Assessing Appliance Operating Costs (kWh)

im4snow

Hi,

I'm trying to assess the operating costs of say an elec hot water heater, or an HVAC system. Since their true operating costs are user dependent (ie, you cannot rely on their EPA stickers for oper costs) I want to be able to measure their current draw over time (say a week or a month, etc).

I'm wondering if there are any products on the market that will measure the amps/watts of a larger appliance over time?

I know I can buy some simple devices to measure how much energy a refrigerator (or any appliance with a simply outlet plug) uses in a given time....then extrapolate that into annual operating costs.

protechplumbing

It's very simple. Hire an electrician to install a kwa meter on the hvac system or water heater. Post the date of installation and initial meter reading(if a used analog meter is utilized) and check back one year later.
I did this on my own home and it has worked well.

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Plumber, Repiping, Replumbing, Leak Detection, Solar Water Heater, Polk County Plumber, Lakeland Plumber, Winter Haven Plumber

protechplumbing

Since we are on the subject, we recently had one installed on an electric whole house tankless water heater(e-max) and thus far it is consuming about the same amount of power as the tanked unit it replaced.

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Plumber, Repiping, Replumbing, Leak Detection, Solar Water Heater, Polk County Plumber, Lakeland Plumber, Winter Haven Plumber

im4snow

Do you have a product (mfg) name or possibly a link to a company? I'm searching kWh meter and not coming up with anything that looks remotely close to residential???

Thanks.

protechplumbing

here ya go:

http://cgi.ebay.com/GE-ELECTRIC-WATT...d=p3286.c0.m14

http://cgi.ebay.com/KiloWattHour-Wat...d=p3286.c0.m14

Your electrician will be able to procure the rest of the stuff needed.

__________________
Plumber, Repiping, Replumbing, Leak Detection, Solar Water Heater, Polk County Plumber, Lakeland Plumber, Winter Haven Plumber