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Operating Costs of Household Appliances

Where Does All That Electricity Go?

When you receive your monthly electric bill, do you know where the power was used? This graph shows how energy is used in the average home.

Your use may vary depending on:

• your lifestyle
• the size of your family
• the size and age of your appliances

The amount used also varies with the weather and seasons.

Once you have an idea how the electricity is being used, you may be able to figure out ways to cut back. When trying to conserve energy, concentrate on the areas of large usage.

In winter, heating will be over one half of the energy going into the home. In summer, air conditioning will result in a major impact to your electric bill.

You may want to consider a new heat pump to replace an old furnace and air conditioning system. A new heat pump may provide you with the best potential for savings on your electric bill. The next area with the greatest potential for savings will be your hot water heater.

Compute your Appliance Cost

Bills are figured on your use of kilowatt hours, which are 1,000 watt hours. You can figure the cost per month for an appliance from its wattage.

For example, if you have a 100 watt light bulb and you used this light for a total of 200 hours last month, you multiply the 200 hours by the 100 watts and you have 20,000 watt hours, or 20 kilowatt hours.

Multiply the 20 kilowatt hours times the average cost per kilowatt, which is 8¢ for South Central PPD, and this light costs approximately $1.60 for the month to operate on a year around basis.

Appliances which produce heat take the most electricity. All electrical appliances have the wattage listed somewhere on the appliance. You can use this figure to determine the cost of operation of this appliance. (Note: Thermostatically controlled appliances are not “on” 100% of the time. For example, an electric oven is “on” about 50% of the time when baking.)

To figure operating cost per month:

kWh used per month x the cost per kWh = Operating cost per month

Typical Operating Costs of Electric Household Appliances

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