Nothing is more frustrating than watching your energy bill rise and feeling powerless to stop it.  If you call SDG&E they’ll offer you a general energy audit - - useful, but it won’t tell you if you have a problem appliance that’s an electricity glutton.  If you call an electrician they’ll inspect your appliances - - but for a pretty penny.

Luckily, there is a way to test each of your appliances without incurring an enormous cost.  Normally I refrain from promoting any consumer products through UCAN and, just to be clear, we’re not getting any kickback for promoting this.   But if you want to do a guerilla home energy audit, this item is a must have.  It’s called the Kill-A-Watt.

The concept is simple - - plug your appliance into the Kill-A-Watt and it will tell you how many kilowatts/hour the appliance uses.  This can help you identify what’s hogging your electricity, and you can make informed decisions about what’s worth keeping on, what’s not, and what needs to be replaced.  Especially now that we’re heading into the dog days of summer and many are blasting the A/C, you’ll want to make sure there aren’t any surprises when you get your SDG&E bill.

You can pick one of these up at Amazon for around $25 a piece.   And if you check your appliance usage and the numbers aren’t adding up to what’s on your SDG&E bill, be sure to fill out an online complaint form and the Fraud Squad will investigate for you.