How to measure your electrical use: Electric Meter and Watt-Hour Meter methods

How to measure your electrical use: Electric Meter and Watt-Hour Meter methods

This is really cool stuff! I bought a Kill A Watt meter that I am am using now to monitor my laptop power usage (currently 35 watts, down to 5 watts in sleep mode, and 0 watts of course if I unplug it!). I am planning to check out the actual usage on my 2 refrigerators (which I know I probably need to replace with more energy efficient models - hopefully eliminating the one in the basement all together).

I also will use this to help everyone understand the power usage of all of our electronics even when they are "off". Unfortunately, turning off the TV & other electrical appliances is not always enough, because of this "vampire" usage - http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/vampire.html. Basically, anything with a transformer (like a cell phone charger) or that operates a clock, or in "standby" mode will consume some amount of electricity even when not being actively used! This website is great, and provides some good suggestions on how to deal with this.