A refrigerator draws about 150 running watts and spikes to roughly 800 watts for a fraction of a second when its compressor kicks in; a hair dryer draws 1,500 watts continuously with no spike at all. Both numbers matter for different reasons, and the chart below lists both — running watts, starting watts and amps at 120V — for 41 common household appliances, grouped by room.
Most of what is on this list runs on a standard 120V household outlet. A handful of larger appliances, marked 240V below, run on the dedicated high-voltage circuits wired for a clothes dryer, an electric range, central air conditioning, a water heater or an EV charger. At the same wattage, a 240V appliance pulls roughly half the amps a 120V one would, because volts and amps trade off against each other to produce the same watts.
Running and starting watts by room
Kitchen
| Appliance | Running Watts | Starting Watts | Amps |
|---|---|---|---|
| Refrigerator (full-size) | 150 W | 800 W | 1.3 A |
| Mini fridge | 100 W | 200 W | 0.8 A |
| Chest freezer | 200 W | 1,000 W | 1.7 A |
| Microwave (1,000 W) | 1,000 W | — | 8.3 A |
| Microwave (1,200 W) | 1,200 W | — | 10.0 A |
| Dishwasher | 1,200 W | 1,800 W | 10.0 A |
| Coffee maker | 1,000 W | — | 8.3 A |
| Toaster | 1,200 W | — | 10.0 A |
| Electric kettle | 1,500 W | — | 12.5 A |
| Blender | 500 W | 800 W | 4.2 A |
| Air fryer | 1,500 W | — | 12.5 A |
| Instant Pot / pressure cooker | 1,000 W | — | 8.3 A |
| Garbage disposal | 500 W | 1,500 W | 4.2 A |
| Range hood / exhaust fan | 200 W | — | 1.7 A |
Laundry
| Appliance | Running Watts | Starting Watts | Amps |
|---|---|---|---|
| Washing machine (top-load) | 500 W | 1,000 W | 4.2 A |
| Washing machine (front-load, heated) | up to 1,200 W | 1,800 W | up to 10.0 A |
| Electric clothes dryer (240V) | 5,000 W | — | 20.8 A |
| Gas clothes dryer (drum motor and controls) | 300 W | 600 W | 2.5 A |
Climate and HVAC
| Appliance | Running Watts | Starting Watts | Amps |
|---|---|---|---|
| Window air conditioner, small (5,000 BTU) | 500 W | 1,500 W | 4.2 A |
| Window air conditioner, large (12,000 BTU) | 1,200 W | 3,600 W | 10.0 A |
| Central air conditioning (240V) | 3,500 W | 8,000 W+ | 14.6 A |
| Space heater | 1,500 W | — | 12.5 A |
| Electric water heater (240V) | 4,500 W | — | 18.8 A |
| Dehumidifier | 300 W | 900 W | 2.5 A |
| Ceiling fan | 75 W | — | 0.6 A |
| Box fan | 100 W | — | 0.8 A |
| Electric baseboard heater | 1,500 W | — | 12.5 A |
Home office and electronics
| Appliance | Running Watts | Starting Watts | Amps |
|---|---|---|---|
| Laptop charger | 65 W | — | 0.5 A |
| Desktop computer | 200 W | — | 1.7 A |
| Monitor | 30 W | — | 0.3 A |
| Wifi router | 10 W | — | 0.1 A |
| TV (55-inch LED) | 100 W | — | 0.8 A |
| Phone charger | 10 W | — | 0.1 A |
Workshop, outdoor and well systems
| Appliance | Running Watts | Starting Watts | Amps |
|---|---|---|---|
| Well pump, 1/2 HP (240V) | 1,000 W | 2,500 W | 4.2 A |
| Sump pump | 800 W | 1,300 W | 6.7 A |
| Air compressor (1.5 HP) | 1,500 W | 4,500 W | 12.5 A |
| Table saw | 1,800 W | 4,500 W | 15.0 A |
| Level 2 EV charger (240V) | 7,200 W | — | 30.0 A |
| Angle grinder | 1,000 W | — | 8.3 A |
Comfort and medical
| Appliance | Running Watts | Starting Watts | Amps |
|---|---|---|---|
| CPAP machine | 40 W | — | 0.3 A |
| Electric blanket | 200 W | — | 1.7 A |
How to read this chart
Running watts is what an appliance draws once it is up and going. Starting watts — sometimes listed as surge watts, or as locked-rotor amps (LRA) on a nameplate — is the brief spike anything with a compressor, a pump or an induction motor pulls for a fraction of a second at power-on. A dash in the starting watts column means the appliance is a resistive load, such as a heating element, a light or a charger, and does not surge.
