Why do I still use electric when things are turned off?
I’m Jon Mullen the Energy Evangelist and we’re talking about #SaveEnergySaveMoney.
This month we are looking at all the devices in our house which will be using electricity just because they are plugged in. When you look around your house and find electric items for things which are plugged in and they are showing a light on then that means that they’re using electricity. To many of you this may seem obvious but many of us expect appliances to be operating all the time just like a mobile phone. Some people don’t like switching off the mobile phone because they say they want their friends to be able to get to them in case there’s an emergency, but very few emergencies ever happen.
Unless you have bought the very best of electric equipment with has an A*** rating then most of your appliances will be using quite a lot of electricity even whenever they are sitting on standby. One item in my house which I want to change is a reasonably large LED TV, and we’re told that LEDs actually use very little electricity so you would immediately think ok if that’s the case then it’s not a problem to leave it on standby. But to show you how much electricity it uses let’s make a little experiment. If I were to leave the TV on standby overnight, then in the morning I walk from my hallway and into the living room I would find the living room to be approximately 5 degrees warmer than the hallway because the TV is generating that heat difference. If I did that would have cost me approximately £0.50 to heat this room overnight using my LED tv. If I did that every night because I couldn’t be bothered to switch it off at the plug it would have cost me £180 each year.
I’m not wanting to be tight with my money, but I would rather have that money in my pocket instead of the electric supplier taking it out every month. So if we look around our homes and find all the appliances which are left plugged in and turned on, then we can make the decision if we really need to have them using power 24 hours a day. Also remember if a device is plugged into a transformer, like your laptop or mobile phone, it will still be using electricity even if the connector is not plugged into the device because of the way the transformer works.
If you want to talk more, email me at EnergyEvangelist@EnergyPriceSaver.com .
I’m Jon Mullen The Energy Evangelist. Come and find out how to #SaveEnergySaveMoney at www.EnergyEvangelist.co.uk