Last month our electric bill was off the charts.I was secretly hoping someone was playing a pratical joke on us. Once the full amount sunk in I decided I to do something about it. I decided to buy a tool that would let me see exactly how much electricity was used by various devices.

I logged on to Newegg and bought a Kill-a-watt.

With this little device and I see exactly how many energy anything plugged into it is using. It provides information on voltage, amps, etc. I only care about instaneous watts and long term watts numbers.

I set out to document how much electricity various devices around my house use. I didnt bother testing devices like my refrigerator- devices that I would leave on regardless of the results. I only looked at devices that I might power off if they were using too much power.

So here are the results:

1. Webserver PC - 115 watts
2. 20" LCD Monitor on / sleep mode- 25 watts / 0 watts
3. Game Machine PC - 105 watts
4. Receiver, connected to Game Machine PC, playing music, reasonable volume level - 60 watts
5. Heated blanket lowest / highest setting, 2 zones - 50 watts / 100 watts per side
6. Wood burning stove fan on low / high - 30 watts / 56 watts
7. Light with 40 watt bulb - 41 watts
8. TV + cable box at idle / on - 40 watts / 105 watts
9. Ceramic heater, initial surge / stable - 1300 watts, 610 watts

So here are some interesting observations.

• My newer PC has a larger power supply but still uses less engergy than my older PC. 
• My LCD monitor’s sleep mode kicks butt, it literally drops down to 0. There is no need to hit the power button, just let it go to sleep instead.
• If I am gonig to turn on the heated blanket, I might as well turn it up high because the differnce in power is not that much relative to the heat output
• The cable box pulls 40 watts, even when it is powered off (but not unplugged). What the hell is it doing with all that power?
• A 40 watt light bulb uses 41 watts to power. This is not surpising per say, but it serves as a nice control to validate the rest of my measurements.
• My ceramic room heater uses 1300 watts when for about the first 30 seconds then drops down to 600 watts constant. I guess if you are going to turn it on, make sure to keep it on for a while although it draws so much power I am questioning the need to keep it on.

I left the kill-a-watt on the outlet that powers all my computer equipment. After 1 week my usage was 32.56 kw. At 11 cents per kw / hour that means I spend $3.59 per week keeping all computers and stereo running. Lets just round up and say $4 per week, about $16 per month. Thats not too bad in my book.

 Now I specifically avoided measuring the power requirements of my home theater. I imagin by the time you count the projector, 5.1 receiver, and a 1500 watt subwoofer that it would be pretty silly. My hope is that if I dont know how much power its using, I wont dwell on it as I watch Blade for the 12th time on rediculously high volume levels.

So after all this I use my ceramic heater less, keep my heated blanket off if possible, and try to keep the lights in my house turned off, and I have my game machine PC set to go to sleep when I am not using it. Hopefully I will see a reduction to my bill next month.