On this page, you will find out how many watts a coffee maker draws.
If you’re like me, your day always starts with a hot cup of coffee. It’s a time to get my mind right for the day and get a caffeine boost before heading out the door. Of course, this means running my coffee machine every morning. For an appliance that is used so regularly, it’s useful to know the power consumption. Plus, if you want to run it off-grid, in an RV for example, you’ll need to know how much electricity it pulls.
Below we will discuss and test coffee maker wattage, explain how to work it out for yourself, and calculate the total electricity required.
How Many Watts is a Coffee Maker?
The average coffee maker uses between 800 and 1500 watts.
The exact number depends on the size and model of your coffee maker. For example, a large multi-cup machine will use well over 1300W when heating up. While a small personal machine can use less than 1000W.
The power rating of your coffee machine does not mean it uses this amount of power all the time. This maximum consumption will be for around 5 minutes while the machine heats up and pours coffee. If you leave the appliance running on ‘keep warm’ or ‘idle’ mode it will use a much lower amount of 100W to 300W.
How to Find Out Your Coffee Maker Wattage
There are 3 ways you can work out the wattage of a coffee maker.
- Check Product Specification
The quickest way is to look at the coffee maker’s specifications. The watts (W) is usually written on a sticker on the base of the appliance. If not, you can check the user manual or the manufacturer’s website for technical details.
- Use a Wattmeter
A wattmeter is brilliant for getting a live wattage reading and tracking total energy usage of any appliance. You can simply plug it into your coffee maker to get instant information.
I used one to test my coffee maker which gave a live reading of 1032W.
- Wattage Formula or Calculator
If you know the amperage and voltage of your coffee maker you can use this to find the running watts. Simply use the formula Amps x Volts = Watts. Or you can head over to the ‘Watt Calculator’ to work this out.
Coffee Maker Wattage Examples
Let’s take a look at specific examples of how many watts a coffee maker draws. Below is a collection of modern coffee makers with their listed power ratings.
| Coffee Maker Model | Power Rating (Watts) |
| Breville Barista Express | 1600 |
| Hamilton Beach 2-Way Brewer | 950 |
| Gevi Espresso Machine | 1100 |
| Chefman 6-in-1 | 1350 |
| Cuisinart Brew Central | 1200 |
| Keurig K-Select | 1500 |
| DELONGHI Autentica | 1450 |
| Phillips 5000 Series | 1000 |
As you can see, the power ratings vary between different coffee machines. So you should take the time to check your own appliance.
How Much Electricity Does a Coffee Maker Use?
You can use coffee maker wattage to work out how much electricity it uses. Adding to this, it is useful in finding out how much it costs to run your coffee maker.
A watt (W) is a measurement of power at a single point in time. A watt-hour is the total amount of electricity used in an hour. For example, a coffee maker drawing 1200W would use 1200Wh when running for an hour.
Happily, electricity bills are recorded in kilowatt-hours (kWh). A kilowatt is simply 1000 watts. So a 1200W coffee maker running for 1 hour uses 1.2kWh.
In reality, you use a coffee maker for 10 minutes a day. This means a coffee maker uses about 200Wh or 0.2kWh electricity a day. That’s 6kWh a month and 73kWh a year.
That’s an electricity cost of about $0.03 a day or $11 a year to brew your morning cup of coffee.
Using a Coffee Maker Off-Grid
If you’re planning to use your coffee maker in an off-grid situation like an RV, boat, truck or similar, the information above is important. It enables you to pick the correct power equipment and understand how long it can run.
You can either use a power inverter, portable power station, or generator to produce electricity.
To make sure everything runs smoothly you should check two things on this equipment – wattage capacity and total energy capacity.
Your power source, like an inverter, should have a wattage capacity of at least 20% more than your coffee maker. This ensures it will be able to deliver enough power as they are never 100% efficient. To brew coffee, you will need at least 1500 to 2000W of power capacity.
Secondly, you need to ensure your energy source, like a battery, has enough energy to run the coffee machine for the required amount of time. As we already know, it will use about 200Wh electricity each day. This is the equivalent to 16.6Ah on a 12V battery.
How Many Watts Does a Coffee Maker Use Summary
I hope you now have an understanding of how many watts a coffee maker uses.
You can see that these appliances draw a fair amount of power. This is because they use a heating element and utilize high pressure for drinks like espresso. The good news is that you only need to run it for a few minutes so the overall electricity use and the cost is very low. This makes it possible to install one in an RV or truck to enjoy fresh coffee on the road. Plus, we’ve discovered it’s always cheaper to brew your own cup at home rather than buying from a coffee house.
