Which appliances use the most electricity

Each row uses the default settings of the matching calculator on this site, so you can open it and change the numbers to your own. "Per month" means a month when the appliance is in use: a pool pump in July, a space heater in January.

#	Load (calculator settings)	kWh / month	US average	California	Louisiana
1	Electric resistance heat, 2,000 sq ft, average insulation, US-average climate, January	4,431	$804.67	$1,318.22	$570.27
2	Heat pump, same house, January	1,583	$287.47	$470.94	$203.73
3	Central AC, 3 tons, SEER2 14, 8 compressor hours a day	617	$112.05	$183.56	$79.41
4	Single-speed pool pump, 1,600 W, 8 h a day	384	$69.73	$114.24	$49.42
5	Electric water heater, family of 4 (64 gal a day)	357	$64.83	$106.21	$45.95
6	Space heater, 1,500 W, 6 h a day	270	$49.03	$80.33	$34.75
7	Hot tub, 5.5 kW heater, 1.5 h a day	248	$44.95	$73.63	$31.85
8	EV charged at home, 1,000 mi a month, 85% at home	238	$43.22	$70.80	$30.63
9	Window AC, 8,000 BTU, CEER 11, 8 h a day	175	$31.69	$51.91	$22.46
10	Dehumidifier, 50 pint, 10 h a day	150	$27.24	$44.62	$19.30
11	1990s refrigerator, 1,200 kWh a year	100	$18.16	$29.75	$12.87
12	Variable-speed pool pump, 400 W, 8 h a day	96	$17.43	$28.56	$12.36
13	Electric dryer, 5 loads a week	65	$11.80	$19.34	$8.37
14	Gaming PC, 3 h gaming + 5 h idle a day	47	$8.44	$13.83	$5.98
15	New refrigerator, 450 kWh a year	38	$6.81	$11.16	$4.83
16	Dishwasher, one 1.2 kWh load a day	36	$6.54	$10.71	$4.63
17	Standby power, 9 common devices (44 W)	32	$5.81	$9.52	$4.12
18	Electric blanket, 100 W, 8 h a night	24	$4.36	$7.14	$3.09
19	Ceiling fan, 60 W, 10 h a day	18	$3.27	$5.35	$2.32
20	Washing machine, cold wash, 5 loads a week	9	$1.58	$2.59	$1.12

Rates: US 18.2¢/kWh, California 29.8¢/kWh, Louisiana 12.9¢/kWh (EIA, August 2026). Costs are energy only; fixed charges and taxes on your bill are extra.

Rows 1 to 3 are in a different league from everything else. Heating a whole house with electric resistance (baseboards, an electric furnace) takes about 22,000 kWh a year in a 2,000 sq ft home with average insulation and a US-average climate of 4,500 heating degree-days. January carries about a fifth of that. A heat pump moves heat instead of making it, so the same house needs roughly a third of the electricity: at the seasonal efficiency our calculators use for an average climate (a COP of 2.8), about 7,900 kWh a year.

Those figures scale with your climate. A home in Minnesota (8,000 heating degree-days) needs about four times the heat of one in Texas (2,000). The degree-days guide shows how much each state needs, and the heat pump vs furnace calculator prices the comparison with your state's electricity and gas.

Central air is the summer counterpart. A 3-ton system at SEER2 14 draws about 2,570 W while the compressor runs; eight hours a day is 617 kWh a month. In a long Southern summer that is the single biggest line on the bill.

An electric tank water heater ranks fifth, ahead of the space heater, and it runs all year. Heating 64 gallons a day (about 16 gallons per person for four people) by 70 °F takes about 12 kWh a day. Unlike a space heater, nobody switches it on, so it rarely gets noticed.

Two settings drive it: how much hot water you use and the temperature rise. Colder incoming water in Northern winters raises the rise and the cost. A heat pump water heater with a UEF of 3.0 does the same job for about 110 kWh a month instead of 357. The electric water heater calculator compares the two at your rate, and the heat pump water heater calculator adds the payback.

A single-speed 1.5 HP pool pump drawing 1,600 W for 8 hours a day uses 12.8 kWh a day, 384 kWh a month. That is $69.73 a month at the US average, $114.24 in California and $49.42 in Louisiana. Over a six-month swimming season, 2,304 kWh: $685.44 in California against $296.52 in Louisiana.

A variable-speed pump running the same 8 hours at 400 W uses a quarter of the energy, 96 kWh a month. The saving per season is 1,728 kWh, which is $313.80 at the national average. Where a pool runs year-round, double it. Try your own pump and hours in the pool pump calculator.

Big wattages make the news, but hours decide the bill. A 1,500 W hair dryer used 10 minutes a day is 7.5 kWh a month, less than a ceiling fan running 10 hours. A 1,000 W microwave used 15 minutes a day is similar. Meanwhile a new refrigerator, whose compressor cycles on and off day and night, adds up to about 450 kWh a year because it never stops.

The most useful habit is to multiply: watts ÷ 1,000 × hours a day × 30 = kWh a month. Then multiply by your rate. The appliance calculator does this for any device, with typical wattages from energy.gov for common ones.

Three things often surprise people:

• Old refrigerators and second fridges. A 1990s fridge in the garage uses about 1,200 kWh a year, more than two new ones. Its yellow EnergyGuide label is long gone, but the refrigerator calculator gives the typical range.
• Dehumidifiers. A 50-pint unit running 10 hours a day in a damp basement uses 150 kWh a month, close to a window AC running 8 hours a day.
• Hot tubs. Most of the energy goes to replacing heat lost through the cover and the shell, so a cold climate or a worn cover raises the cost: our calculator assumes about 0.8 heater hours a day in a warm climate and 1.8 in a cold one.

Add the top lines that apply to your home and compare the total with your state's average bill. At the US average, central air for a month ($112.05) plus an electric water heater ($64.83) already comes to $176.88, against an average monthly bill of $140.00. If your home heats with electricity, January can be several times a summer month.

Small devices still count in aggregate. A dozen small loads averaging 25 kWh each add 300 kWh, so it is worth listing them once. Standby power alone is about 32 kWh a month in a typical living room setup; the standby power guide covers what is worth unplugging.

If your list does not explain your bill, the rate is the next suspect. The guide to reading your electric bill shows how to work out the rate you actually pay per extra kWh, which is the number to type into the calculators.

• Electric bill estimator: add every appliance you run and see the total next to your state's average bill.
• Any appliance calculator: watts and hours for anything not listed above.
• Central AC running cost and space heater cost: the two seasonal loads most people underestimate.
• All cost-to-run calculators: one page per appliance, at your state's rate.