Whole house meters measure just what the name implies, the power flowing into the entire house.  The electricity is typically measured at the utility meter.  Circuit meters measure the power flowing through a single circuit, such as a kitchen or office, and is measured at the electrical panel.  Plug meters plug into a wall socket and measure the power flowing through a single plug.  Each type of electricity monitors has benefits and limitations.  Depending on your goals and needs, you probably will only need one type of monitor.

Whole house meters display the electricity that the entire house uses.  They are generally attached to the outdoor utility meter and send the readings wirelessly to a display located inside the home.  These are great for looking at overall energy usage and calculating what your monthly energy bill will to be.  You will know, in real time, how much electricity you are wasting or saving.  The most popular models of whole house meters are: The Energy Detector, Efergy Monitors, The Meter Reader, Cent-A-Meter, and the Blue Line Power Cost Meter.  Typically this type of electricity monitor run about $150-300.

Some whole house meters use clip on sensors that attach to an electrical panel and will allow you to use them as a circuit meter as well as a whole house meter.  Some models also provide computer software that allows you to record the data and take a more in-depth look at your electricity usage.  Some models require expert installation while others are almost as simple as “plug and play.”

The most common type of electricity monitor is discussed in the next post.  Up next: Plug Meters

When deciding on which type of electricity monitor to use you should first determine what you want to focus on.  If you are just looking at overall energy costs then a whole house meter is the smart choice.  If you are renovating or are renting a space with a low number of circuits then a circuit meter will work best.  If you are interested in saving money on your energy bill by finding what appliances are wasting the most or trying to determine if it is cost effective to replace an older appliance then a plug meter is the type of monitor you are looking for.

Whole house meters measure just what the name implies, the power flowing into the entire house.  The electricity is typically measured at the utility meter.  Circuit meters measure the power flowing through a single circuit, such as a kitchen or office, and is measured at the electrical panel.  Plug meters plug into a wall socket and measure the power flowing through a single plug.  Each type of electricity monitors has benefits and limitations.  Depending on your goals and needs, you probably will only need one type of monitor.

More discussion of each type of electricity monitor in the next post.  Up next: Whole House Meters.

Without having heating or cooling using up a large part of your power bill it is easier to see which appliances are wasting most of your electricity.  There are a lot of appliances that use power even when turned off so there are plenty of opportunities to save a little money here and there.  The hard part is figuring out where to find the savings, that is if you do not have a electricity monitor like a Kill-A-Watt EZ or a Watts Up? PRO.  Both are great gadgets to see how much electricity your electronics are using.

Taking a look at the actual usage, by plugging it into a Watts Up? PRO power analyzer showed this was not quite the case.  The fridge used a wide range of power, from as high as 750 watts after loading it from a shopping trip to as low as 5 watts to maintain an already cooled fridge.  The average electricity usage was about 100 watts.  After monitoring the usage for a week my model only used 17.5 kwh, and with electricity costing an average of $0.115 per kwh that comes out to $2.01. Using this as a baseline, my model comes in a just over $104 each year.  This means it would take 8-10 years for a new ENERGY STAR refrigerator to pay for itself with the energy savings.

Obviously cooking anything will require a lot of energy to produce the heat needed but some of my appliances draw electricity even while not in use.  The two biggest culprits are the microwave and toaster oven.  I focused on the microwave since the toaster oven is easy to unplug while not in use.

The microwave constantly draws 7 watts while not in use because of the clock display.  Opening the door, and thus turning on the light, brings the electricity consumption to about 17 watts.  When the microwave is in use at full power it draws 1500 to 1700 watts as it cooks.

Because the plug for the microwave is hidden in the cabinet above the range, and behind an assortment of pans and dishes, it is not easy to unplug it after every use.  The solution is to use an outlet that has switch or a surge protector with a wired switch that will turn it on and off.

