Appliances Draining Your Budget? Some Calculations Can Help

The cost of appliances draining your budget can be high, but fortunately, you can reduce your appliances’ energy use by keeping them well-maintained and using them properly and conservatively. The U.S. Department of Energy reports that your HVAC equipment uses about half of your energy consumption, followed by water heating, drying clothes and linens, and keeping food cold.

You can determine how much these appliances use by learning to calculate the consumption in kilowatts (kWs) that each one uses per hour of operation. Smaller appliances report their consumption in watts, while larger equipment reports the energy usage in amps. It’s easy to convert amps to kWs when you know the wattage they use.

In the case of an air conditioner, multiply the amps it uses by the voltage of the circuit, typically a 220-volt outlet. If your system uses 15 amps, it will take 3.3 kWs for each hour it runs. Microwaves note their consumption in the watts they use. A 1,000 watt microwave oven will use 1 kW per hour. A 10-watt CFL light bulb uses 1 kW in 100 hours.

These tips can help you lower the amount of energy your home uses:

• Cleaning the dryer lint screen lowers clothes-drying costs.
• Draining a few quarts from the water heater every three months lowers the cost of water heating as does wrapping it in an insulating jacket.
• Keeping the refrigerator full saves energy because solid objects, including liquids, hold cold better than air.
• Pulling the plug on all the chargers for your portable devices stops these appliances from draining your budget. Most chargers continue to draw power even when they’re not charging anything.
• Turning the bathroom and kitchen fans off after they’ve done their job cuts energy consumption. Although they’re small, those fans quickly remove air you’ve paid to condition. You’ll also save energy by turning off ceiling fans when you leave a room.
• When shopping for appliances, large and small, choose Energy Star certified models for better efficiency and performance.

If you suspect you suffer from appliances draining your budget, please contact us at Energy 1 Heating & Air Conditioning. We’ve provided top-notch HVAC for Lorain County and the surrounding areas for more than 34 years.

Our goal is to help educate our customers in Lorain, Ohio about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems).  For more information about appliance energy savings and other HVAC topics, download our free Home Comfort Resource guide.

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