What uses the most electricity in a house?

If the water heater is electric, it is the water heater, usually by a wide margin. After that it is whatever heats or cools air and water: an air conditioner, a clothes dryer, a dehumidifier, a pool pump. Screens, lights and chargers are what people think of first and they are almost never where the money is.

How much does it cost to run an appliance for an hour?

Multiply its watts by the hours, divide by a thousand for kWh, then multiply by your electricity price. A 1,500 watt space heater for one hour is 1.5 kWh, which is about 23 cents in Texas and 64 cents in Hawaii. That one piece of arithmetic answers this question for everything in the house, and it is all this page does, twenty times over.

Does unplugging appliances actually save money?

A little, and it is a real number rather than a myth, but it is small. Standby across a normal house is a few watts here and a dozen there, adding up to something like $30 to $100 a year depending on your rate. A game console left in instant on is usually the single worst offender. It is worth a power strip. It is not worth reorganizing your life around.

Are space heaters cheaper than central heating?

Only if you heat one room instead of the whole house. Every electric resistance heater turns one kWh into exactly the same amount of heat, so a $200 heater and a $40 heater cost the identical amount to run, and any advertisement claiming otherwise is selling a 1,500 watt heater like all the others. Against a heat pump or cheap natural gas, resistance heat is the expensive way to warm a room.

Why does this not match my electricity bill?

Because it is plug load only. If the house is heated by gas, oil or propane, none of that fuel is here. It also uses your state average rate rather than your own tariff, and many households pay different rates at different times of day. What it is built to get right is the ranking: which of your appliances is worth your attention, and which is rounding.

Appliance costs

What everything in the house costs to run

One kWh costs the same whichever appliance used it, so the only question worth asking is which ones use the most. The answer surprises most households: it is rarely the lights, the television or the phone charger, and it is almost always something that heats or moves water and air.

StateElectricity at 15.3 cents a kWh, the Texas average. Your own bill has the exact figure on it.

Everything, a year

$1,732

$144 a month

Electricity used

11,319

kWh a year

Switched off

$35

standby, per year

Where the money goes

Electric water heater$754 a year

Window air conditioner$303 a year

Electric clothes dryer$91 a year

Dishwasher$73 a year

Desktop computer$70 a year

Dehumidifier$68 a year

Refrigerator$67 a year

Electric oven$61 a year

The three biggest items are 66 percent of the whole total. Changing anything below them is rounding.

What a swap would be worth

Electric water heater to a heat pump water heater$536 a year, $2,000 to buy, back in 3.7 yr
Electric clothes dryer to a heat pump dryer$60 a year, $1,300 to buy, back in 21.8 yr
Refrigerator to a current Energy Star unit$40 a year, $1,100 to buy, back in 27.4 yr

Running cost only. Nothing here counts what the old one is still worth, and a machine replaced before it fails has to earn back its whole price rather than the difference between two quotes.

Your appliances

Every row starts at a typical household figure. Drag the ones you know and leave the rest.

Kitchen

Refrigerator$67 a year8 hours a day at 150 watts - 438 kWh. The compressor only runs part of each hour. A modern unit averages about 8 hours a day of running, an old one far more.Chest freezernot used0 hours a day at 130 watts. Starts at zero because most houses do not have one. A unit in a hot garage runs far longer than one in a cool basement, because it is fighting the room.Electric oven$61 a year3 hours a week at 2,400 watts, plus 3 watt standby - 400 kWh. Enormous while it is on and off most of the time, which is why it costs less over a year than the fridge beside it.Electric stovetop$60 a year5 hours a week at 1,500 watts - 390 kWh. One large burner on high. Most cooking uses less than one burner flat out, so this is the generous reading.Dishwasher$73 a year5 loads a week at 1,200 watts, plus 1 watt standby - 476 kWh. Nearly all of it is heating the water and then heating the air to dry. Skipping heated dry takes a third off.Microwave$17 a year1.5 hours a week at 1,100 watts, plus 3 watt standby - 112 kWh. The clock on the front draws power every hour of the year and often costs more annually than the cooking does.Coffee maker$17 a year2 hours a week at 900 watts, plus 2 watt standby - 111 kWh. Brewing is brief. A hot plate left on for an hour after brewing is the expensive part.

Laundry

Washing machine$21 a year5 loads a week at 500 watts, plus 1 watt standby - 139 kWh. The motor is cheap to run. If the water is heated electrically, the hot water is the real bill and it sits in the water heater line below.Electric clothes dryer$91 a year5 loads a week at 3,000 watts, plus 1 watt standby - 594 kWh. One of the two or three biggest plug loads in a normal house, and the one a clothesline replaces for nothing.

Water

Electric water heater$754 a year3 hours a day at 4,500 watts - 4,928 kWh. A resistance tank for a family runs about three hours a day in total. It is usually the largest single number on this page.

Comfort

Window air conditioner$303 a year6 hours a day at 900 watts, plus 1 watt standby - 1,978 kWh. Hours a day averaged over the whole year, not over July. Four months at eighteen hours a day is about six.Ceiling fan$27 a year8 hours a day at 60 watts - 175 kWh. Costs pennies next to the air conditioner, and moving air lets a thermostat sit a few degrees higher for the same comfort.Portable space heaternot used0 hours a day at 1,500 watts. Starts at zero. Every one of these is exactly as efficient as every other one, so any advertisement claiming otherwise is selling you a 1,500 watt heater.Dehumidifier$68 a year3 hours a day at 400 watts, plus 1 watt standby - 446 kWh. Averaged over the year. A basement unit runs most of the day through a humid summer and not at all in January.

