Our Guide to Calculating Kiln Firing Costs

Have you ever wondered how much it costs to fire an electric kiln? Maybe you access a shared kiln and would like to divvy up the cost of a firing. While there are a number of factors that go into overall kiln costs such as studio rent or kiln maintenance, it is possible to hone in on what you pay for a single firing. In fact, we have a guideline that we use to calculate the approximate cost of firing our standard top loading or front loading electric kilns and we are going to share it here with you.

First, find out how many kilowatts your kiln uses. You can find your kilns KW listed on the kiln's electrical control box and/or in your kiln manual. Our 7 cubic foot, cone ten electric kiln: TL-2327-10 uses 11.5 KW.

We know that the elements will probably not be engaging at full 100% power at all times. In a typical bisque firing we can divide the firing time into quarters to represent the power engaging at 25%, 50% 75%, and 100%. So, if you applied that to our TL-2327-10 model (11.5 KW), and we assume you are firing a "Slow Bisque" with a Bartlett Controller (13.5 hours to cone 04) you would calculate as follows:

25% of 13.5 hours = 3.375 hours (13.5 hrs. divided by 4)

25% of 11.5 kilowatts = 2.875 (11.5 KWs divided by 4)

3.375 hrs (25% time) x 2.875 KW (25% KWs) = 9.7

3.375 hrs (25% time) x 5.75 KW (50% KWs) = 19.4

3.375 hrs (25% time) x 8.6 KW (75% KWs) = 29.1

3.375 hrs (25% time) x 11.5 KW (100%KWs)=38.81

Now, we add those totals to get a total of Kilowatt Hours : 97.01 Kilowatt Hours

97.01 x (rate that you pay per KWH as per your monthly invoice)= Cost of Firing

Ta-Da! If you pay 20 cents per KWH your kiln load, in this case, would cost $19.40.

Finding out what you pay might make you realize that you can actually afford to fire more! We hope that this takes some of the guesswork out of your studio costs and inspires you to get busy creating.