Appliance Power

Every backup power decision starts with one number most people do not know: how much their appliances actually draw. Not the number on the box, but the number on the label, and the much larger number a motor pulls for the half second it starts.

This is where that gets settled. Running watts and starting watts for the loads that decide the sizing of everything else: the refrigerator, the chest freezer, the sump pump, the well pump, the furnace blower, the space heater. What each one costs to run per hour at current US and UK rates, and what it adds up to over a month.

Nothing here is estimated from memory. Every figure traces back to an EnergyGuide label, a manufacturer specification sheet, or EIA and Ofgem rate data, and carries the date it was checked. Where no reliable published figure exists, we say so instead of filling the cell.