Entertainment

Television$29 a year5 hours a day at 100 watts, plus 1 watt standby - 189 kWh. A 55 inch LED. Older plasma sets draw three or four times this for the same picture size.Game console$30 a year2 hours a day at 140 watts, plus 12 watt standby - 199 kWh. The instant on standby is the sting: twelve watts for the twenty two hours a day nobody is playing.Desktop computer$70 a year6 hours a day at 200 watts, plus 3 watt standby - 458 kWh. A gaming machine under load is double this. A laptop doing the same work is a tenth of it.

Lighting

LED lighting, whole house$28 a year5 hours a day at 100 watts - 183 kWh. Roughly ten fixtures at ten watts. The same ten fixtures in old incandescent bulbs would be 600 watts.

Other

Router and modem$16 a year24 hours a day at 12 watts - 105 kWh. Small, and on every hour of every day, which is what makes it worth a line of its own.Pool pumpnot used0 hours a day at 1,500 watts. Set this above zero only if you have a pool. At eight hours a day a single speed pump outspends everything else in the house.EV charging at homenot used0 hours a week at 7,200 watts. A level 2 charger. Eight hours a week covers about 10,000 miles a year, and it is cheaper per mile than any gasoline.

At 15.3 cents a kWh, everything on this list adds up to $1,732 a year, or $144 a month, from 11,319 kWh. The single largest line is the electric water heater at $754, which is 44 percent of the total on its own. $35 of it is spent on things that are switched off, drawing standby power around the clock.

This is plug load only, and heating with gas, oil or propane is not in it, so the number will not match a whole utility bill. What it does is rank: one kWh costs the same whichever appliance used it, so the biggest bar on the chart is always where the savings are, and it is almost never where people look first. The same 1 kWh costs $0.15 here and $0.43 in Hawaii, which is why there is no national answer to this question.

The same appliance, two very different bills

Each appliance at the typical usage above, in the cheapest state in the country and the most expensive. The appliance does not change between the last two columns. Only the price of a kWh does.

Appliance	UseskWh a year	Washingtonat 11.5 cents	Hawaiiat 42.5 cents
Electric water heater	4,928	$567	$2,094
Window air conditioner	1,978	$227	$840
Electric clothes dryer	594	$68	$252
Dishwasher	476	$55	$202
Desktop computer	458	$53	$195
Dehumidifier	446	$51	$189
Refrigerator	438	$50	$186
Electric oven	400	$46	$170
These eight	9,717	$1,117	$4,130

One household with identical habits pays $1,302 a year for this list in Washington, $1,732 in Texas and $4,810 in Hawaii. That is the same appliances, the same hours, the same everything, and nearly four times the bill. It is also why a national average appliance cost is close to useless, and why every number on this site is tied to a state.

The power you pay for while everything is off

11 things on this list draw power when they are switched off, about 29 watts between them. That is roughly 254 kWh a year, which is $35 in Texas and $99 in Hawaii, spent on nothing at all.

The worst single offender in most houses is a game console left in instant on, which can sit at a dozen watts for the twenty two hours a day nobody is playing and cost more standing by than being played. A microwave clock is the other classic: the cooking is brief and the display runs all year. Neither is going to change your life, and a power strip on the entertainment shelf is still the easiest money on this whole site.

One kWh, one price, no favorites

Everything here is worked out the same way, because there is only one way to work it out: watts times hours, divided by a thousand, times the price of a kWh. A 1,500 watt space heater for an hour is 1.5 kWh, which is $0.23 in Texas and $0.64 in Hawaii. No brand, no badge and no setting changes that arithmetic.

This page carries no yellow sticker figures, because those are built on somebody else usage pattern and on a national average electricity price that nobody pays. It also carries no efficiency claims from a manufacturer. What it has is the power draw, the hours you tell it, and the rate in your state, which is everything the answer actually depends on.

The swaps are priced the same way. A heat pump water heater is genuinely three times better than a resistance tank and the page will show you that, but it also shows you the years, because a machine bought before the old one dies has to earn back its whole price rather than the difference between two quotes. That distinction is the difference between an investment and a purchase.

Questions

What uses the most electricity in a house?: If the water heater is electric, it is the water heater, usually by a wide margin. After that it is whatever heats or cools air and water: an air conditioner, a clothes dryer, a dehumidifier, a pool pump. Screens, lights and chargers are what people think of first and they are almost never where the money is.
How much does it cost to run an appliance for an hour?: Multiply its watts by the hours, divide by a thousand for kWh, then multiply by your electricity price. A 1,500 watt space heater for one hour is 1.5 kWh, which is about 23 cents in Texas and 64 cents in Hawaii. That one piece of arithmetic answers this question for everything in the house, and it is all this page does, twenty times over.
Does unplugging appliances actually save money?: A little, and it is a real number rather than a myth, but it is small. Standby across a normal house is a few watts here and a dozen there, adding up to something like $30 to $100 a year depending on your rate. A game console left in instant on is usually the single worst offender. It is worth a power strip. It is not worth reorganizing your life around.
Are space heaters cheaper than central heating?: Only if you heat one room instead of the whole house. Every electric resistance heater turns one kWh into exactly the same amount of heat, so a $200 heater and a $40 heater cost the identical amount to run, and any advertisement claiming otherwise is selling a 1,500 watt heater like all the others. Against a heat pump or cheap natural gas, resistance heat is the expensive way to warm a room.
Why does this not match my electricity bill?: Because it is plug load only. If the house is heated by gas, oil or propane, none of that fuel is here. It also uses your state average rate rather than your own tariff, and many households pay different rates at different times of day. What it is built to get right is the ranking: which of your appliances is worth your attention, and which is rounding.

Next: what it would cost to make that electricity on your own roof