# Looking for power factor of home appliances

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#### alphacat

##### New Member
Is anyone familier with a power factor table of home appliances? (television, air-conditioner, etc.).

I'm trying to find such table but just dont manage to locate even one.
I'm not looking for accurate numbers, just average numbers.

I'd appreciate any help.
Thanks!

#### RCinFLA

##### Well-Known Member
You can buy a Kill-A-Watt meter for $25-$30 to measure them directly.

I don't know of any public measurement doc of such devices.

Generally anything with motor is likely inductive load but there are a lot of new air conditioners and refrig that have power factor correction.

TV, computer, and other such electronic devices are generally 0.6 PF but is pulse current spurts due to just rectifying AC mains feeding filter cap to run their switching power supplies. The current spike occurs at as the cap is replenished with charge near peak of input sinewave.

Again, there are more and more switching power supplies that have power factor correction circuitry.

#### MrAl

##### Well-Known Member
Hi alpha,

I dont have a table of power factors for typical home loads, but you can measure
this if you measure the phase angle between the current and voltage. The
power factor is the cosine of the angle. It also helps to log the current and
the leading or lagging status of the current in case you want to total them
up. Adding two loads means finding the vector sum of the two and the
power factor is again the cosine of the resulting angle.

#### audioguru

##### Well-Known Member
Did you notice that none of the "power consumption" tables mention power factor? Because homes are not charged extra for a poor power factor, only industy is.

#### tcmtech

##### Banned
Do you suppose another Eco scammer 'power savings device' or 'how to save energy' scam report recently hit the market, again?

There seems to be a slight increase in power factor related threads lately.

#### gary350

##### Well-Known Member
You will not have a power factor problem at home unless you have a 100 horse power high inductance electric motor in your kitchen or garage.

#### tcmtech

##### Banned
You will not have a power factor problem at home unless you have a 100 horse power high inductance electric motor in your kitchen or garage.
But you may have problem with the neighbors every time you turn it on and the whole local area dims out!