Determining Wattage Consumed by a Hair Dryer????

Recently, while perusing Ebay, I noticed an auction (actually several) for a
2800 watt "Volcano" hair dryer. This was 800 more watts than I had ever
seen. My initial reaction was that it couldn't be possible because this
would lead to triggered circuit breakers. So I purchased a hair dryer in
addition to a non-contact current meter.

Using a split extension cord, it was registering 9.8 amps, slightly less
than my 1800 Conair dryer. So, it is safe to say that [most of the]
voltage is in phase with current? I would assume that 99% of the energy
goes to the heating element.


If this is this case, then the power should be

9.8 * 2 *120 (approx) * 0.99 ???

= 2156 ?













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