It would sound like the easiest way to save money in these difficult economic times: your energy bill. But its more than just turning off a couple of lights. There are appliances in your house that raise your bill by running inefficiently and wasting energy … and thereby wasting you money.
The Kill a Watt Power strip is a product designed to find out which products and appliances are the biggest wastes on energy in your home. Its pretty simple to use: just plug the item into the power strip and check the reading over a period of time. By referring to the appliance manual, you can see how much energy its using as compared to what the product says it should be consuming.
The down side of this device is that its only going to work in one room at a time … and you are going to have to do some math on your own. You will have to figure out how much its costing you ( multiply kilowatt hours by the cost per kilowatt ). Of course, none of these meters are perfect. There’s a device called The Energy Detective which, by plugging it into the circuitry of your house, can give you the total output of every appliance in your house – even your stove. However, it can not break it down by product.
Keep an eye on our testers this week. Carnegie Mellon graduate students Mario Berges and Ethan Goldman are working on a device that will be able to measure each home’s energy output for each individual device. They say their early work has been promising so don’t be surprised to see their invention on the market someday.
The Kill a Watt PS sells for $99.95 and you can order it through the website Cyberguys.com.
