Typical FW retard fight in progress.

Izpoof said:
I answered the question like a rational person. You dont buy based on how much you would save, you buy on what you NEED by priority. It makes no sense to buy a TV only because that saves you the most when you are sitting there with no AC and nothing cold to drink in dirty clothes.

If you desire to buy based on which energy savings add up the quickest then you have more pressing needs in life, like giving the children cold milk from the fridge or making them a tad more comfortable with cool air.

The washing machine and dishwasher can be run at different times, you dont need this item to tell you that you're drawing more amps than your breaker can handle.
Youre making up scenrios just to justify the purchase of this. Seriously, it has never happened to me nor anyone that I know and doubtful it has happened to you. If however it has, you still need to get a repairman to look at both so it's a moot point.

Hang it up guy. If you want to feel better about buying this, then you certainly do not need to post here to feel it. Just smile and tell yourself it was money well spent and you can believe yourself.

Sorry if the first scenario is too complicated for you. None of them needed to be replaced now as they all are running, so the milk is cold and room is cool. But if one turns out to be drawing an inordinate amount of power, you'd never know.

The second scenario did happen to me, in the house that I rent. I plugged in my kill-a-watt into one and ran a full cycle, then the other and ran a cycle. It turns out neither had a high enough draw when combined to trip the breaker. So, the owner called out an electrician to find that a previous owner, when putting in some molding, nailed through the insulation on the electrical wiring, when the humidity was high enough, it would arc, blowing the fuse. With your solution, you would either have run them separately and still been at risk of a fire, or called in repairmen for both appliances for no reason. But hey, you saved $20.

Just because you don't see the use in a tool, doesn't make it useless. In fact, I don't see why you are bothering to continue to dog this thread because you don't have a way to use this product. It is like saying I have no trees to cut down, so chainsaws are useless. Or I have a hand saw and a miter box, so a powered miter saw is useless. This is a useful tool, when used appropriately.

Izpoof said:vante said:CELO said:Not being sarcastic but what is the point of getting this?
"If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it." - Peter Drucker

Say you look at your electric bill and you decide you want to reduce it. Where do you start? What electronics are the biggest draws? How much power does your entertainment center use when it is off? Is the cost of leaving that computer on 24/7 worth the benefit? How much money would you save by replacing something old and inefficient with a modern energy star version? How many hours will it take to break even on a fluorescent bulb? Use this enough and you will see the little dollar signs dissipating over each outlet. Informed decisions are better decisions.

Turn off you computer when not using it. Duh
entertainment center draw such a minimal ammount of power when its off that its a moot point, but if youre worried about it just unplug it.

How much money would you save by replacing something old and inefficient with a modern energy star version???? Uhm you would save the SAME amount by doing it anyway and NOT buying this lame device!! lol

Again, this isnt rocket science people. If its old, then replace it if you can afford it.
If youre not in the room, turn the light off.
I mean, cmon, if you need this lame device to help you use your brain then you better start looking for something that works on your faucet and toilet to let you know how much $ can be saved in water.
That lawn mower needs a device to let you know how much gas youre using compared to the newer mowers.
Heck, why dont you buy a device to let you know how the other device is doing!!!!!!!

HAHAHA.

Save your $$ people, no deal here or give me your money and I'll tell you to turn off the light when you leave the room or to get rid of the 12 year old dishwasher for a new one(better yet, wash by hand.. shhhhhhh that's a secret)wink wink.

What's happened to you. Did you get possessed by the ghost of Onion?

Here is one that you can't deny. I am a product tester. Part of my job is to report wattage used vs wattage claims. I have to use one of these. Also, I occasionally have to compare products that are impossible to guess at. Which nas server uses the most wattage under a standard usage test. HP or Zyxel? Not so easy to guess when not comparing a fridge to a toaster, is it? I need two of these. Add in a Synologoy unit. I need three of these. Sure I could test them one at a time, but the test runs 24 hours. It costs more to wait 3 days than to run all three together on the same day.

I asked a simple honest question because I wanted to know if I was really missing something. Obviously, I was not. The ONLY post that makes sense to me is dmccall4's because he is using it for his job and that makes sense. For home use, it just does not make sense for me. I am sorry.

