Small Kitchen Appliances & Energy Useage?

[Richard Kilgore]

I have had a conversation or two recently with others who are trying to conserve on energy useage and expenses. One person thought that small appliances like toaster ovens, popcorn air poppers, coffee roasters and water boilers use a significant amount of energy and their use should be reduced or eliminated in favor of using a microwave oven. This surprised me. I have assumed that using a 1500 watt water boiler for drinking tea all day long, for example, would have a negligible impact on useage and an energy bill over a month period.

Does anyone know anything about this or how to figure out how much it costs to use such small appliances?

[Joe Blowe]

The best way to figure out small appliance energy usage is to get yourself a Kill-A-Watt.

You'll be surprised what little energy a kitchen appliance can use. For example, we have a Zojirushi hot water dispenser that uses 800 watts while boiling the water, but only 55 watts to keep the hot water at 208F. To figure out how much this would cost you in your area, take 55 watts and divide by 1000, then multiply by the cost of electricity ($0.1299 in our area). (55/1000)*.1299 = $0.0071 per hour of operation in SoCal. A 1500 watt space heater running at full blast would cost (1500/1000)*.1299 = $0.1948 per hour of operation in SoCal. But as soon as you turn the thermostat down, and it begins to cycle on and off, you lower the cost of operation.

Toaster ovens and the like use peak wattage while the coils are fired up, but only use a few watts to maintain the overall temp. My Cadco convection oven uses 1.2 KwH of energy for a loaf of no knead bread. That includes a 30 minute preheat at 475F, 25 minutes at 450F, and another 50 minutes at 350F. All that for a total of (1200/1000)*.1299 = $0.1558! I challenge anyone with a built-in electric oven to meet those numbers -- you can't because you're heating a larger cavity. Plain and simple.

Small appliances are more efficient because they generally do a specific job in a smaller space, so to speak. Just like using a space heater to heat the room your sitting, versus turning on a whole house furnace to heat the room your in.

[Peter the eater]

There is a cooking show featuring Chef Lesia Burlak and sponsored by Oster, maker of small kitchen appliances. They claim much energy can be saved by using their products.

I've wondered about this idea as well. There's some relevant discussion on this topic.

[tsquare]

While I don't really understand it, it is the energy "leaked" by leaving all the small electrical items plugged in that is the real energy problem. Using the small items isn't so much the issue. The efficiency experts all say to unplug anything anything that is not in use.

nice explaination

[paulraphael]

While I don't really understand it, it is the energy "leaked" by leaving all the small electrical items plugged in that is the real energy problem. Using the small items isn't so much the issue. The efficiency experts all say to unplug anything anything that is not in use.

nice explaination

←

That only applies to things that actually draw power, like computers (when asleep, or when keepting the battery charged), tvs and vcrs (to retain programming and clock settings, etc.). And it applies in a big way to anything that uses a wall wart power supply. Those things consume power whenever they're plugged in. You can tell ... they're always warm. One solution is to put appliances with wall warts on a power strip that you turn off when it's not in use.

Most things, like toasters and mixers and washing machines, don't draw power when they're off.

For things that consume power to maintain programming and clock settings ... well, you'd live in a world of unprogrammed electronics and blinking 12:00 displays if you didn't leave them plugged in. It's no big deal ... the amount of energy drawn by a VCR compared with a toaster oven is barely worth mentioning.

[Peter the eater]

. . . . Most things, like toasters and mixers and washing machines, don't draw power when they're off.

Unless you have the Transformer Decepticon line of kitchen appliances.