Marc’s Musings Reality from Marc’s point of view!

Another surprise here. Ishwar suggested putting the Kill A Watt on my TV to see what the power consumption is like when it’s just sitting there waiting for me to turn it on. From what we’ve both heard I had rather expected the TV to consume a fair bit of power in this mode. At least that’s why we’re supposed to unplug such appliances when not in use (yeah, like that’s going to happen).

As it was the TV consumes so little power that it doesn’t even register on my power meter. In fact, after nearly a day (21 hrs) it still had not consumed enough to register any value at all.

Either my 12 year old rear projection TV set is extraordinarily energy efficient or those energy saver guides are using “common sense” rather than actual empirical evidence when they offer this advice…

Anyway, I’ve hooked up my entire entertainment system to check out what a week or so of consumption is like. Coming up soon.

Posted under On the Home Front, Tech Stuff

I ended up leaving the Kill A Watt on my fridge for a *lot* longer than I intended. But at least I got a pretty good representation of its consumption.

These results were a big surprise to me. I’ve always considered that the fridge should be one of the chief energy consumers in the house and was expecting these numbers to be much greater than this.

RESULTS

Elapsed time: 623 hrs (about 26 days)
Measured Consumption (Watts): 173 <– This is what I spotted when the compressor was running
Measured Consumption (Amps): 2.43
Cost -
     Actual (for duration of test): $6.04
     Daily: $0.23
     Weekly: $1.62
     Monthly: $6.94
     Annual: $84.49

Posted under On the Home Front, Tech Stuff

I received an email today from DirecTV listing the current pay per view offerings for this week and saw a movie that Michelle said she wanted to see. OK, OK it’s Mike Myers’ “The Love Guru”, call me a wuss but I’m gonna enjoy it too.

So I went to my Tivo to set it up to record and I noticed a new flag on the confirmation screen indicating that the PPV movie will expire at Noon tomorrow. Since I seldom watch a movie I’ve recorded in even the same month I recorded it much less the next day, I was somewhat perturbed.
So I went to the DirecTV website and looked this up and can see that my recording will probably last for a long time provided I don’t view it. Once I begin playing the movie, the clock starts ticking and I will have 24 hours within which to finish viewing.
There are plenty of movies that I will start to watch and then decide to finish days or weeks later. I don’t have an issue waiting to see the ending and I can remember the beginning well enough that I don’t lose anything across that gap.
What I have now is my satellite company (or, more probably, the content provider behind them) dictating how I will view my recording.
One of the reasons I use PPV is for exactly this freedom. Renting a movie from a Blockbusteresque source comes with the explicit contract that I need to return this item in a day or a week depending on popularity. But PPV has always been more ephemeral than that and the added flexibility (plus the lower cost and avoided trip to the store) have always been of great value to me.
Read More…

Posted under Movies / TV, On the Home Front, Opinions, Retail Experiences, Tech Stuff, Utils / Tools

I’m quite pleased, after leaving a single 60 Watt bulb on for nearly 10 days, here are the results from my Kill A Watt EZ P4460.
They confirm that the unit appears to be functioning correctly and that my last couple of posted results are probably accurate.
I was worried that the unit was under reporting.

RESULTS

Elapsed time: 237 hrs (I left the bulb on continuously for this test)
Measured Consumption (Watts): 60 <– this is what I was a little concerned about.
Measured Consumption (Amps): .5 <– also consistent with what I would expect.
Total Consumption (kWh): 14.6
Cost -
     Actual (for duration of test): $1.55
     Daily: $0.15
     Weekly: $1.08
     Monthly: $4.65
     Annual: $56.64

This puts a concrete dollar value on “we’ll leave a light on for you”.

One 60 Watt bulb, in my neck of the woods. With power supplied by Georgia Power, just under $57 per year.

Next, I’m hooking it up to my 12 year old Whirlpool refrigerator, I am almost scared to see what I’m paying to keep that running.

Posted under On the Home Front, Tech Stuff

I had the computer set up and it was showing fairly steady power consumption of around 220 watts. Again a little less than I expected. Turning off my smaller monitor drops the consumption by 19 Watts (s/b 34 Watts), the larger monitor by about 26 Watts (s/b 55 Watts).

I’m going to disengage the power meter now since I want to reconfigure things a bit as I swap in my new modem/router combo from AT&T. I’m going to hook it up to some known consumer (a light bulb) to verify if the consumption readings are accurate.

Assuming accuracy, my main computer’s consumption after 273 hours (a little over 11 days) is 51 kilowatts or $5.42. The average cost is about 47 cents per day or $3.33 per week. The predicted annual cost is about $173 per year. A bit of an eye opener really. Little things have so much power to add up when paired with the inexorable march of time.

Posted under On the Home Front, Tech Stuff

I had intended to let the Kill A Watt have a little more time with my hair dryer but I was having such gargantuan issues with my DSL today that I decided to turn off my whole computer system (UPS, Router, Modem, the works). Since this is such a rare event and, since I wanted to measure the computer system’s consumption, I figured I might as well go ahead and attach the Kill A Watt device to the computer now.

First, after a week with the hair dryer I see that I’ve only consumed .09 kilowatt hours (or about as much power as turning on a 60 watt lightbulb and leaving it lit for 90 minutes across an elapsed time of an entire week). This was surprising given that it’s such a high energy consumer. It’s rated to consume 1600 Watts but the Kill A Watt showed only 1398 Watts being consumed. So I suppose it’s a little “greener” than I thought

I suppose this shouldn’t surprise me greatly as I really don’t use the hair dryer for very long. Just enough to try to make my part somewhat stable.

Posted under On the Home Front, Tech Stuff

I picked up the Kill A Watt EZ P4460 in order to see how much energy various appliances are using in our house. This little unit is great because it doesn’t lose its settings when unplugged (or the power goes out). It will keep track of the elapsed time and give you hourly, daily, weekly and annual consumption for whatever’s plugged into it. Great for things that cycle on and off (your fridge) or are used intermittently (like the hair drier which is hooked up to it now).

To make things easier, I have a short 3 prong extension cord attached to it so I can keep the meter in an easy to view spot while it’s in use so I can remember that it is there and check it periodically.

Georgia power is reasonably expensive, about 10.6 cents/kilowatt hour according to my bill, and I only expect it to get more expensive in the future. However, our energy bills seem to be reasonably modest, averaging about $115 per
month throughout the year so it’s not like this is a huge bite in our
wallet. But, even though almost all of our lighting is now compact fluorescent, I am sure there are areas where improvement can be had. I’d prefer not to waste energy if I can help it.

So, over the next few months I will be attaching the unit to whatever strikes my fancy and will let it sit for a few days to try to gauge consumption and cost.

To test it, I initially hooked it up to our CF tri-light lamp that Michelle uses most mornings and can see that consumes negligible power. I believe it was going to be 5 cents a year to operate (she only ever uses the lowest power setting anyway - about 13 watts).

I am anxious to see how our nearly 12 year-old fridge rates. Then on to the computers…

Posted under On the Home Front, Tech Stuff