Is it safe to leave your dehydrator on when you leave the house?

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Permalink Reply by dawg8k9 on May 7, 2009 at 6:18pm

I know you shouldn't but do....gotta have kale chips.

I've added a false sense of security by plugging my dehydrator into a power surge protector.

My thinking is, "Hey! I leave the refrigerator plugged in and running when I'm not at home."...hehehe

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Permalink Reply by Chicory on May 7, 2009 at 6:49pm

you could maybe get one of those plant light timers that you plug into the outlet, then plug the device into it, so it automatically shuts off :). I sometimes leave mine on when i go to sleep... although I am still a bit nervous about it.

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Permalink Reply by jason on May 7, 2009 at 8:59pm

Its fine, its like leaving the tv on, or the fridge. It can't start a fire. The tv can ruin a mind though, so make sure you turn it off : )

The only problem is your kale chips might shrink to nothing crisps if you leave them for 8 hours -

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Permalink Reply by Kelly Myra on May 7, 2009 at 10:51pm

i leave mine when I'm out all the time. I also have a plugin timer that I can set if I want to stop it before I'm home.

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Permalink Reply by telefunken on May 7, 2009 at 10:53pm

As long as your dehydrator is in good working order, don't hesitate to run it while away. Many appliances / systems are powered up 24 hours (furnace, boiler, AC, refrigerator, etc.)

I do draw the line at ovens, clothes dryers and halogen lighting though. These I never run when not at home.

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Permalink Reply by Jef on May 7, 2009 at 11:14pm

While we are (sort of ) on the topic, does anyone know how much energy an Excalibur uses? like the 9 tray? I leave mine running all the time, sometimes for days on end,........when I'm too chaotic to get the stuff put away, and just wonder how much energy I'm wasting....I use it in the basement in winter, and the garage in summer. I have worried about fires, but I got over it. Seems to make sense what Jason just said.

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Permalink Reply by telefunken on May 7, 2009 at 11:20pm

this will tell you the power consumption of any electric powered device:

http://www.p3international.com/products/special/P4400/P4400-CE.html

$22 on Amazon.com

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Permalink Reply by Jef on May 7, 2009 at 11:33pm

Does anyone have one I could borrow? LOL :)

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Permalink Reply by jason on May 8, 2009 at 7:05am

A 9 tray dehydrator (Excalibur) uses 600 watts and the 5 tray is 440 watts.

A kilowatt hour of juice in Florida is costing me 5.5 cents per kwh (kilo-watt hour) (for the first 1000 then its 6.5 cents after that)

So... 600 watts per hour used by the dehydrator would be .6 KWH, so .6 x 5.5 = 3.3 cents per hour here. 3.3 x 24 = 80 cents per day or $24 per month if run constanlty for the entire month. (After my first 1000 KW of use, it would be 3.9 cents per hour or 93.6 cents per day and about $28 per month)

*A kilowatt hour is 1000 watts of juice for one hour of time and is how electricity use is measured.

Its easy to figure these things out without the weird little tool. Be dependent on the human mind, its the greatest computer on this planet and we've all got one -

Peace

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Permalink Reply by Jef on May 20, 2009 at 8:53pm

Thanks Jason. I was good at math up until about 11th grade, and then when I had kids I really put my brain on hold in that department. :) Its interesting to consider that I could have figured it out myself with some basic knowledge about watts and stuff.

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Permalink Reply by Mister Bliss on May 20, 2009 at 3:07am

It made me smile, the thought of you watching a dehydrator. some things take 18 hours! Well I guess its a great way to get your meditation in, if thats what your into. for the record i spent three months at the creative health institute in Michigan and we hardly turned the dehydrators off. There was always someone making something .

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Permalink Reply by Hollie on May 21, 2009 at 8:35pm

I leave mine on all the time. :)

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