all information on the product or if minor details are being excluded. Trusting experts while shopping for appliances is recommended only if prior sales resulted in home appliances that were trouble free and offered at a fair price.
Many people do not keep track of the changes that have occurred in home appliances through the years. The last refrigerator held up well through many years of service and when the time comes to purchase another, many people feel that they must rely on the helpful advice of expert salespeople because they deal with these appliance products every day. The best salesperson will be sure to point out all pluses of owning a certain model and they will be sure to stress the benefits of buying a new appliance and having it delivered to the home at no charge.
To gain trust with the customers that walk in the store on any given day, a competent salesperson might spend a considerable amount of time showing customers the entire line of home appliances. Items such as refrigerators and freezers will make a good impression if they are plugged in and working at full tilt when the customer opens the door of the latest models.
Some home appliance businesses will feature enormous showrooms which can be intimidating to some customers. The salespeople will arrange these items so that customers have ample room to make inspections of the front and back of home appliances before they make a decision to purchase one. This approach to selling appliances makes good sense because customers will be ready to spend a considerable amount of money for an appliance if they know it is just what they need.
Other reasons for this courteous arrangement will become apparent when salespeople point out how long home appliances last. A salesperson should know everything about the home appliances because customers will to, especially if they are seriously shopping for home appliances that they plan to use for years. Those customers who perform inspections will know that every feature will count because people who come in the home will view the home appliance.
Customers will begin trusting experts in home appliances the minute they walk in the door. They will expect to see the latest models and all the styles in the home appliance line they are shopping for. Most customers want to see the holding capacities up close and view the rear of the unit to make sure it will fit, especially if a wall enclosure is created during a home remodeling project for the kitchen. Those experts who have sold home appliances for years, might even suggest several models of home appliance because they purchased them for their own home. That type of honesty builds trust between customers and salespeople.
By: James Brown
Home Appliances Consumer Guides
Dec 10th
Home appliances are a necessity in this day and age. Almost every household in the U.S. owns major appliances, such as a refrigerator, dishwasher, washing machine, and gas and electric stoves, and small appliances, such as a bread toaster, electric kettle, microwave oven, rice cooker, and vacuum cleaner. These electrical and mechanical machines make housekeeping tasks – especially cooking, cleaning, and washing – easier and faster.
Electrical entertainment home appliances such as compact disc players, DVD players, camcorders and high-tech entertainment systems, including televisions, are also common to every household. They have become more affordable with technological innovations.
As the number of Americans using home appliances increases, the selection of appliances also increases, which makes choosing a particular appliance more difficult. More often than not, people decide what to buy based on the price.
To purchase the right product, make sure to check consumer guides before making a decision. Consumer guides offer ratings, product reviews and price listings.
Even if you are on a small budget, however, you should consider more than the price when purchasing an appliance. When buying a fridge, for example, you should opt for a more energy-efficient brand, even if it appears to be more expensive. Different brands of refrigerators usually have the same capacity, but they consume varying amounts of electricity.
Electricity consumption of refrigerators of the same size and configuration can range from 600 kWh to 800 kWh yearly. The 200 kWh difference can give you more or less $20 in savings per year. This may seem like a minimal amount, but in the long run, appliances are products not instantly consumed, which means that they should work for a long time before you have to buy a replacement. The amount you save while using it should come to more than its price difference.
Remember that the total cost of your appliance includes not only the purchase price, but the cost of maintaining, operating and repairing it. You must weigh the last three against the initial price before you make a decision to buy the product. This way you are sure to spend your money wisely.