Let’s Save On Monthly Electric Bills with the Kill-A-Watt
The first step in saving monthly electric bills is finding out your household appliance’s actual power consumption. And is up to the spec provided by the manufacturer. The Kill-A-Watt will help you do just that. The unit provides the data needed to calculate the actual power consumption of household appliances. To measure the power consumption of any Device Under Test (DUT), a multimeter in series with the DUT. However, this could be a challenge and dangerous because most of the time, you would need to cut the power cable to connect a current meter in place. So let us walk you through how to do it safely.
Have you ever wondered how much electricity your TV uses in a day? What about the coffee maker or toaster oven? Is that trendy new LED lamp on your desk as efficient as the manufacturer claims? To confirm this, you would need to be able to wire a current meter in series with the appliance under test (load). Usually what is meant is to cut the power cable open and connect a multimeter in series with the circuit which is not recommended.
With the Kill-A-Watt, there is no need for wire cutting or a Multimeter, all you have to do is plug and play. Simply choose between Volt, Amp, Watt, Hz, and KWH by pressing the button in the front of the unit. With the Watt and KWH information from the Kill-A-Watt, now we can see calculate the cost of the appliance based on its accurate power consumption.
Calculate the Appliance’s Electricity Cost
To calculate electricity costs, we will need to know how much you use your appliances multiplied by how much electricity your appliance uses in Kilowatt Hour (KWH, and multiplied by the cost of electricity in your location. Usually, first, we will need to calculate wattage using this equation Watts = (amps) x (volts). Then calculate the Kilowatt-hour using this equation KWH = (watts) x (usage) / 1000. Finally, we can calculate the cost using this equation: (kilowatt-hours) x (electricity rate). However, with the Kill-A-Watt, we can have all this information with a push of the buttons.
Conclusion
The Kill-A-Watt helps with the electricity cost-calculating process by providing the needed data to calculate the actual electricity cost. In addition, the Kill-A-Watt can be plugged into any outlet around the house. This really helps with expanding the list of appliances that can be tested. However, there is a current limit on the Kill-A-Watt which limits the number of applicants who can be tested. For higher current measurement, we highly recommend our Variable Tranformer Variac series that can output up to 120VAC 30A.
