Heating and cooling are by far the greatest energy users in the home, making up around 40% of your electric bill. Other big users are washers, dryers, ovens, and stoves. Electronic devices like laptops and TVs are usually pretty cheap to run, but of course, it can all add up.
When it comes to household appliances, the ones that use the least electricity per hour tend to be the ones consumers use least. Hair dryers, ovens, and space heaters use very few kilowatt hours and even refrigerators are energy friendly.
The United States Department of Energy reports that homeowners can save anywhere between $100 and $200 each year by unplugging devices not in use. Typically, an item drawing a single watt of energy costs about one dollar to power annually.
Bear in mind some appliances (like fridge/freezers and TVs on standby) use electricity overnight. Visit the Centre for Sustainable Energy (CSE) to get free and impartial advice on the energy usage of your appliances.
The largest electricity consumer in the average household is your heating and cooling appliance. By a long shot. Central air conditioners and heaters use tons of energy in order to keep your home set to the right temperature.
Most devices we own consume electricity even when not in use. This is also true of energy-efficient, Energy-Star-rated devices such as your laundry machine or even your fridge. In reality, a phone charger uses energy whenever it is plugged in, regardless of whether it charges your phone or not.
Everything you leave plugged into an outlet—appliances, computers, consoles, chargers, lamps, and more —draws energy even when not in use. Energy is not only converted for household use, it's also used by power suppliers.
Research has shown that the average 110w floor fan uses 2p of energy an hour, or 40p a day if it is on for 20 hours.
Your fridge freezer needs to stay on all the time, so it typically uses the most electricity of all the kitchen appliances – an average of 408kWh per year.
Generally, TVs use 106.9 kWh of electricity per year, costing you around $16.04 annually. The best way to save on electricity costs is to use solar energy to run your TV; it can be a solar powered TV or solar generator option.
A washer typically uses less watts than a dryer – generally between 1,200 and 3,000. So, using the figures from our first example, a washer running for an hour would cost: 2000 x 1 (hour) = 2000 watts. 2000 watts / 1000 = 2 kWh.
On average and across all loads and cycle configurations, electric clothes dryers may use anywhere from 1800 to 5000 watts of energy. That translates to somewhere in the range of 1.8 to 5 kWh of electricity.
Fire Risk. One of the biggest dangers of leaving your phone charger plugged in is the risk of fire. If your charger overheats, it could potentially catch something on fire. This is especially dangerous if you leave your charger plugged in overnight, as you may not be around to notice if there is a fire.
That's wasted electricity—technically, it's called "no load mode," but in reality it's just another vampire. According to the Berkeley Lab's testing, cell phone chargers in no load mode consume around 0.26 watts, and laptop chargers, 4.42 watts.
Android phones have a feature called adaptive charging. To help preserve your phone battery, you can charge your phone steadily overnight using Adaptive charging.
Nationwide Americans spend an average of $429.33 per month on utilities. Here are a few other findings: Hawaii has the highest monthly energy bill at $177.78 and Utah has the lowest at $80.87. California has the highest monthly water bill at $77 and Wisconsin and Vermont tied for the lowest at $18.
So, the clear winner here is the lightbulb…at least until you multiply that by how many lights you have in your house. Plus, if you still use incandescent bulbs (switch to LEDs ASAP if you do), 2 – 3 will use more electricity than most TVs over the course of the year.
How much electricity does a computer use? Generally, computers use between 30 and 70 watts (W) of electricity, depending on the model. Computers usually use between 3 and 5 amps, and connect to a 120-volt outlet. Larger desktop and gaming computers can use up to 500 W.
The Department of Energy estimates you could save 10% every month when you unplug appliances when not in use. Unplugging appliances can save electricity, so make it as much a habit as when you turn off the lights to conserve energy.
In the kitchen, you have a coffee maker, microwave, the fridge, a TV. In your bedroom, an alarm clock, phone charger, another TV. Did you know that those gadgets — the ones that are always plugged in — are constantly adding to your electric bill?
Completely shutting down your television will save you some money. And while the savings are small, it could amount to considerable energy savings at the end of the year. At the same time, you will be doing the environment a favour while saving electricity.