What uses the most electricity in your home?
EIA data · June 2026The general answer is heating, cooling and water heating — but the general answer is not your answer. Select what your household actually runs and see where the money goes at your own state’s price.
Select the appliances your household actually uses. Nothing is preselected, because a default list would be someone else’s home.
Each appliance uses its typical wattage and default usage at 18.34¢/kWh for June 2026. Open any appliance to change its assumptions. Excludes fixed charges and taxes.
Choose what your home uses
The ten most expensive things in a typical home
At the U.S. average of 18.34¢ per kilowatt-hour and typical usage. Note how little this resembles a ranking by wattage — the order is set by hours of actual draw, not by the number on the label.
| Appliance | Typical W | Per year |
|---|---|---|
| Electric furnace | 15,000 | $3,012 |
| Electric vehicle charging | 7,200 | $1,239 |
| Heat pump | 3,500 | $1,171 |
| Central air conditioner | 3,500 | $1,125 |
| Electric water heater | 4,500 | $940 |
| Space heater | 1,500 | $803 |
| Pool pump | 1,500 | $803 |
| Electric baseboard heater | 1,500 | $703 |
| Hot tub | 1,500 | $602 |
| Oil-filled radiator | 1,500 | $482 |
If your bill is higher than this suggests
The gap is almost always one of three things. Heating, cooling or water heating that was not selected — together these are roughly half of a typical bill before anything else is switched on. An always-on load that is easy to forget, such as a second refrigerator in a garage, a well pump or a hot tub. Or a price change rather than a usage change, which no appliance selection will explain.
The bill diagnosis guide walks through separating price from usage, and how to check any running-cost figure explains what to do when published numbers disagree.