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What do you do with 5 kW if the oven and stove and car charger are off? I have 3.6 kW (16 A @ 230 V) for everything except cooking and heating (both of which are gas)...

American energy use is really on another level.



The hot water heater might be on, that's I think 1800 W. We have a clothes washing machine and dishwasher as well, they both get up to 2kW each but only for a few minutes in the cycle. The built-in vacuum system I've never measured, but wouldn't surprise me if it's 1500 to 2000 W, though I don't even think it works right now. I suspect that the microwave oven is in the same power range - 1500 to 2000 W. There's a desktop computer that's sometimes on, it's probably good for 300 Watts with the LCD monitor. Add maybe a dozen light bulbs and phone chargers and a small fish tank pump and the refrigerator, it can get up above 5 kW at times and I sure above that if we're really running three or four appliances at once.


My average draw is around 300 watts during the winter, more like 200 in the summer.

One of my big electricity users is the gas heating system (inducer and pumps). Clothes dryer is probably the biggest single load.

I think I have 100 amp service. But it's matched to the potential load of the house, not the average load.




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