I get Consumer Reports every month. It's a magazine worth much more than the subscription price. This latest issue has a little sidebar about two different electricity meters. One of them is called the Kill A Watt and it costs just $23 on Amazon.
What you do with this thing is you plug an appliance into it and then plug it into the wall. It will then tell you how much electricity that appliance is using. You'll need a copy of your latest electric bill to really understand how much the appliance is costing you since the Kill A Watt doesn't know how much you pay for electricity.
With this unit you can tell what appliances in your home are the real electricity hogs and you can then replace them with more economical models. This reminds me of when I replaced my electric water heater last summer and I started saving a hundred dollars a month on my electric bill. I can easily see this device paying for itself many times over as you find new ways to lower your consumption all around your home. I'll be getting one real soon. The first thing I"ll check is how much the space heaters in my house cost to operate.
The Kill A Watt is today's solution. Tomorrow's is the Greenbox web based solution. I just read about this Bay Area company in Forbes magazine. They are coming out with a new product that will measure your power consumption all around your home, and then display the information on your computer. This will enable you to get a much more holistic view of your consumption than the Kill A Watt device can provide. Having this kind of informaiton would really be terrific. I can't wait to get this. I've added myself to their mailing list to find out when it's available.
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