Kill-a-Watt

Want to make your home more energy-efficient but are not sure where the biggest savings could be made? Want to go off-grid but you don't know how much energy each of your appliances and gizmos use? Is replacing that aging fridge worth it? Here's a gadget that might be useful to help settle these questions: Kill-a-Watt. You just plug it in the power outlet, plug into it whatever it is that you want to test et voilà! The first step toward conservation is having feedback on how much you consume.

Kill-a-Watt is not quite perfect: Having an easy to read power-meter that tells you how much everything (individually and together) inside the house consumes in real-time, as with the so-called intelligent houses, would be better, but K-a-W has the advantage of being inexpensive and better than the nothing that most people have. "LCD display, cumulative killowatt-hour monitor, displays volts, amps, watts, Hz, VA, forecast your costs, 0.2% accuracy," says the manufacturer. You should be able to find it online between $15 and $25. You can see photos of the insides here. ::P3 International: Kill a WATT ::Via WorldChanging

[by MGR]