Has anyone used one of these things to find out how much electricity their appliances/gadgets are using? Did you find out anything you were surprised by? Did you find that information to be worth the cost of buying one? I suppose the frugal thing would be to buy a used one, test everything out for a set period, then re-sell. I guess I'm just curious to get a better picture of where my utility payments are going.
Kill-a-Watt
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Yes, I bought one on eBay. I was surprised to learn that half of our electricity is used to cool a jar of peanut butter, some ketchup, and a few other condiments, and the other half is used by some kind of ghost sink, probably the battery charger/converter---I have not been able to test that directly yet.
Conversely, the electronics (laptops, wireless, ...) use almost nothing. I thought they were a much bigger factor.
You can easily sell it again on ebay and recover most of your cost. Actually, I ended up getting a new one because the spread is <$1.
Conversely, the electronics (laptops, wireless, ...) use almost nothing. I thought they were a much bigger factor.
You can easily sell it again on ebay and recover most of your cost. Actually, I ended up getting a new one because the spread is <$1.
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