In my home we have a Comcast telephony modem and wireless G router.  Both the router and modem drew on average about 5.5 watts.  This means both are using almost 4 kilowatt hours per month (or $0.08 each).  The router maintained a constant 5.5 watts with very little variance, while the modem had a slightly larger range going from 5.3 to 8.2 watts.

If you do not want to go through the hassle of plugging in your microwave every time you want to cook food you can use a smart power strip.  Smart power strips turn off the power to some of the outlets when the main outlet is not drawing power.  This eliminates the vampire drain of the electronics plugged into it, like a computer monitor and other components.  There also are power strips that have switches that can be placed somewhere more accessible in order to turn on/off the power strip.

Using my Kill-A-Watt EZ to find out exactly what my DVR from Comcast is using showed it draws an average of 30 watts per hour.  Specifically the DVR ranges from 23 to 36 watts at any given time, depending on what it is doing in the background.  Surprisingly the DVR draws a whopping 16.9 kilowatt hours (or $0.40) per month.

While there is no obvious way to reduce the energy consumption of the DVR there are some ways to decrease it a little.  Although it will not work for all DVRs, using a Kill-A-Watt Graphic Timer, or any other timer system, to turn on/off an outlet can slice the energy consumption by at least half.  If your DVR turns on when the power cable is plugged in then you can program the timer to turn off the DVR when you know you will not be using it, like while you normally sleep or are at work.  The Kill-A-Watt Graphic Timer has up to 96 programmable on/off switches each day to make it easy to have more than two or three times when the DVR is turned off every day.

Like many new electronics my LG HDTV has an “energy saving” or “green” mode that will reduce its power consumption.  With effectively three settings i can reduce the electricity consumption of my TV by up to 61%.  After choosing any of the energy saving mode the TV shows graphically how much the selected mode is saving with a 0 to 100% bar, a nice touch to make you feel even better when selecting any of the saving modes.  A Kill-A-Watt EZ is the perfect way to check the effectiveness of each of these modes in order to verify the energy savings while not degrading the television’s performance.

The 32” HD LCD screen uses approximately 90 watts per hour during normal usage.  Turning on the energy saving modes dims the screen slightly, depending on the mode, to reduce the power consumption of the screen.  The minimum mode is barely noticeable while reducing the usage to about 3% to 87 watts per hour.  The maximum mode dims the screen markedly, though is less noticeable in a darker room, and reduces usage 61% to about 35 watts per hour.  While it does cut the power usage by impressively it also reduces the performance of the monitor.  Using the Kill-A-Watt EZ showed the medium “energy saving” mode is the happy medium of not greatly affecting the TV’s performance while dropping the electricity consumed by 27%, down to about 66 watts per hour.

Take a look at your TV to see if it has built in energy saving or green modes and save a few cents a month.  If your television does not have one of these modes plug it into a Kill-A-Watt EZ and adjust the brightness and other settings to find where you are comfortable with the performance and savings.

Smart Strip LCG4

While looking at my entertainment system I found that electricity was being wasted by some of the components.  Using a Kill-A-Watt EZ electricity monitor showed that the DVD player and the BluRay player were both wasting energy while not in use.  Both devices draw electricity even while “off” and because they are not in use for a majority of the time the easy remedy is to just unplug them to save about $0.50 per month.

If keeping components of your entertainment system unplugged is bothersome then using a “smart” power strip will help save a good portion of the electricity being wasted.  ”Smart” power strips will turn on/off certain outlets depending on if the main outlet is in use.  This allows your secondary devices like a DVD player or speaker system to only draw power when the TV is turned on and is drawing power through the main outlet.  Most “smart” power strips also have independent outlets that are always on for devices like a DVR/TiVo which needs to be on all the time even if the TV is off.

The Smart Strip LCG4 is the perfect solution.  While the DVD and BluRay players will still draw electricity while the TV is on it does stop the devices drawing electricity while the entertainment system is not in use.  ”Smart” power strips will normally pay for themselves in less than 5 years, or even sooner if energy pricing continues to raise.