Amps is running watts divided by volts. For everything marked 120V that is running watts divided by 120; for the appliances marked 240V above, it is running watts divided by 240 instead, which is why a 5,000W electric dryer draws 20.8A rather than the 41.7A it would need on a standard outlet. Use the watts-to-amps calculator to check a model that is not on this list, or amps-to-watts if the nameplate only gives you a current rating.
Why starting watts matter
Starting watts is the figure that trips a breaker or stalls a small generator, not running watts. A refrigerator compressor can pull 3-5 times its running draw for well under a second — a 150W fridge spiking to 600-800W on startup is normal — and a well pump or an air compressor does the same thing at a larger scale. Size a circuit, a generator or a power station to the starting watts of the single largest motor on it, not to its running watts, or the first time that motor kicks on, everything else on the circuit browns out or the breaker trips. This is the most common reason a power station that looks big enough on paper turns out not to be: the running-watts number was fine and the surge was never budgeted for. See watts to run a refrigerator for the worked example on the appliance that catches people out most often.
How to total a load for an outage
Add the running watts of everything you want on at the same time, then add the single largest starting watts figure from that list on top of the total — surges from separate motors essentially never overlap, so only the worst one needs headroom. A refrigerator (150W running, 800W starting) plus a sump pump (800W running, 1,300W starting) plus a run of LED lights and a phone charger (call it 100W) comes to 1,050W running. Add the sump pump’s 1,300W starting spike, the larger of the two motors, rather than both, for a peak of roughly 2,350W. That peak is what a generator’s or power station’s continuous AC output rating needs to clear — even though it only has to clear it for well under a second.
The same 80% rule that keeps a household circuit from tripping under normal use applies here too: NEC 210.20 caps a continuously loaded circuit at 80% of its breaker rating, so a 15A circuit is good for 12A continuous and a 20A circuit for 16A. A 1,500W space heater already draws 12.5A on its own, which is the ceiling of a 15A circuit — nothing else continuous belongs on that line.
What size power station each tier needs
Match the tier to your peak load, not to a capacity number that sounds reassuring. A CPAP machine, or a laptop and a phone charging overnight, is a sub-300W peak that a station such as the ALLPOWERS VOLIX P300 Portable Power Station 300W 256Wh (256 Wh, $119) clears with room to spare — see running a CPAP on battery power for the overnight-runtime math specifically. A fridge, lights and a router — the load worked out above — needs a station rated for at least 2,500W of continuous AC output and enough capacity to ride out several hours; the BLUETTI AC70 Portable Power Station (768 Wh, $359) covers the wattage but not many hours at that load, while the BLUETTI AC200L Portable Power Station (2,048 Wh, $899) adds the capacity to keep the same load running overnight. A well pump, a window air conditioner or anything else that starts with a surge above 3,000W needs both the AC output and the capacity headroom the EcoFlow DELTA Pro Solar Generator (PV400W) (3,000 Wh, $2,399) is built for.
Check the cost per watt-hour of any of these against the power station price index before buying — it varies more between models at the same capacity than most buyers expect — or run your own numbers through the power station finder. For sizing a whole-home or partial-home solar and battery setup rather than a single appliance, start with how to size a solar system. If a gas furnace blower is the load you are actually planning around, rather than anything in this chart, running a gas furnace on battery power covers it separately.
How this page makes money. Some links here are affiliate links and we earn a commission if you buy through them — currently BLUETTI, ALLPOWERS, Mango Power, Renogy and MoonCool. Every other brand on this page is here because leaving it out would make the comparison useless to you, and we are paid nothing either way. Prices are each maker’s own list price at the time of writing and change often.