CELO said:I asked a simple honest question because I wanted to know if I was really missing something. Obviously, I was not. The ONLY post that makes sense to me is dmccall4's because he is using it for his job and that makes sense. For home use, it just does not make sense for me. I am sorry.

I suppose they don't teach maths in your portion of the US? Seriously, I don't know how much clearer I could have explained it.

wildbottom said:Hey Celo,
Go borrow one from a friend and then test all you Wall-Warts, TVs, and Computers. Then you can find out if you're missing "something."
Here's what I found out by using the Kill A Watt. My 2000 Model JVC VCR eats almost 10 watts on Standby. I don't even use it much.
My Cheap Ultra 600 Watt PC Power Supply (bought 3 years ago) eats 12 watts when my computer is "Shut Down." My PC speaker Wall-Wart eats 4 watts. Now I shut off the computer and speaker from the separate Power Strip.
By using the Kill-A-Watt to find those hungry units I saved over $25 on Electricity per year.
For every 1 watt saved it equals to a dollar in your pocket.
Here's the math.
1w * 20h * 365d = 7300Wh or 7.3KWh/yr
7.3KWh/yr * $0.14/KWh = $1.02/yr

Well put. Even some power strips use up juice when shut down so to keep it using up power completely you have to unplug.

CELO said:
Still, I do not understand. ANYTHING that is plug to your wall will use power, period. We all know that. However, you cannot live your daily life like that. So, unplug your TV every time you finish watching your TV, then plug the cord back on when you want to watch it. Do this for all the appliances in your home. For example if you unplug your refrigerator before you go to bed and plug it back on when you wake up in the morning, the food will be fine and you will still save even more.

See, everyday life is not like that. If you have a VCR and if you do not unplug it, not to mention why didn't you put it in the attic/storage in the first place, (I assume you have a DVD player) we should not even discuss if this unit is useful or not.

Anything that is plugged into your wall will use power when turned on. Some things use power when turned off. How much power it uses when turned on and when turned off is anybodies guess (except if you have a KillAWatt, then its not a guess). Unplugging a TV may not be a viable option. I don't have one because I use a TV tuner card, but I know when I unplugged the VCRs I used to use, all their memory would go away. So I'd have to reprogram the thing every time I did that if I had to.

Unplugging a refrigerator is a REALLY stupid idea. I'd prefer not to give myself food poisoning to save a couple dollars (if that). Remember, the refrigerator is thermostatically controlled. Most (though not all) of the energy is consumed while its cooling. If you leave the fridge off for several hours, there are two scenarios. If there was significant heat leakage you'll be saving money (but spoiling your food). If there wasn't significant heat leakage then the amount of savings may be quite minimal. And what happens if you forget to plug it back in?

As someone else pointed out, if you can't measure the results, its *IMPOSSIBLE* to take intelligent action. That's just a fact. Its a fact in financial instruments, its a fact in governing, its a fact in engineering. You must have some metric. Your metric seems to be "I *KNOW* (read as ASSUME) something old is drawing more power than something new and its drawing a lot of power when plugged in even if off". But you don't really know anything. When I started measuring my computer, I discovered what causes it to draw a lot of power, I found out that replacing the few year old power supply with an 80PLUS supply would pay for itself in literally 6 months and was hence a no brainer. You can find out just how good or bad your refrigerator is. Maybe the only problem was the coils were dirty. Maybe your fridge was working fine for years and years but has suddenly gotten much worse, and if you didn't measure anything you'd never know. You prefer to just assume and do stupid stuff like risk food poisoning.

One of the things that never ceases to amaze me for instance is those PSA ads talking about unplugging your cell phone chargers. Modern cell phone chargers use very little power when plugged in (small fractions of a watt). You'd be much better off worrying about your lights or your computer monitor or half a dozen other things. But you'd never know that, you'd just assume it uses a lot of power cause its plugged in. Silly!

hpmax said:CELO said:
Still, I do not understand. ANYTHING that is plug to your wall will use power, period. We all know that. However, you cannot live your daily life like that. So, unplug your TV every time you finish watching your TV, then plug the cord back on when you want to watch it. Do this for all the appliances in your home. For example if you unplug your refrigerator before you go to bed and plug it back on when you wake up in the morning, the food will be fine and you will still save even more.

