Kill a Watt Meter
 

I just ordered a "kill a watt" meter off of ebay for 20$. Should be a fun toy for measuring how much power a given appliance is using under different conditions. I will do some testing and write up some of my findings in a week or two.

great price you got there - yeah is really shows the amount of energy things take - I use one to measure the energy it takes to recharge my scooter and measure the efficiency of my charger.

I have had mine for a few years. Great toy for sure.

I have it hooked up to my HDTV and so far since the last power outage 1584 hours (66 days) only 18.13kwh of electric watching HDTV what is weird is the fridge used .73kwh per day average over a weeks time yet total office use is like 3kwh a day . . . not sure where the rest is going since I use a 9 watt florescent for lighting and a 30 watt laptop . . .

Is your HDTV like a LCD computer monitor (using less power than a regular monitor)?
sorry, I am out of the loop when it comes to TV technology.

Watts
 

Here are some of the readings from appliances at my parents house:

-Maytag washing machine .2KWH per load...or 2cents.
-Maytag dryer- more than the device can register.
-Fax machine plugged in but not operating-3 watts
-Radio Shack cordless telephone-2watts
-JVC 32" flatscreen TV-99 watts on, 8 watts when off!
-Denon home theat. amplifier-68 watts on, 0 watts off
-Dell laptop inspiron 6000-on 22-26 watts, charger unplugged from computer 1 watt.
-Parasound phono preamp-1 watt when plugged in but not operating
-Sony Dual Cassette deck-on 4 watts, 7watts playing tape, 0 watts off.
-Sony Receiver (energy star) on 23 watts, off 0 watts.
-Sony 5 disc cd changer-off 0 watts, playing disc 9watts.
-Old Fluorescent desk lamp with one tube working 17 watts.
-Older JVC 27in TV- off 1 watt, on 86 watts.
-old JVC VCR off 4 watts, on 15 watts.
-Dell Dimension desktop computer- off 2 watts, on 49-93 watts depending on activity.
-Linksys wireless router 3-4 watts
-Epson stylus phota printer and photocopier-off 3 watts, on 15 watts.
-Dell CRT monitor 15in on 50-58 watts, with no input but power button on 2 watts, off 0 watts.
-Altec Lansing comp. speakers 2 watts on 1 watt off
-Bose Wave Cd/radio-2 watts on 6 watts off
-Samsung small window A/C on med cool 320-340 watts.
-Oral B sonic complete electric toothbrush 1-2 watts.
-Maytag large side by side refrigerator-1.41 KWH a day @64 deg F. or 51.47$ a year.
-Denon older receiver/amp on 31 watts.

The big suprise was the new JVC TV which uses 8 watts when it is off...why?

Also note the large difference between the laptop and desktop computer, and all the little things that dont always need to be plugged in that always draw power.
I was suprised how little electricity was used to wash a load of laundry...only 2 cents worth. Pretty small compared to how quickly a car goes through 2 cents worth of gas.
However, the dryer is the big energy hog, so much so that it has a different plug which will not fit the kill a watt meter. I would think that the clothesline is a big money saver over the years.

I have a 26 " Samsung LCD HDTV with HDTV Tuner and PIP so you get over teh air transmissions of HDTV and OMG it is amazing when the cars are not going by blocking the signal. It uses about 58 watts when on depending upon sound and picture a little and when off about .5 watts the KAWATT meter reads between 0 and 1 on the watt meter setting.

8 watts when off is just the background processor that monitors the remote control signal and maybe some power supply losses unless you have another audio or video signal activating some circuit in the TV.

LCD monitors use very little power generally and this HDTV can operate as a monitor at 1360x768 native resolution and is very high contrast 4000:1 and excelent dark level display for those dark movies . . . you still can make out what is going on in the shadows. I actually uses less power than the 13" Emerson VCR TV I used to watch and blows the picture quality away.