# Kill A Watt charger meter



## gcadso (Jan 14, 2009)

PatricioIN said:


> So, in order to tell exactly how much juice I'm using to charge my car daily, weekly, monthly.. I went to www.energyfederation.org and bought this *Kill A Watt P4400 Monitor*. $24.95 with free shippping.


I have a kill-a-watt, and it's a great device. However, it only does 120 Volts up to 15 amps. Many people are using 220 Volts and/or 20 or more amps. If your charger setup uses 120 v up to 15 amps, you'll be fine with the kill-a-watt. If your charger uses more, you'll need a utility meter.

Another way to approximate charger consumption is to read your regular house meter before bed and in the morning when not charging. This will establish a "baseline" for your house. Then check the meter before and after charging and subtract your house's "baseline" to get the amount used by the charger. Where I live (New England), we use oil heat, and very little air conditioning, so a nightime baseline is pretty stable day to day and season to season.

--George


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## etischer (Jun 16, 2008)

Here's what you do.

Use two 15amp meters in two 115 volt outlets. This will give you 208v 15 amps, and you can add the two meter reading together. This will obviously only work if the two outlets are on different legs of the AC supplying your house. 



gcadso said:


> I have a kill-a-watt, and it's a great device. However, it only does 120 Volts up to 15 amps. Many people are using 220 Volts and/or 20 or more amps. If your charger setup uses 120 v up to 15 amps, you'll be fine with the kill-a-watt. If your charger uses more, you'll need a utility meter.
> 
> Another way to approximate charger consumption is to read your regular house meter before bed and in the morning when not charging. This will establish a "baseline" for your house. Then check the meter before and after charging and subtract your house's "baseline" to get the amount used by the charger. Where I live (New England), we use oil heat, and very little air conditioning, so a nightime baseline is pretty stable day to day and season to season.
> 
> --George


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## Zemmo (Sep 13, 2007)

I have been using one of these meters now for about a year. It has worked great. I have my car set to only use 13 amps out of the wall. Thats a safe bet for just about any outlet that you plug into. Anyways, even at pulling 13 amps, it gets pretty warm and my plastic around the plugs is getting warped from the heat. Thats all at only pulling 13 amps, pulling 15 amps would make it even warmer. So just FYI, watch the plastic on those to see if it is getting too warm.


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## Hondacrzy (Mar 15, 2008)

I am using a charger that takes more than 15 amps at 120v. Can someone tell me how to use a regular house kilowatt meter to make a stand alone meter for use with 120v not the regular 240? They are cheap on ebay if they will work!

Cheers
Chris


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