borrow a kill-a-watt meter from the library

[turil.livejournal.com]

Sprouts of Hope Kids is a local group that has organized the company that makes them to donate 20 Kill-a-watt meters to the Cambridge Public Library so that you can borrow one (for a week) and measure your energy usage, to see if something you have is sucking huge amounts of energy out of your life. :-)

And you can borrow stuff from the Cambridge library if you have a Somerville Library card (both are on the Minuteman Network).

And it looks like you can request an inter-library loan and have it delivered to the closest Somerville Library branch (for example, the one in Davis Square...) if you want. (It's listed as the "Kill A Watt : electricity usage monitor" on the Cambridge library list, which doesn't have a waiting list like some of the other libraries have for the item.)

Comments

[m00n.livejournal.com]

I have one of these things. They're pretty slick. :-)

[ratatosk.livejournal.com]

I have a Kill-a-watt, and recommend it highly. It is an awesome gadget. You don't really need to own one -- just going through your house and learning the power usage of everything is pretty enlightening.

[squirrelitude]

You don't really need to own one

So why in the world would the manufacturer agree to donate these to a lending library? I can't see the business sense in this.

[turil.livejournal.com]

Several reasons:

It's great positive PR, for the company. Plus, the things don't cost them much to make, so they are spending very, very little on this PR.

It's a tax write off.

It's excellent advertising. Some people will just want to buy one just after reading about it. And others might buy one after borrowing one, since some people will want one for more than just a week.

[kpht.livejournal.com]

I need something like this. Something keeps sucking down 1.21 jigawatts of electricity every now and again, and I can't figure out why.

[pekmez.livejournal.com]

thanks for the tip! How cool.

[fefie.livejournal.com]

Cool.

I remember reading a while back about the availability of kill-watt meters at various local libraries on Boston.com (http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/green/greenblog/2010/02/borrow_a_watt_meter_or_energy.html), and wondering how one could get the company to donate to Somerville's public library.