See, everyday life is not like that. If you have a VCR and if you do not unplug it, not to mention why didn't you put it in the attic/storage in the first place, (I assume you have a DVD player) we should not even discuss if this unit is useful or not.

Anything that is plugged into your wall will use power when turned on. Some things use power when turned off. How much power it uses when turned on and when turned off is anybodies guess (except if you have a KillAWatt, then its not a guess). Unplugging a TV may not be a viable option. I don't have one because I use a TV tuner card, but I know when I unplugged the VCRs I used to use, all their memory would go away. So I'd have to reprogram the thing every time I did that if I had to.

Unplugging a refrigerator is a REALLY stupid idea. I'd prefer not to give myself food poisoning to save a couple dollars (if that). Remember, the refrigerator is thermostatically controlled. Most (though not all) of the energy is consumed while its cooling. If you leave the fridge off for several hours, there are two scenarios. If there was significant heat leakage you'll be saving money (but spoiling your food). If there wasn't significant heat leakage then the amount of savings may be quite minimal. And what happens if you forget to plug it back in?

As someone else pointed out, if you can't measure the results, its *IMPOSSIBLE* to take intelligent action. That's just a fact. Its a fact in financial instruments, its a fact in governing, its a fact in engineering. You must have some metric. Your metric seems to be "I *KNOW* (read as ASSUME) something old is drawing more power than something new and its drawing a lot of power when plugged in even if off". But you don't really know anything. When I started measuring my computer, I discovered what causes it to draw a lot of power, I found out that replacing the few year old power supply with an 80PLUS supply would pay for itself in literally 6 months and was hence a no brainer. You can find out just how good or bad your refrigerator is. Maybe the only problem was the coils were dirty. Maybe your fridge was working fine for years and years but has suddenly gotten much worse, and if you didn't measure anything you'd never know. You prefer to just assume and do stupid stuff like risk food poisoning.

One of the things that never ceases to amaze me for instance is those PSA ads talking about unplugging your cell phone chargers. Modern cell phone chargers use very little power when plugged in (small fractions of a watt). You'd be much better off worrying about your lights or your computer monitor or half a dozen other things. But you'd never know that, you'd just assume it uses a lot of power cause its plugged in. Silly!

Of course it is a silly idea to unplug the fridge or unplug the TV. I was just saying that if you want to save money with everything, then do those too. Good for the people who has a use of it. I was just asking the questions because I really thought I was missing something. For me it is useless, if it was for work use, then sure why not get it.

CELO said:Not being sarcastic but what is the point of getting this? I mean it only shows the wattage you use and does not actually help anything else, does it? It is cool to see how much watt you consume but isn't just that? I mean we all know iron sucks power, hair dryer sucks power, etc. but are we going to do? Stop using ironing or drying our hair??? Sorry, I am just curious and not bashing the deal.

Here you go, perfect example.

I have a PC that I leave on 24/7(Its my PVR PC, FTP server, etc). I actually choose low power components specifically to run cheap. The last mobo/proc I got here off a good Newegg combo deal....almost 2 years ago. Using the Kill-a-watt I was able to know that even with my choices of parts the machine still drew 106W at the Kill-a-Watt plug when it was on. In Ohio the cost for generation/transmission/distribution comes out to be .11/kwh.

So this machine was costing me:
106/1000=.106KWh
.106*24(hours in a day)*30(days in a month)=$8.40/month to run

A new deal came up about 2 months ago for a new mobo and dual core proc faster than the one I had in there and lower power for $40AR FS!

The machine with the new mobo/proc (69W at the Kill-a-Watt plug) costs me this:
69/1000=.069KWh
.069*24(hours in a day)*30(days in a month)=$5.46/month to run

...for a difference of $2.46/month. So upgrading to the faster, more power efficient mobo/proc will PAY FOR ITSELF COMPLETELY in just under 14 months! While I'm waiting I get to enjoy lower power bills and a faster machine! This also assumes electricity stays at its current price. How often does YOUR electricity rate go down?

Thank you Kill-a-watt for letting me buy more crap off FW!

P.S. I won't talk about the old machine I also left on frequently that was drawing 179W!