Toaster
Saturday July 14, 2012:
Our old toaster oven that we got years ago as a wedding present is getting old and is not working as well.
We primarily use it to make toast. It draws 1244 watts of power and takes 3 minutes to make a batch of toast (up to 4 slices).
We bought a new toaster to replace the antiquated, fickle toaster oven. It's a fancy toaster with 2 and 4 slice options. It takes 90 seconds to make a batch of toast. It draws 700 watts for 2 slices and 1400 watts for 4 slices.
On an energy operating cost standpoint
The toaster oven uses 63 watt-hours per cycle (holds up to 4 pieces of toast) and costs 1/3rd of a cent for 2 pieces of toast.
The toaster uses 17 watt-hours per cycle (2-toast)/ 34 watt-hours for 4 pieces of toast and costs 1/6th of a cent to make 2 pieces of toast.
The toaster uses 17 watt-hours per cycle (2-toast)/ 34 watt-hours for 4 pieces of toast and costs 1/6th of a cent to make 2 pieces of toast.
So the toaster is twice as efficient at making toast and cooks in 1/2 the time as the toaster oven.
While the toaster oven had no phantom power, to my disappointment, this toaster draws 0.3 watts of standby power just to run all the fancy buttons. Not that that is an incredible amount of energy but just to illustrate, in 2 days, it will consume the same amount of energy as it takes to make 2 slices of toast.
That's like only a penny every 2 weeks, but still, lame, lame, lame for making an appliance waste power when it doesn't have to.
On the other hand, those fancy buttons are connected to a tiny micro-controller inside the toaster. Doing all that processing, all the while, only drawing 0.3 watts of power is a pretty incredible feat.
They had it right all along with toasters.
For more information on the energy costs of using kitchen appliances, click here.
Update 5/2/2016:
Check out this awesome example of the amount of energy it requires to toast a piece of bread.
Wow!!