How much does it cost to run your appliances?
Posted by: theprotagonist5 on: November 4, 2007
- In: Americanism| Family| Shopping| Technology| business| home| money
- Comment!
Everyone gets their electric bill every month and pays it thinking, ok that’s taken care of. Maybe you look at the total KWH used that month compared with other months and think about how your air conditioning drives your bill up in the summertime. But no one knows how much each appliance contributes to that total? If you want to save money and energy where can you save the most? Well I was looking at a site that lists these costs today and thought I would share.
- I think if people knew it costs $4 bucks in electricity per month to run all their dishwasher cycles (not including water costs) they might hold off until it’s a little more full.
- And if they knew it cost $3 bucks in electricity to per month brew coffee every day that they will only drink one cup out of, they might just buy instant coffee that doesn’t require a coffeemaker and is good for making just one cup.
- Or if they knew that a garage stand alone freezer will cost them $75 bucks in electricity a year to run, they might not buy one and might figure a way to get by with buying just what they can eat within a few weeks and just use the regular one in the kitchen.
- I am dissapointed that there is no listing for microwaves also. Since most people use them so often.
All these things add up and they don’t just hurt the environment, they hurt your finances too. My appologies for the copy paste, but I just think it’s important to get this info out there. Check out the list from the US dept of energy.
Typical Energy Costs for Household Appliances |
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| EQUIPMENT | MONTHLY EXPENDITURE | ANNUAL EXPENDITURE | COST PER USE |
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| HEATING | |||
| Electric Furnace | $90 for 90 hours | $270 for 270 hours | 80¢ – $1.20 /hour |
| Pilot Light | $3 | $36 | 8-11 ¢/day |
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| COOLING & VENTILATION | |||
| Central Air Conditioner | |||
 ENERGY STAR-labeled |
$35 for 7 hrs/day (in the summer) | $140 for 900 hrs/yr | 13-19 ¢/hour |
| Evaporative Cooler (“Swamp Cooler”) | $1.50 for 40 hrs (in the summer) | $6 for 150 hrs | 3-5 ¢/hour |
| Portable Fan | $1 for 100 hrs/mo (in the summer) | $3 | 1 ¢/hour |
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| KITCHEN | |||
| Gas Range | $1.50, assuming 1 hr/day | $18 | 5 ¢/hr, per burner |
| Gas Oven | $2.80 for 40 hrs | $35 for 500 hrs | 6-8 ¢/hr |
| Dishwasher | $4.50 for 1 cycle/day | $54 for 360 cycles | 13-18 ¢/cycle |
| Refrigerator | |||
| Typical 1990 model |
$6 | $70 | 19 ¢/day |
| Energy Star-labeled 2000 model |
$3.50 | $43 | 12 ¢/day |
| Stand-Alone Freezer | |||
| Typical 1997 model |
$3 | $35 | 8-11 ¢/day |
| Toaster | 10¢, assuming 1 use/day | $1.20, assuming 1 use/day | 0.3-0.4¢ |
| Coffee Maker | $3-4, assuming 1 use/day | $44, assuming 1 use/day | 10-14 ¢/brew |
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| LAUNDRY | |||
| Note: Expenditures for dryers and clothes washers assume 1 load per day. | |||
| Gas Clothes Dryer | $4 | $47 | 10-16¢/load |
| Clothes Washer w/ electric water heater: | |||
| warm wash & cold rinse |
$7.50 | $93 | 20-30¢/load |
| Clothes Washer w/ gas water heater: | |||
| warm wash & cold rinse |
$2.70 | $33 | 8-10¢/load |
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| LIGHTING | |||
| Light bulb, single | |||
| 18-watt fluorescent |
21¢ for 150 hrs | $2.50 for 1825 hrs | 0.1 ¢/hr |
| 300-watt halogen |
$3.50 for 150 hrs | $42 for 1825 hrs | 2 ¢/hr |
| Total lighting cost, typical house | $9 | $107 | 25-50¢/day |
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| WATER HEATING | |||
| Conventional electric water heater | $32 | $390 | 90¢-$1.30/day |
| Oil Water Heater | $19 | $230 | 60-75¢/day |
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| HOME ENTERTAINMENT | |||
| VCR | 5¢, assuming 2 movies/wk | $1 | under 1 ¢/movie |
| Stereo, Component System | $1-$1.50, assuming 10 hrs/wk | $15, assuming 520 hrs/yr | 2-4¢/hr |
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| OTHER/MISCELLANEOUS | |||
| Aquarium | $2-$4, assuming 10 hrs/day | $40 | 6-10¢/day (10 hrs on/day) |
| Cordless Phone | 16¢ | $1.90 | n/a |
13 Responses to "How much does it cost to run your appliances?"
November 24, 2007 at 6:49 pm
Our electric and water are separate. I was wondering if you had any idea of the cost of leaving your outside spiket on for two weeks? Without realizing it, I left it on (it has a hose and nozzle attached to it)unfortunatly did not realize it for two weeks. I live in Live Oak Florida. I am afraid i may have run up a very high bill because of my forgetfulness. You seem to be very knowledgable and I would appreciate any information you could send my way to help me with this dilema.
