Appliance Use Drives Up Energy Costs: Here's a Method for Monitoring
While the appliances and devices in our homes seem indispensable, appliance use does drive up energy costs. Any appliance that deals with heat, either creating it or removing it, uses more energy than others. The Department of Energy reports that these are the most energy-hungry appliances in your home in the order of the amount they consume:
Heating and cooling system;
Water heater;
Range/oven
Clothes dryer;
Swimming pool pump;
Refrigerator and freezer;
Desktop computer;
Television;
Microwave;
Dishwasher; and
Clothes washer.
With the exception of the larger appliances, like your HVAC system, you can estimate appliance use by looking at the tag on the cord, examining the packaging or the appliance itself to find its consumption in watts. For example, a computer monitor may use 150 watts, which means that it will use a kilowatt (kW) in 6.7 hours. A kilowatt is 1,000 watts and likely how your power company notes usage on your bill.A cooling system can use many kWs per hour, since it requires a lot of electricity. Their energy use is measured in amps, but you can multiply the amps by the volts they use (typically 220) to find their kW consumption. For example, a 20 amp air conditioner using 220 volts consumes 4,400 watts, or 4.4 kW.It's difficult to monitor the precise amount of energy your appliances use to estimate costs because electric rates vary, but there are things you can do to reduce consumption, like keeping the HVAC system and water heater clean and professionally serviced at least once a year.Keeping the air filter for the air handler clean lowers the amount of energy your HVAC system uses, as does hosing off the outdoor condenser occasionally. Draining off a quart of water from the water heater every few months takes out the hard water sediments at the bottom, improving efficiency.If you'd like to learn more about how maintenance reduces energy consumption for appliance use, contact Air Assurance. We've provided outstanding HVAC services for the Broken Arrow area for nearly 30 years.Our goal is to help educate our customers in the Tulsa and Broken Arrow, Oklahoma area about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). Image courtesy of Shutterstock