Battery Backup Wattage Chart: What 40 Common Houston Household Loads Draw

Most wattage charts online hand you one tidy number per appliance and let you believe it. Real appliances don't work that way. Two refrigerators of different age, size and efficiency will not draw the same, and the label on your own machine beats any table, including this one.

So this chart gives ranges, names the source for each group, and leaves a cell blank when no public source backs a number. It is the lookup table. For the method that turns watts into a battery size, read our guide to sizing a home battery in Texas.

Key Takeaways

• Running watts decide whether a load can share your system's limit. Surge decides whether a motor can start.
• Virginia Tech Extension lists ranges from 10 W to 5,500 W across common household loads, and notes motors can draw about three times more current at startup.
• The nameplate on your appliance overrides every table.
• The big stackers are water heater, dryer, dishwasher and central AC.

Where do these wattage numbers come from?

The chart below leans on one published table, the Virginia Tech Cooperative Extension wattage list by Grisso, Walker and Ignosh, published February 2020 (Virginia Cooperative Extension, Estimating Appliance and Home Electronic Energy Use, BSE-301). It reports ranges, not single values, which is the honest way to publish them.

The U.S. Department of Energy takes the same stance. It says wattage values in its estimating tool are samples only, and that actual wattage varies with product age and features (U.S. Department of Energy, Estimating Appliance and Home Electronic Energy Use).

The DOE page also gives the fallback when a label has no wattage: multiply amps by volts. Most U.S. appliances run at 120 volts, while dryers and electric cooktops use 240 volts. A 10 amp, 120 volt load is 1,200 watts.

A limit worth stating: I could not retrieve DOE's own wattage table in a form I could verify line by line. So every number below comes from the Virginia Tech list, and anything it does not cover is marked as a nameplate item. Nothing here is a vendor estimate.

What do 40 common household loads draw?

Running watts are what a load pulls once it is up and going. The ranges below are from the Virginia Tech list unless the row says "read the nameplate," which means no public source I could verify gives a number.

#	Load	Running watts	Notes
1	Refrigerator, frost-free, 16 cu ft	about 725 W	Motor, cycles on and off
2	Deep well pump	250 to 1,100 W	Motor, starts under load
3	Chest or upright freezer	read the nameplate	Motor, cycles
4	Sump pump	read the nameplate	Motor, starts under load
5	Ceiling fan	65 to 175 W	Low draw, high value in August
6	Window fan	55 to 250 W
7	Whole house fan	240 to 750 W
8	Furnace fan	about 750 W	Blower only, not heat strips
9	Portable heater	750 to 1,500 W	Resistance heat, steady draw
10	Dehumidifier	about 785 W	Compressor, motor-type start
11	Television, 19 to 61 inch	65 to 170 W
12	Flat screen TV	about 120 W
13	Desktop PC, CPU awake	about 120 W	30 W or less asleep
14	PC monitor, awake	about 150 W	30 W or less asleep
15	Laptop	about 50 W
16	Stereo or radio	70 to 400 W
17	Clock radio	about 10 W
18	DVD or VCR player	17 to 25 W
19	Wi-Fi router and modem	read the nameplate	Small, always on
20	LED lighting circuit	read the nameplate	Count bulbs times rated watts
21	Microwave oven	750 to 1,100 W
22	Coffee maker	900 to 1,200 W	Resistance heater
23	Toaster	800 to 1,400 W
24	Toaster oven	about 1,225 W
25	Dishwasher	1,200 to 2,400 W	Heating element drives the peak
26	Clothes washer	350 to 500 W	Motor
27	Clothes dryer	1,800 to 5,000 W	240 V
28	Water heater, 40 gallon	4,500 to 5,500 W	240 V, resistance elements
29	Electric blanket, single	about 60 W
30	Electric blanket, double	about 100 W
31	Water bed with heater	120 to 380 W
32	Hair dryer	1,200 to 1,875 W
33	Clothes iron	1,000 to 1,800 W
34	Vacuum cleaner	1,000 to 1,440 W	Motor
35	Aquarium	50 to 1,210 W	Wide range, heater driven
36	Garage door opener	read the nameplate	Brief motor start
37	Phone and tablet chargers	read the nameplate	Small each, adds up
38	Electric range	read the nameplate	240 V, large
39	EV charger	read the nameplate	Set by the charger and the car
40	Central AC, 3 to 5 ton	see our AC guide	Largest single load

For row 40, the arithmetic and the Houston duty cycle live in our central AC tonnage guide. Rows 36 to 39 stay blank on purpose. Their draw depends on the model, and a guess in a table looks like a fact.

How should you read running watts against surge?

Running watts tell you what a load costs per hour. Surge tells you whether a motor will start at all. Virginia Tech notes motors draw roughly three times more current at startup than in normal operation. It does not publish per-appliance surge figures, so neither will I.

Here is what that rule implies, labeled as arithmetic and nothing more. If a refrigerator runs near 725 W, three times that is about 2,175 W for the instant its compressor starts. A deep well pump at the top of its range, 1,100 W, implies roughly 3,300 W. Both are brief, both are well inside a whole-house system's rating.

Surge only becomes a problem when several motors start together, or when one big one does. That's why starting order matters as much as the list itself. The smart panel prioritization guide shows how to stagger it.

Which loads actually matter in a Houston outage?

