Recent reports claim that if all of your coffee maker appliances are off, you can save up to $100 per month by leaving them deactivated. Unfortunately, these studies leave out an important detail – how much power they use when activated!
When active, most major brand name coffeemakers will keep running for several hours after you drink your last cup. This is not ideal as it could waste energy while idle.
Many people have complained about this feature and say it makes their machines seem like expensive “buzzy” clocks. Luckily, there is a solution!
This article will discuss some easy ways to conserve electricity by only turning ON your machine once a day or even less frequently.
Power is a measure of how much energy is being transferred
When you make a drink, there’s an electrical current that runs across the surface of the water as it heats up. This process is what makes your coffee hot.
The amount of power used depends on two things: how long the machine uses to heat the liquid and how strong the brew is (the longer the time, the more power consumed).
Some machines have very weak settings that only use a few watts per pot, while others can be extremely wasteful due to their high wattage setting.
Types of power
There are three main types of power used in coffee makers: thermal, kinetic, and electrical. Thermal power uses heat to do work. For example, your machine may use warm liquid as fuel to create steam, which expands and therefore works as energy.
Kinetic power uses movement or momentum to do work. A fan uses air flow to create more powerful currents of air, for instance.
Electrical power is the most familiar type of power and is what we refer to when talking about electricity. This one isn’t really unique to coffee making machines, however! The cords that come with appliances like lamps and televisions contain electrical power so they can be plugged into a source of electricity.
The less common types of power are useful to know about because it is very specific applications where these powers can be applied. However, you don’t have to understand how every little bit of power in your home functions, just because you aren’t using all of them right now doesn’t mean you never will.
This article will talk mostly about thermal power, but there are two other types of power that apply specifically to some models.
Examples of power
There are many things that can use some amount of energy, but not much- they require very little energy to function.
Take coffee makers as an example. They work by mixing hot water with brewed coffee powder or liquid.
A standard machine will combine both liquids using a ratio determined by how strong you want your drink to be. The more liquid you have, the weaker the drink becomes!
By adding extra liquid, you would like to make a stronger drink, so it is important to know how much power each drop of liquid uses. – 1 milliliter (or mL) of liquid contains 2 drops of alcohol, which is less powerful than one cup of plain old water! That’s why having a weakly made drink can sometimes feel worse than having no drink at all – there is still enough caffeine in the body to boost wakefulness!
Using our before numbers, a normal strength espresso drink has 4mL of milk or cream per serving, making it equivalent to drinking just under one third of a glass of regular ol’ water! This could be because most people don’t add enough milk for it to taste good, or they overdo it and the drink ends up being watered down.
However, some people do add enough milk to get a strong latte, which can easily contain 10–12% milk by volume! These drinks may seem healthier because they contain some fat, but they can be hard to swallow due to the excess milk content.
Calculating how much power your coffee machine uses
Recent reports claim that some of the most popular brands of coffeemaker use enough electricity to burn through around 10 cents worth of energy per pot!
That’s not good! Luckily, it’s easy to check whether this is the case for your specific model.
You can do so by visiting the manufacturer’s website or smartphone app for your device. Then, you can either look up your model under Settings or Purchases, or you can search “coffee maker” at the top of their site.
Ways to conserve power
Recent developments in efficient use of energy have shifted our focus not only towards conserving electricity through simple tips, but also looking into how to produce your own energy.
Energy is constantly being generated from the ground up. Nuclear reactors are one example of this, producing enough energy to fulfill half of the world’s needs for power!
Power plants that burn fossil fuels (coal, oil, and natural gas) create an even more fundamental part of our energy supply by converting water into energy you can access.
This article will talk about some easy ways to reduce power consumption at home and work. You do not need special training to implement these strategies, just be careful with power tools and gadgets when necessary.
Some of these tips may seem trivial at first, but over time they add up to make a big difference.
Switch off your coffee machine
After you make all of the drinks for the day, it is time to switch your machine off! This will prevent any additional energy from being used in the future.
It is very important to check if your coffee maker uses an old-style cord or a power strip as this would not be appropriate to use after this article.
If you have ever left your device plugged into a charger overnight then there is one thing that you can be sure of – it will overheat and burn out soon! The same thing happens when your coffee maker stops receiving electricity.
This could potentially hurt someone else who uses the machine or even cause serious damage to your appliance. It is best to always keep an eye on your coffee machine and put it away properly to avoid this happening.
Clean it regularly
Although this may sound like a frivolous waste of money, leaving your machine dirty can actually cost you more in power fees. As mentioned before, the size of your coffee mug impacts how much energy your machine uses to boil water.
If you love drinking very large amounts of coffee, then using an oversized drink cup could be costly. Most people do not enjoy sipping down a small pot of espresso, so why should you?
Fortunately, there are ways to properly clean your brewer and reduce the electricity costs. Simply take care of your machine!
Also, most machines have a manual switch or tool that allows you to turn off the machine completely if you forget to thoroughly wash it. Some even allow you to connect a sink to empty out leftover water.
Use a machine that uses less power
Recent reports claim that most of the energy used to pre-heat your espresso machines is due to wasted electricity. Some companies have designed special equipment that actively monitors the temperature of your water and then uses that information to determine when to start the coffee production process.
By using this technology, they are able to save enough energy to heat your beverage all by themselves! This cuts down on the overall amount of electricity needed to make an adequate number of beverages for everyone.
There is still some debate about how much energy these new models use in total, but it does not take long to start drinking your morning joe! If you would like to give one of these a try, do your research first to see if there are any manufacturer’s warranties or additional settings you can switch off to ensure it will work properly for you.