Posted: Sat Mar 04, 2006 4:57 am
Bah I just missed your simplification since u mentionned it was 52560 watt-hours and not watts 
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Posted: Sat Mar 04, 2006 5:01 am
Simplification ....
Posted: Sat Mar 04, 2006 5:12 am
Hmm, you learn something new every day I guess.mjrpes wrote:There was a thread here a couple months back where I discussed this. I bought a device called 'Kill-o-Watt' which measures the wattage of any device you hook into it.R00k wrote:65W? What is that in kw/h's? The power meter isn't measured in watts. I can't imagine a single Dell PC adding $12 a month to your power bill. Have you measured it, or did you just read the specs and extrapolate?mjrpes wrote: I am using a Dell 1GHz PC as a file server and it uses ~65W without monitor. That's around $12/month where I live. I also have a router and it uses ~12W. Seeing that my power bill is well over $60, I'm doing everything I can to cut down costs... even thinking of replacing my server with a ~20W older laptop.
edit: And if your power bill is $60 a month in winter you're probably not going to get much better without turning off your fridge, water heater or other appliance.
Looking back at my records, I see that I was wrong and that this Dell computer I have is actually is using ~73W. ~73W * 24hours * 30 days = 52560 watt-hours. Divide by 1000 and you get 52.6 kwh. The electric company bills at .216 cents per kwh (probably higher than you pay... so keep that in mind), which ends up being $11.30/month. So I was off but it's still a nice chunk of change each month.
I wouldn't want to spend that amount just to have it act as a router; I'd buy a small linksys device for something like that. But it is a bargain to install linux on it and run a web/mail/file server off a static IP... which is what I'm currently doing with it.
How much did you pay for that gadget?
Posted: Sat Mar 04, 2006 5:15 am
Posted: Sat Mar 04, 2006 5:17 am
The nice thing about it is you can leave it plugged into the device and it will track the total kwh you've used. this is necessary for devices like refridgerators which turn on for only a couple minutes an hour.
found out the refridgerator takes up $9/month.
found out the refridgerator takes up $9/month.
Posted: Sat Mar 04, 2006 6:21 am
The fridge uses less power than the PC? That's just unintuitive, it runs counter to everything I've ever heard.
Have you checked any other major appliances?
Have you checked any other major appliances?
Posted: Sat Mar 04, 2006 6:33 am
i set up my old athlon 1GHz/256MB and a gf2mx with linux over winter break. fun stuff, runs pretty well.
Posted: Sat Mar 04, 2006 9:22 pm
It is an energy efficient fridge.... and it is winter and the house is at 65 F, meaning it doesn't have to keep as cool as in the summer months. The compressor for the fridge run at around 230W IIRC, and it was on 1/4 of the time. It'll be interesting to run this same test in JulyR00k wrote:The fridge uses less power than the PC? That's just unintuitive, it runs counter to everything I've ever heard.
Have you checked any other major appliances?
I couldn't test the oven, but the model runs at 1600W. So if you use it for half an hour a day, every day, then that will cost $5/month.
The big spender can be lights, depending on how often you keep them on. If you were to keep a 100W bulb running constantly, at the $0.216/kwh PG&E charges here that bulb would cost you $15.55/month. A fluorescent bulb running at 20W would cost $3.11. Fluorescent FTW!
Check your electricity rates though, as they are probably a bit lower than they are here in California.