vampires!

CNN has posted an article today about "vampire electronics" - those devices that suck energy when they appear to be "off" or are on standby. Years ago, I had a debate with Steve about whether this was actually a problem or not. I swore up and down that by unplugging everything in the house when I wasn't using it saved us a ton on our energy bill. Steve maintained that the amount of power something consumes in standby mode is negligible, and it really isn't worth the hassle - the power savings we were seeing were because once we started unplugging stuff, we started thinking about the energy we were using. This article says otherwise - our energy usage for devices on 'standby mode' is equal to all of the energy use for all of Italy. That's pretty embarrassing. Five percent of our energy goes to standby power. Which means that before I put most of my stuff on power strips within the past billing cycle, I've used 969 KWH of standby power in the past 3 years, for a cost of $181.29. On average, I use almost 28 KWH of standby power every month, which costs me about $5.18 on each bill.

I have the TV, DVD, Stereo, etc on a power strip - it gets turned off at night when we go to bed, and stays off until the following evening. I have to leave the DVR plugged in because the machine gets really confused when you turn it off, and it can't record anything when its off anyway. The other TV, the one with the game systems, is in a different room, also on a power strip & also turned off. Our cell phone chargers are also on a power strip, which is only on at night.

I used to unplug the coffee maker, the toaster oven & lights we rarely used. I have stopped doing this out of sheer laziness (the plugs are harder to reach in this house, partially because the kitchen is half-remodeled).

Other things I should unplug when not in use, but I don't:

• The washing machine. I only use that like once a week. Maybe twice.
  
• The clothes drier, which I use even less often than the washing machine (hang clothes outside)
• The toothbrush recharger
• My spouse's beard trimmer - he only uses that 1x a month, and I don't even know where the actual trimmer is.
• The all-in-one printer. At least we turn it off now, but it's still not unplugged.
• The dehumidifier - I turn it off at night, but don't unplug it.

I can't think of anything else at the moment...