Vampires at Home and Office

Ten to fifteen percent of the power in a building may be consumed by vampires like wall chargers and appliances.  This wastes energy and adds heat to your home, making your a/c work harder.  Here are four ideas to help reduce this waste and your power bill.

 

1. Unplug chargers when not in use.  “Wall warts”  consume from one to ten watts apiece, so once your phone or iPad or whatever device is charged, pull the charger out of the wall socket.  When you do, notice how warm it is to the touch.  This heat doesn’t come from thin air; it came from the electricity you’re paying for.

 

2. Many appliances consume power even when “off.”  For them, “off” really means “standby,” so you have the convenience of instant-on when switching on, say, your TV.  Satellite and cable converters are the worst offenders, using up to 48 watts when “off.”  You can avoid this by buying an inexpensive timer from your hardware store that your appliance plugs into and it will really turn off your cable box.  Set the timer to come back on when you are ready to watch TV or record a show.  U.S. Department of Energy estimates the savings from this simple solution could run a 21-cubic-foot Energy Star refrigerator for ten months!

 

3. Look around on your desk.  How many items there stay on even when you are off?  You may have a computer, a monitor, a desk phone, a charger for your cell phone, a printer and a digital clock on your desk, all plugged into the same power strip.  Even if you shut down your printer and computer, for example, they may still consume around ten watts all night.  But, if you switch off your power strip, your digital clock and maybe your phone will need resetting daily.  Not good.  Instead, you can get a new power strip that is switchable.  Office supply stores carry these switchable strips; one by Belkin has six outlets for things that can be turned off, and two for continuous power to your clock, router, cordless phone, etc that you want to keep on.

 

4. If your office, home, or business has a recirculation hot water system, put a timer on the pump to turn it off when the building is closed.  You will save both pump energy and wasted heat reradiated from the piping throughout the building when it is closed.  If your water heater is electric, you can save even more by switching off the heating element at the same time the pump is off.

 

 

Couresty of Energy Ace, Inc.; acee.org; rvcc.org