Do timers really use this much power?

[Reptilian]

HI guys I have been trying to figure out how much power my room is consuming. I assumed the timer would be next to nothing but when I looked at the specs on the back I almost fell over. It says it's 15 amps and 1725 w. So I did the same calculations I did for the lights and the fans and it tells me that my timer is costing more than the lights and fans put together. I did the figures 3 times because I thought I was doing something wrong but I keep getting the same number of 120.00 per month
Friggin crazy right. So I thought I would ask some of you and see your thought's on this. Would a digital timer use less energy??? My 2 600w lights are only costing me 41.00 a month running 12/12. How could this little timer be 3 times that. Thanks in advance everyone. Take care,be safe and happy gardening.

 

[Weaselcracker]

It can't use that much. The extra has to be a mistake in the calculations somehow. I have a little meter called a Kill-a-watt which I can run any appliance through and it tells me how much power it uses- it's handy for peace of mind when loading up the circuits.

edit- I reread. I must have really skimmed that one. I thought you said that you were using 1725 watts, and blamed most of that power use on the timer. It's as TF said.

 

[TheFertilizer]

That's how much the timer is rated to handle. You'll find similar ratings printed on light bulb sockets. I think it's a little different when the device is a receptacle meant to supply power to another device.

To measure the electric output of the device itself you could plug a Kill-A-Watt meter in between it and the wall ( make sure there is nothing plugged into the timer) to see how much it uses, but I am guessing that it uses no more than a wall-clock so you'd probably have to have it plugged in for quite a while to register even a watt. In other words it's probably pretty negligible, even more so if you're using a digital timer which has no motor.

 

[Moe Ugly]

That is Max load the timer will handle not what it uses.

 

[Reptilian]

Thanks for the input guys. It didn't make sense that it would be using that much but it didn't specify that it was max load so I wasn't sure.

 

[fanleaf]

The timer uses almost an immeasurable amount of power. Just enough to spin the wheel. You would use more power by running an LED night light.

 

[Bud Good]

FWIW, I measured my regular ol' "security timer" and it went back and forth between 1W and 2W on my meter.