Thank you Sharon Fischer
November 26, 2007 at 1:37 am
Hi Sharon,
Thanks for your comment. In order to calculate that you would need 2 pieces of information that I do not have. One would be the price you pay per gallon for water. You can get this from past water bills. Second you then have to estimate how many gallons ran out the hose in those 2 weeks. If you have those 2 numbers you can multiply the gallons by the price and find out your answer.
[...] the average household does about 400 loads of laundry per year. On average, that will cost about $93 per year in energy [...]
[...] Energy costs for washing and drying one load every other day are probably $150/yr for 2.5 years (based on the high end of the estimate given here and here). [...]
February 18, 2009 at 5:59 am
As for not using a stand alone freezer and buying only what can be eaten in a few weeks. That means more trips to the store to purchase food that I currently can get from my freezer. Those extra trips are by car and that means burning more gasoline. Not so sure that saving $75 per year is the wise move in this case, not only financially but from the enviormental stand point as well.
October 11, 2009 at 4:11 pm
You are right. We live about 30 miles from where we do our major shopping. The small town we live in is woefully short on markets and long on costs for goods, so we go to the bigger city a couple times a month. When our gas prices rose higher and higher we started to freeze more supplies, and the bulk products are cheaper too. I freeze meat, cheese, bread items, lunch meats, sometimes even milk and cream. In season, I freeze some of our vegies, like snowpeas. We can a lot of other stuff, like tomatoes and berries, but I am not sure that is the most cost effective either. It takes a lot of energy to pressure can or water bath some items. Tomato sauce with other vegies, 45 minutes or so… in a water bath. The plus side, if the power dies, there is no danger of loss like with a freezer.
We make those trips to the city pay. The list is always long – not just shopping but other errands too! Watching the speed limit helps also.
May 13, 2009 at 5:16 am
i would like to know how much does it cost to leave a 42 in tv on all night
June 22, 2009 at 2:56 pm
I’d just like to point out that at the beginning I believe the cost per use was confused with the monthly expenditure. If you look at the table you’ll see that a dishwasher is listed at 13-18 cents per load, and a coffee maker is listed at 10-14 cents per brew. Although I do agree with your general point that we should be more careful and make sure we run full loads, turn off lights, etc. it’s not quite as excessive as you stated.
September 14, 2009 at 11:44 am
I just finished talking with our electric company, we are paying a 250+dollar a month light bill, I don’t believe it should be this high. The woman that I spoke with told me that it is our appliances that cost us so much. According to her it is costing us 140.00 per month just for our oven, stove, washer and dryer, tv’s, digital boxes, ceiling fans, etc. regardless of how much we use them. Is this correct?
September 14, 2009 at 12:12 pm
I think there are several variable parts to how your bill is put together. They are:
* how much your electric company charges per killowat hour
* how many appliances you have running 24 hours a day (refrigerators, air conditioning…)
* How much you use the other electric appliances (lights, TV)
* Whether the pricing is different for killowat hours depending on the time of day. Sometimes it is cheaper if you use electricity at night when most people are not using it. (off peak hours)
Your bill should itemize how many killowat hours you are using per month. You can also get meters to record how many killwathours your appliances use. They are available online and plug between your appliance plug and the outlet. Then you can track how much electricity you are using and whether or not they are charging you for more than you use.
Also make sure nobody is plugging in something to the outside of your house, like powering a generator or running electricity to a shed outdoors? This would be electricity you pay for yet is being used by someone else. (not likley but worth looking into)
September 18, 2009 at 11:03 am
We just moved into a house that has a fridge that seems to run almost constantly. We will be replacing it but I wanted to know how much it costs per minute of it actually running. I know fridges are supposed to shut off more often than mine does. It is probably less than 10 years old. It is a side-by-side.
October 11, 2009 at 4:17 pm
I am trying to find out the energy use difference between my crockpot and my electric oven (1970’s dinasaur), and the microwave. How much does it cost me to micro defrost? If I knew maybe I wouldn’t forget so often!
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November 5, 2007 at 12:45 pm
Having an electrical engineer who works for the power company as a father is what makes me conscience of power consumption. Electric motors and heaters are the big power suckers. Most electrical items list out how many watts they use.
There are also devices to measure usage. (via SpudArt)