Watts-Up with my power?

Wednesday, July 18th, 2007 at 3:49 pm | 2,236 views | trackback url

Watts-Up Professional Power MeterI recently purchased a WATTS-UP Pro power analyzer/data logger from SMARTHOME in an effort to try to ascertain how much power my home and office equipment was consuming on a monthly basis.

We’re currently paying roughly $180/month for the power we use. At 0.12kWh, that’s a lot of power we’re consuming SOMEWHERE. Where is it?

What is taking up the most power?

Is it the computers?

Is it the appliances?

Is it something else?

We’ve already replaced every conventional incandescent bulb with compact fluorescent lamps, which are saving about 80% of the power right off the top from the bulbs we were using before. But it isn’t enough to bring the monthly bill down to make a difference.

I started testing my office, various appliances, outlets, other things. What I found, was shocking and surprising. Here’s a small sample:

My Gateway FPD2485W 24″ LCD monitor consumes 90 watts(!!) of power while turned on. It was the single-highest power eater I tested so far.

This monitor is plugged into a 16-outlet strip, which also includes an AMD64/4600+ machine with 4gb RAM, several USB gadgets, bluetooth adapters, phone charger, flatbed scanner, rechargeable battery charger, landline phone extension and several other things.

The total consumption of all of those devices, is 282W total. The LCD is eating 30% of everything else. The AMD64 machine itself consumes 100W.

The TV/DVR/Stereo takes 140W, and is on 24×7.

A 3-speed fan in my office takes 250W on the fastest setting.

The dehumidifier I use in my office is a 600W device, and after spinning up, it eats 687W. Unfortunately, the dehumidifier is a necessary device in the office, otherwise I’d have my own weather system in there in 3 days. I pull about 3 gallons of water out of the air every day in the office.

The toaster oven in the kitchen cooking 2 slices of toast on the “Toast” setting: 1300 WATTS!!!

I’ve only had it for a few hours, but the results are quite shocking and surprising so far. I’m going to start testing under load, over longer periods and on the bigger usage appliances (washer, dryer, refridgerator and such).

Last Modified: Saturday, March 5th, 2016 @ 21:49

One Response to “Watts-Up with my power?”

  1. […] written a couple of previous posts about saving power around the office and home, and have been using my Watts-Up Pro power […]


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