Trying to figure out your electric bill every month can be a headache if you don’t understand exactly how your appliances are playing into the mix. With so many Energy Star appliances and older appliances mixing into your home you should be able to figure out what appliances use more energy as you go about your daily lives. Your electrician can help explain to you how you power is being broken down, but they will not be able to know which appliance is causing your regularly 38 dollar electric bill to jump to 52 dollars. While during summer it can be 
chopped up to your AC, it is always a good way to try to understand how you use your electricity on a regular basis.
Energy.gov is a good place to go to try to make a good estimate for you machines, however it is good to be able to have the equations on hand. When you do it on your own you can easily see from day to day what appliance is using your electricity so you can pinpoint any changes in particular appliances. With these 5 steps you can attempt to find out what is being powered in your home.
- Hours the appliance run
- Things like your fridge will run 24/7 because it needs to while other appliances like your television will easily be able to be turned on and off as needed. Now your fridge does not run on full power all the time while it is on. There are many ways to figure out how many your appliances are running on full steam. You could estimate which means you can say how long you probably had the television on you are able to
use that number as a pretty good estimate. For the fridge, where it runs all the time you will need to take the number of hours for the fridge is plugged in and divide the number by 3 and you will have how long it ran at maximum wattage. Another way to do this is to keep a log of the appliances you turn on and off so you have an exact number.
- Things like your fridge will run 24/7 because it needs to while other appliances like your television will easily be able to be turned on and off as needed. Now your fridge does not run on full power all the time while it is on. There are many ways to figure out how many your appliances are running on full steam. You could estimate which means you can say how long you probably had the television on you are able to
- What’s the wattage?
- The wattage can be found in many different places depending on the appliances. Some appliances will have the wattage stamped somewhere on the appliance either on the back, bottom or near a label. This will actually be the max wattage available to the appliance. Another way to go about finding the wattage is to find the electrical current draw (how many amps come from the device) and how many volts it uses when it is on. Multiple these numbers together and you can find an average wattage. The final way is to do some research online.
- Do maths.
- Okay so yes, there is some math involved, forgive us but that is what your trusty calculator is for. So to find the daily energy use from the appliance the following formula is done.
- (Wattage X Hours Used Per Day) 1000 = Daily Kilowatt hour(kWh) consumption
- For Annual Consumption the following math equation is done.
- Daily kWh consumption X number of days used per year = annual energy consumption
- Finding the costAnnual Energy Consumption X utility rate per kWh = annual cost to run appliance
- Okay so yes, there is some math involved, forgive us but that is what your trusty calculator is for. So to find the daily energy use from the appliance the following formula is done.
While these seem complicated they are actually relatively simple to execute. All you need to be able to do is find the information you need to be able to work on these items. This is the best way for you to figure out what is being used in your home yearly by a particular item in your home. This will help if you are consciously trying to save money on your electric bill.
