What exactly pulls more electricity throughout a home or business???

me and my friend share office space...approximatly 1200 sq. ft.....and we split everything, including the electric......i have a hair studio and she has a printing business....the problem is that the electric bill this month was out of control....we are trying to figure out what is pulling the most electric......between the two of us...we have 4 computers...i have 3 hooded dryers......and we have a full size fridge, and a full size washer and dryer.....i only do about a full load of towels each day.....i also have a tv.....we are trying to narrow down where we can cut back....should we shut down computers every night???.....do less laundry???....help!!!

every appliance should have wattage listed on it somewhere. make a list of each appliance, its wattage, and how long you run it each day. then you should be able to add up which is using the most. typically the hair dryers would be high as well as your hot water heater and air conditioning.

btw: computers should be shut down each night for energy savings and monitors shut off. if you computer has LED lights, unplug it from the power source, these lights will pull even though the computer is off.

any appliance that uses 120 v or more. and is not energy saver. tip, only wash clothes when washer is full. dry clothes outside or hang. use the stove more then the microwave.

The Hair dryers pull more electricity than everything else you listed...........Pay up...............Nuf Said

Buy a product called Kill a Watts, you can find it online and it will tell you exactly what each unit cost to run, buy it under you biz expense and save the receipt.

What about lights? Heating and cooling? Both of these will use more electricity than anything else you have listed. From your list, the dryers will be the largest consumption. If you have an electric water heater, this could be the problem as well. A failing water heater can use quite a chunk for a variety of reasons.

Commercial electric service is often billed using a demand meter. A demand meter measures the amount of electricity you use at any given time in addition to the total amount of electricity you use. Billing is based upon your largest demand for the billing period. The net effect is you can use quite a bit of electricity spread out evenly over a period of time and be billed less than if you used a smaller amount of electricity in a short period of time.

If you had all of your lights on, the computers, a dryer and then your air kicked on at the same time, it would significantly increase your demand and your bill if you are on demand billing.