Cooling dominates. Air conditioning accounted for about 19% of electricity used in U.S. homes in 2020, roughly 254 billion kWh (U.S. Energy Information Administration, How much electricity is used for air conditioning in the United States?). The same EIA data puts space heating and water heating at 12% each (U.S. Energy Information Administration, Electricity use in homes). In Houston, cooling is the one you feel first.

The EIA says lighting and refrigerators are the next two largest end uses, so the loads people worry about most are, usefully, small. A refrigerator is a short list item. FEMA's Ready.gov says a refrigerator keeps food cold for about four hours and a full freezer about 48 hours, so those are the loads worth protecting first.

Electric heating elements are the opposite problem. A 40 gallon water heater at 4,500 to 5,500 W uses as much power as many whole circuits of small loads combined. Efficient replacements exist: ENERGY STAR requires a UEF of at least 3.30 for integrated heat pump water heaters (ENERGY STAR, Residential Water Heaters Key Product Criteria). That is a standard, not a wattage, so check the datasheet for the draw.

Efficiency changes the chart in your own house. ENERGY STAR says certified refrigerators are about 9 percent more efficient than federal minimum models (ENERGY STAR, Refrigerators). Its heat pump dryers use around 70% less energy than conventional dryers (ENERGY STAR, Clothes Dryers). Its dishwashers use less than half the energy of hand washing (ENERGY STAR, Dishwashers). Those are energy figures, not peak watts, so a newer dryer lowers your bill faster than it lowers your peak.

Which stacked loads break the 11.5 kW and 17.1 kW limits?

An Eos residential system supplies 11.5 kW continuous and 17.1 kW surge from one smart controller. That figure comes from our plan specifications, and stacking modules adds hours, not kilowatts. See kW versus kWh explained for why those are different purchases.

Now the sums, using the ranges above. They show the spread between a light and a heavy day.

• Everyday kitchen stack. Microwave 750 to 1,100 W, coffee maker 900 to 1,200 W, toaster 800 to 1,400 W. Total: 2,450 to 3,700 W. Fine.
• Comfort stack. Refrigerator 725 W, ceiling fans (three) 195 to 525 W, TV 65 to 170 W, router and lights. Under 1.5 kW before AC. Fine.
• Laundry stack. Dryer 1,800 to 5,000 W plus washer 350 to 500 W plus dishwasher 1,200 to 2,400 W. Total: 3,350 to 7,900 W. Fine alone, heavy with AC.
• The stack that breaks it. Water heater 4,500 to 5,500 W, dryer 1,800 to 5,000 W, dishwasher 1,200 to 2,400 W, microwave 750 to 1,100 W. Total: 8,250 to 14,000 W. At the top of that range, you exceed 11.5 kW continuous, and that is before any AC.
• Add a 5-ton AC. Our AC guide puts one at roughly 4.6 to 6.0 kW. Add it to the laundry stack at its low end (3.35 kW) and you are at 7.95 to 9.35 kW. Add the water heater and you pass 11.5 kW.

The pattern holds across every house. Three resistance loads running together do more damage than a dozen small ones. Resistance heaters don't surge, they just sit at full draw, so a smart panel handles them by turning one off, not by starting them in sequence.

Two honest caveats. First, ranges are not your house. Your 40 gallon water heater might draw 4,500 W and run 20 minutes an hour. Second, I'm not publishing a surge figure for any single appliance, because Virginia Tech does not and a vendor blog is not a source.

How do you build your own chart in ten minutes?

1. Walk the house with your phone. Photograph the nameplate on every motor and heating appliance.
2. If a label shows amps and volts, multiply them, as the DOE method describes.
3. Write down running watts and which circuit feeds each load.
4. Mark each load as essential, nice to have, or skip during an outage.
5. Add up the essentials. That total is your continuous requirement, and it should sit well under 11.5 kW.
6. Flag every motor. Those are your startup events, and they should not all start in the same second.

What a battery will not run at all is a separate list. We cover it in what a home battery does not power in Houston, and it is worth reading before you finalize step 4.

Or call Eos at 833-989-3737 to talk through your setup with an installer.

FAQ

How many watts does a refrigerator use?

Virginia Tech Extension lists a 16 cubic foot frost-free refrigerator at about 725 W while running. Newer ENERGY STAR models are about 9 percent more efficient than federal minimum models, so your label may read lower. Motors can draw about three times more current at startup.

What appliances can a home battery run?

Nearly everything on this chart, one at a time. The limit is the total you run at once, which for an Eos residential system is 11.5 kW continuous. Heavy resistance loads such as water heaters, dryers and ovens are the ones to schedule or exclude.

Is a household appliance wattage list accurate for my house?

It is a starting estimate. The Department of Energy states that its sample wattage values vary with product age and features, and recommends using your own product's number. Read the nameplate, or multiply amps by volts, and use that.

Does a bigger battery raise the kW limit?

No. Adding modules raises kilowatt-hours, which is runtime. The 11.5 kW continuous and 17.1 kW surge limits come from the controller, so a bigger battery does not let you run a bigger stack of loads at once.

Do I need to list all 40 loads?

No. List the essentials, usually fewer than ten, and size from those. The full chart is a lookup, not a checklist. Start with refrigerator, internet, lights, fans and AC, then add from there.