On this page, you will find out how many watts an electric stove draws.
These appliances come in all different shapes and designs. You can get neat countertop options that are compact and portable. Or you might have a stove built into your oven top. These different designs mean the power consumption varies a lot. Adding to this, the number of burners you use will alter the running wattage.
Below we will discuss and test stove wattage, explain how to work it out for yourself, and calculate the total electricity required.
How Many Watts is a Stove?
The average stove uses between 1500 – 3000 watts.
The exact number depends on the size and model of your stove. For example, a smaller 2 burner countertop unit draws about 1500W. Contrastingly, a burner on a combined stove and oven can reach 3000W or more.
A single power consumption number is an oversimplification of the subject. The electricity usage will change based on the cooking heat and number of burners you have running. If you just use a small burner on a stove then you might just draw 1200W, but using 3 or 4 burners on a large unit could pull a whopping 4000W!
How to Find Out Your Stove Wattage
There’s 3 ways you can work out the wattage of an electric stove.
- Check Product Specification
The quickest way is to look at the stove’s specification. 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. This will give you a maximum running wattage which is not an exact reading for your usage.
- 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 stove to get instant information.
I used one to test my stove which gave a live reading of 1522W when running 2 burners and 561.2W when running a single small burner.
- Wattage Formula or Calculator
If you know the amperage and voltage of your stove 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. Once again, this will give you an overall number and not a personalized reading for your usage.
Electric Stove Wattage Examples
Let’s take a look at specific examples of how many watts a stove draws. Below is a collection of modern stoves with their listed power ratings.
| Stove Model | Power Rating (Watts) |
| IMUSA Electric Single Burner | 1100 |
| Elite Gourmet Countertop Single Burner | 1000 |
| Proctor Silex Electric Single Burner | 1200 |
| CUSIMAX Ceramic Electric Hot Plate | 1800 |
| Techwood Hot Plate | 1800 |
| Duxtop Portable Double | 1800 |
| CUKOR Electric Hot Stove | 1800 |
| DIDO Ceramic Electric | 1800 |
| CUSIMAX Double | 1800 |
| VBGK Double Induction Cooktop | 2000 |
As you can see, the power ratings vary between different stoves and cooktops. So you should take the time to check your own appliance.
How Much Electricity Does a Stove Use?
You can use stove wattage to work out how much electricity it uses. Plus this can be useful in understanding how much it costs to run your stove.
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 stove drawing 1500W would use 1500Wh when running for an hour.
Happily, electricity bills are recorded in kilowatt-hours (kWh). A kilowatt is simply 1000 watts. So a 1500W stove running for 1 hour uses 1.5kWh.
In reality, you use a cooktop for 20 minutes a day. This means an electric stove uses about 500Wh or 0.5kWh electricity a day. That’s 15kWh a month and 182.5kWh a year.
That’s a rough electricity cost of $0.7 a day or $27 a year to cook your food in this fashion.
Using an Electric Stove Off-Grid
If you’re planning to use your electric cooktop stove in an off-grid situation like during camping, RV, boat, power outage, truck, or similar, the information above is helpful. It allows you to select the correct power products and work out how long you can run them.
You can use either a power inverter, portable power station, or generator to generate 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 cooktop stove. This ensures it will be able to deliver enough power as they are never 100% efficient. To cook your food on a portable stove, you will need at least 2000W of power capacity. This will give you enough capacity without overloading your equipment.
Secondly, you need to ensure your energy source, like a battery, has enough energy to run the stove for the required amount of time. As we already know, it will use about 500Wh electricity for 20 minutes usage. This is the equivalent of 41.6Ah on a 12V battery.
How Many Watts Does a Stove Use Summary
I hope you now understand how many watts a stove uses.
As you have seen the power consumption can vary hugely depending on the size and type of your appliance. A countertop electric model uses a lot less than running the large burners on a combi stove/oven. If you want to use a portable option to cook off-grid then expect to draw 1000W – 1500W via your electricity source.
