On this page, you will find out how many watts a toaster draws.
Using a toaster to cook your breakfast can be an energy efficient way to make toast. You will find it uses much less energy to heat up than large appliances like grills and ovens. In addition, they are very compact which makes them ideal to use in vehicles like RVs and boats.
Below we will discuss and test toaster wattage, explain how to work it out for yourself, and calculate the total electricity required.
How Many Watts is a Toaster?
The average toaster uses between 800 to 1500 watts.
The exact number depends on the size and model of your toaster. For example, a small two slice toaster draws around 800W while the largest four slice toaster uses over 1200W.
As you would expect, a bigger toaster requires a larger heating element which is why it will draw an increasing amount of power.
How to Find Out Your Toaster Wattage
There’s 3 ways you can work out the wattage of a toaster.
- Check Product Specification
The quickest way is to look at the toaster’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.
- 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 toaster to get instant information.
Testing the power consumption of a toaster gave a live reading of 818W.
- Wattage Formula or Calculator
If you know the amperage and voltage of your toaster 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.
Toaster Wattage Examples
Let’s take a look at specific examples of how many watts a toaster draws. Below is a collection of modern toasters with their listed power ratings.
| Toaster Model | Power Rating (Watts) |
| West Bend Toaster 2 Slice Retro | 500 |
| Cuisinart CPT-160 2-Slice | 900 |
| Proctor Silex 2-Slice Extra-Wide | 700 |
| Elite Gourmet by Maxi-Matic 4 Slice | 1300 |
| BLACK+DECKER T4569B 4-Slice | 950 |
| Cuisinart CPT-340 4-Slice | 1800 |
| DyBaxa 4 Slice | 1300 |
As you can see, the power ratings vary between different toasters. So you should take the time to check your own appliance.
How Much Electricity Does a Toaster Use?
You can use toaster wattage to work out how much electricity it uses. Plus this can be useful in understanding how much it costs to run your toaster.
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 toaster 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 toaster running for 1 hour uses 1.2kWh.
In reality, you use a toaster for 5 minutes a day. This means a toaster uses about 100Wh or 0.1kWh electricity a day. That’s 3kWh a month and 36.5kWh a year.
That’s an electricity cost of $0.01 a day or $5.40 a year to make your toast every morning.
Using a Toaster Off-Grid
If you’re planning to use your toaster in an off-grid situation like a power outage, RV, boat, truck, or similar, the information above is important. It enables you to pick the correct power products and know how long you can run them.
You can either use 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 toaster. This ensures it will be able to deliver enough power as they are never 100% efficient. For a toaster, you will need at least 1500 – 2000W of power capacity.
Secondly, you need to ensure your energy source, like a battery, has enough energy to run the toaster for the required amount of time. As we already know, it will use about 100Wh electricity for each usage. This is the equivalent to 8.3Ah on a 12V battery.
How Many Watts Does a Toaster Use Summary
I hope you now have a clear understanding of how many watts a toaster uses.
As they use a heating element they will draw a pretty large amount of power. But you’ll only be using it for a few minutes at a time. Plus as they are compact appliances they get upto heat very quickly which makes them far more efficient than an oven or grill. Toasters are popular appliances to use off-grid but don’t use one for too long otherwise you’ll quickly deplete your battery supply. So make all your breakfast at one time while the internal elements are hot!
