Parasitic electric usage

[red-beard]

So Mrs. Beard and I were out of town last week and I reviewed the power consumption without Air Conditioning and without us home.

27 kWh/day. I had left some lights on (90% LED/10% CFL), and three refrigerators and we have a pool with VFD. All of that added up to about 12kWh/day. So there was another 15kWh going somewhere.

Where? This is about 600 Watts continuous, 24/7/365. I looked around to what was consuming some power while plugged in.

4 TVs, not turned on, with cables boxes, and Blue-Ray players
1 NAS
2 telephone connection devices
WiFi Access Point
Router
LAN Switch
10 slot cell phone charging station
5 telephones with charging cradles
2 clocks
Pool remote with charging cradle
Maybe a little blower usage from the furnace
Garage door opener remote sensor
Bluetooth speaker system


So, all of those plugged in, but not really in use power devices add up! And it adds up to...$390 per year, or about about 17% of our annual bill. I need to look into switching some of this stuff off when were not using it.

[masraum]

Wow, $32.50 a month. That adds up. I don't have nearly as much stuff, but I do have a subset of that stuff.

[Evans, Marv]

Any outside things like security lights or other things???

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Supposedly phone / tablet transformers suck a lot even without a device connected. How many charging points do you have for such things? Any iPhone chargers / cables not listed?

I’d immediately suspect the TVs and the phone charging stations.

“Vampire power”

[hardflex]

I once bought a neat little tool at Harbor Frt. You plugged it between the wall outlet and the device and it would give you a readout in watts that was being pulled by the device. It would be useful in the diagnosis. Cost was under 50 bucks.

I think we're all guilty of leaving those chargers plugged in when not in use.

https://www.harborfreight.com/catalogsearch/result/index/?dir=asc&order=EAScore%2Cf%2CEAFeatured+Weight%2Cf%2CSale+R ank%2Cf&q=electric+usage

[DanielDudley]

Instant on appliances suck juice like crazy, just being plugged in.

[wdfifteen]

I'm looking for a meme of a bedbug under a hair dryer.

[red-beard]

I'm posting this because I was surprised that the parasitic load was almost 20% of my yearly consumption, and close to 30% in the winter months.

I have several "Kill-O-Watt" meters which I bought for work, to test appliances. In India, many of the outlets contain a switch. I think many of us plug in these adapters without thought and leave them in.

I obviously can't remove my phone lines or the network equipment. But it would be nice to unplug the Blueray players and the adapters that are not being used.

It is funny to think that this "parasitic usage" is similar to my pool savings, moving to the VFD pump. Or the savings from converting everything to LED lights. And a bit more than the savings from the turbine roof vents compared to the powered roof fans.

[Por_sha911]

tank water heater uses a lot of power (especially if turned up high and not insulated)
anything with a transformer (albeit the draw from these is minimal)

[Bill Douglas]

If you have one of those meters where you can see the wheel spinning around or a digital real time display you could flick the breakers one at a time to see which one is the guilty one. Then figure out what devices are on that line.

[hardflex]

interesting numbers on this site.

Electricity usage of an LED, LCD, Plasma, CRT TV or Computer Display - Energy Use Calculator

phone chargers 6 watts in use, 1 without phone plugged in, a pittance.

wifi routers 6 watts

alarm clock 2 watts

I'd be curious to see what is actually eating all that juice.

[Por_sha911]

from the link above

Electric water heaters are typically running for 3 hours a day to heat water, newer more efficient models may run for only half the time during each day. A typical water heater will use around 4000 watts.

[ckelly78z]

My problem with turning off the power strip to the TV/entertainment system is the intensive restart that must happen before the tv will allow you to do anything (about 10 minutes startup). Can we really unplug stereos, alarms, stoves, microwaves, that all must be reset to the proper time ?

Ghost loads are in every room, and almost inescapable.

[RKDinOKC]

Really worked to reduce my electric and gas over the past year. Replaced all my bulbs with LED. Even got 10 free LED bulbs and 2 electrical strips free from electric company to install a free peak thermostat and usage evaluation. The thermostat saves during summer. Because am using it pay only 6˘ per watt in the summer except during peak hours when temps are above 90°F. Then it cools the house off more an hour before the peak, then lets it get hotter before running the ac. Don't really notice it running and it saves a lot during the summer.

Have reevaluated my usage and turn off all my lights and don't turn any on unless absolutely necessary. Has just become a habit now.

Used to thing my TV and Receiver had to go to sleep instead of starting up cold. Found it only takes about 15 seconds for them to startup cols instead of 10 minutes. Each uses about 4 watts asleep. Putting my AppleTV to sleep shuts off the power strips power to the receiver and TV.

Put all my rechargeable devices with transformers on one powerstrip and only turn it on when charging. Usually only plug in the charger for the devices that are charging.

Also filled the empty space in my fridge with 1/2 gallon milk containers full of water. Changed habits so don't wastefully put nearly as much stuff in the fridge only to get tossed later.

My highest summer electric bill this summer was $100. They are usually over $200.

If you are not operating a server, turn off your internet and routers along with your computer when not using it. I don't put them to sleep, I turn them off. My email comes to my phone so can answer it there or can go turn on the computer/internet then.

I also can use my toaster oven instead of the big oven for most things. That 1500 watts instead of 3500 watts.

[red-beard]

Certain things I definitely can't turn off. The Cable box DOES take 10 minutes to reboot (really seems silly!). And I use my home NAS to backup the office NAS, so I need to keep those running. I just looked at some of the devices. NAS is 156 Watts by itself. WiFi Router is 180 Watts! So that is half of the 600 Watts!

And wow are those power supplies inefficient. WiFi Router 120VAC@1.5 amps in 19V @3.6Amps out. The NAS is 120VAC@1.3 Amps in, 12V @5Amps out.

[red-beard]

Oh, and our hot water heater is natural gas.

[hardflex]

Are those older units that can be replaced by newer more efficient units?

[red-beard]

Wifi Router is brand new Netgear AC5300. The NAS is older, but they use real disc drives.

[Deschodt]

Back when I went crazy with a Kill-a-watt tester, the biggest draw outside of stuff that was actually in use was...the UPS units for the TV and the computer. By a long shot. Just adding to the list..

[red-beard]

Oh, good point. I have 2 UPS systems, one for the regular LAN equipment and one for the NAS and WiFi Access Point.