Appliance Electricity Usage: What Each One Costs to Run

All 30 Appliances Ranked by Annual Electricity Use

Sorted largest load first. Kilowatt-hours are measured or derived from primary sources; each row links to its own. Costs pair the kWh with a named rate and date: the 17.9¢/kWh US average (EIA, August 2026) and the range from North Dakota (11.4¢/kWh) to Hawaii (41.0¢/kWh). Seasonal appliances are priced over their real season, not a pretend 12 months.

† = medium confidence, ‡ = medium-high confidence. Each flagged row's exact assumption is spelled out in Flagged figures below the table.

Cost = kWh/yr x rate, rounded to whole dollars, computed at build time from the data module. Hover any source link to see the row's full derivation arithmetic. Seasonal rows (space heater, window AC, dehumidifier, heating) already reflect season length, so their "per year" cost is their per-season cost.

Flagged Figures: Where the Number Rests on an Assumption

12 of the 30 rows carry a medium or medium-high confidence flag, because no live primary government dataset covers them or because the primary figure blends categories. We name the assumption instead of hiding it. Treat these as ranges, not gospel.

Test Lab vs Your House: Why the Label Lies to You

Certification numbers come from standardized test schedules. Your house does not run on a test schedule. Where we have both the lab figure and the measured-in-real-homes figure, the gap is the story:

• The dehumidifier is the worst offender. ENERGY STAR certified models test at a median 341 kWh/yr on the standardized basis of roughly 1,100 run hours. Real households measured by RECS 2020 use 999 kWh/yr, nearly 3x the lab figure, because a damp basement runs the unit around 9 hours a day for two-thirds of the year. At the 17.9¢/kWh US average that is the difference between $61 on the label and $179 on your bill.
• The refrigerator gap is age. New certified full-size fridges median 457 kWh/yr (n=2,911). The fridges installed in real homes, averaging 10+ years old, measure 617 kWh/yr (RECS 2020). That is $82 vs $111 a year at the US average. Our table uses 500 kWh/yr, splitting the difference.
• The pool pump gap is technology. Real pool homes measure 2,384 kWh/yr ($427 at the US average), consistent with a legacy 1.5-hp single-speed pump. ENERGY STAR certified variable-speed pumps measure a median 742 W at the high-speed test point and 118 W at low speed; run mostly on low, a replacement cuts the stock figure by 50-80%.

The rule of thumb: labels are floors for always-on appliances and test-schedule fictions for anything humidity- or climate-driven. When we had both numbers, the table shows the honest one and the derivation names the other.

What the Big Loads Cost in Our Six Markets

Same measured kWh, your market's real rate. Texas uses the cheapest flat fixed-rate plan on our live feed (dated below); the other five use utility default-supply rates, which most shoppers can beat. Each state link goes to live plans for your ZIP.

Ranges reflect the spread between each state's utility default rates. Rates change: Texas plans reprice daily and utility default rates reset seasonally, so treat these as August 2026 snapshots and check your state's live page before deciding anything.

The Three That Matter, Dissected

1. Heating and cooling: your climate is the multiplier

The national AC average hides a 3x regional spread (RECS 2020, per household using AC). Costs below at the 17.9¢/kWh US average; your state's rate moves them further:

Heating cuts the other way. The RECS electric-heating average is 2,484 kWh/yr, but it blends heat pumps (which deliver 2-3 units of heat per unit of electricity) with resistance heat. All-resistance homes in cold climates commonly burn 5,000-8,000 kWh a season: $896 to $1,433 at the US average rate. If your winter bills triple your summer ones, this line item is why.

2. Water heating: the quiet $485

A resistance tank measured across real homes uses 2,706 kWh/yr: $485 at the US average, $465-$468 at Massachusetts basic service rates, $1,109 in Hawaii. The counterpoint: a heat pump water heater does the same job for a median 1,181 kWh/yr (ENERGY STAR, n=605). The 1,525 kWh gap is worth $273 a year at the US average, and $625 a year in Hawaii, every year, for doing nothing differently. No other single swap on this page comes close.

3. The dryer: 43 cents a load, every load

Measured at 680 kWh/yr (RECS 2020), which works out to 2.4 kWh or about 43 cents per load at the US average rate. It earns its spot in the top three for a different reason than HVAC: it is discretionary. You choose when it runs, which makes it the one major load you can shift to cheap hours (next section) or replace outright: heat-pump dryers use about 70% less energy per ENERGY STAR. The washer feeding it costs almost nothing ($20/yr machine-only); the heat is the expense.

The Time-of-Use Angle: When You Run It Can Matter More Than What You Run

Everything above assumes one flat rate. On a time-of-use plan the clock changes the math, and the appliances that matter are exactly the shiftable ones: the dryer (2.4 kWh a load, run it whenever) and the EV (3,240 kWh/yr, charged mostly overnight anyway). On a free-nights plan like TXU Free Nights & Solar Days, shifting those two loads into the free window takes their marginal cost to zero.

The honest caveat: free-nights plans pay for the free window with a higher daytime rate, and your refrigerator, AC, and water heater do not care what time it is. The plan only wins if a large share of your total usage genuinely moves. A household charging an EV every night is the textbook case; a household with a big daytime AC load usually loses. Our Texas time-of-use guide walks through how to check your own usage split before betting on one.

The Formula: Price Any Appliance Yourself

Find the watts on the nameplate sticker or the spec sheet. Then either run the math in our electricity cost per kWh calculator, or start from what a kilowatt-hour is if the units are the sticking point. One trap to avoid: nameplate watts are maximums. Thermostat-controlled appliances (ovens, heaters, fridges) cycle on and off, so real energy runs well under nameplate times hours. That is why this page prefers measured kWh over wattage math wherever a measured figure exists.

Frequently Asked Questions

Sources and Methodology

Usage data (verified August 25, 2026): kilowatt-hour figures come from two classes of primary source. ENERGY STAR certified-product statistics (medians and 10th-90th percentiles) were computed directly from the full certified-product datasets on data.energystar.gov, with sample sizes noted per dataset below. Real-household annual kWh comes from EIA RECS 2020 Tables CE5.3a/CE5.3b, the measured average per household that uses the end use. Where a figure historically rested on DOE Energy Saver pages removed in the 2025 energy.gov restructuring, it was re-anchored to ENERGY STAR, RECS, or AFDC data, or flagged medium confidence and presented with its assumption named. Seasonal appliances state their season length in the assumption column rather than pretending year-round use.

Rates (as of August 2026): no dollar figure on this page is stored anywhere; each one is computed at build time as kWh × rate. The US average of 17.91¢/kWh and the North Dakota (11.4¢/kWh) and Hawaii (41.0¢/kWh) anchors come from EIA Electric Power Monthly Table 5.6.B, the same figures used across this site (verified August 5, 2026). The Texas rate (13.0¢/kWh) is the cheapest flat fixed-rate plan at 1,000 kWh on our live plan feed for Oncor territory, pulled August 25, 2026. The Ohio, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and DC ranges are the utility default-supply rates from our rate system, refreshed from the live API August 12, 2026.