Kill A Watt Electricity Usage Meter P4400Write a review

I run 6 computers for various reasons. As they do "procedures" off and on throughout the day & night, I always left them on and running.

Using the Kill-A-Watt and a low cost software product, I turn each machine on just before their procedure, then off after it runs.

Net result? About $100/month lower electric bill. Now that's proof you can Kill-A-Watt... if you know where to look for them.

It’s rare to find something as useful as a Kill-A-Watt meter at such a low price. Not only have I measured the energy use of every device in my home, I’ve also used it to keep track of the energy output of my photovoltaic system, and as a tool to help me plan for future upgrades.

Once you own one, you’ll be surprised at the number of ways you can put it to use. If you’re trying to squeeze every last watt out of a PV system, you’ll find yourself testing appliances under different conditions. You can find out how much energy you’ll save by moving your freezer from the garage to the basement, for example.

But the Kill-A-Watt meter’s uses extend beyond a PV system. With it, I learned that my old refrigerator was costing me over $200.00 per year to operate, and that I could replace it with a larger unit that would only cost me $50.00 per year in electricity. I replaced the refrigerator, and immediately saw a significant reduction in my electricity bill.

The Kill-A-Watt meter lives up to its reputation, and performs as advertised.

John Dalhaus

I reecently bought one of these to check the power useage of my power strips and my refridge, holy cow I think I know where I am wasting a bunch of energy now, I wish I could hook this thing up to my A/C but all in all this unit will preform to specs and is a great tool to have if you are in the market for something to help figure out where you are losing money in electricity.

Every one wanting to save energy - just start with this great tool. Worth every penny.

We managed to save 40% on electricity in our two person household:

- unplug everything not necessary (thanks to the power meter)
- new refrigerator that uses a third (thanks to the power meter)
- water heater lower temperature
- water heater blanket and top insulation
- efficient shower head 1.6 GPM
- hot water pipe insulation
- CFL bulbs everywhere
- sometimes washing with cold water
- we still use our tumbler

And after all, don't forget to switch to 100% green electricity because it now became affordable.

Diego

Just started playing with mine and like it. It will do exactly what I bought it for.

What I found lacking in the Kill-a-Watt:

--Hard to see screen could be fixed by either having a tilting LCD or backlit LCD (or both); Quick fixed by using a power strip as a short extension cord.

--The Kill-a-Watt starts to keep track of time as soon as it is plugged in and doesn't stop until the device itself stops receiving power. Even if there is nothing pulling power through the device the stop watch will be running. Be careful of this when calculating your kWH/hours. I would prefer if the device would only track time when the "Watt/PV" values were other than 0.

Ex. I plugged a small fan into the Kill-a-Watt and ran it for a few hours. After turning the fan off I left the fan plugged into the Kill-a-Watt and the Kill-a-Watt plugged into a wall. The next day the "Hour" function read 15 hours but the "kWH" function had not changed since I turned the fan off. The average kWH/Hour would be drastically different between .1kWH/2Hours (right after I turned the fan off) and .1kWH/15Hours (when I next looked at the Kill-a-Watt after the fan was off for the night) if the kWH had not changed between the two times.

--The instruction booklet that comes with the device is the size of a paper napkin. Luckily there isn't much in the way of detailed information that would be lost if the napkin were to be destroyed.

--MIN/MAX function for the watts. This function would need to be able to remember the minimum wattage (other than zero) and the maximum wattage that the device measured while an appliance was running. This is important when trying to figure out how much juice something like a computer needs. For example, the computer that I'm using right now to type this review uses 88 watts when I'm not typing, 92 watts when I'm typing, 130 watts when playing a video game or viewing some type of on line media, and about 160 watts when booting up. This might not be useful when trying to figure out kWH/Hour but might be pretty useful when trying to figure out which of my appliances occasionally gulps electricity.

Things I would like to see in other models:

I'm not going to say anything about the device not being able to remember anything after being unplugged from the wall (there is another Kill-a-Watt that is supposed to have a memory ) but I think having some way to keep track of the watts being used every minute with a way to dump this information into a computer spread sheet program to make some graphs could be useful.

Beyond that, I can't think of anything else for this product that gives a way to see what is going on at the plug so to speak. I highly recommend this device.

I have not tested the device personally, but asked to read the Paloma Hill review by a friend.

I read the review in which Hill measured the amps and volts used by a load and found the Kill A Watt meter to be reading low.

That is probably because AC power is NOT the product of volts and amps! It is the product of volts, amps and power factor. The power factor of a reactive load like a motor (including refrigerator compressors, AC compressors, furnace fans, etc.) is often 80% (0.80) or so. In other words, the Kill a Watt is accurate and Paloma Hill
s calculations are wrong.

I have a high quality multimeter that reads AC amperage and voltage very accurately and there is correct relationship between the Amperage * voltage result and the Kill a watt power meter result. In fact, the Kill a watt own amperage reading times voltage is also not matching it's wattage reading. I understand that VA is not always equal to watts in the case of an inductive load - like a big motor - but in all cases I find that the kill a watt meter is significantly lower than it should be - by as much as 20%. I think this meter is cheap for good reason.