leaving tv and sky box on standby

[groucho]

BigBazza said:

Doesn't seem a lot and i'm anything BUT an eco warrior - add it up over a year, say its on standy 20hrs a day while you are asleep/at work and at 2p/h its £145 a year.

All adds up!

Definitely worth saving.

[Tazfan]

Hyperion said:

My standard Sky+ box consumes 24 watts with the box powered on, and 11 watts in standby (internal HDD powered down).

So, 11 watts will cost 3.4 pence per month to run, based on electricity costing 13 pence per Kilowatt hour.
Most TV's consume around 1 watt in standby...which is 3p per month.

That cant be right. If 11 watts uses 3.4 pence a month, why does 1 watt use 3 pence per month? If 1 watt is 3 pence, then surely 11 watts is 33 pence.

[Adam B]

john_p said:

A Sky+ box uses 14W on standby, according to Google

So say the box is unused between midnight at 4PM = 16 hours

= 0.224 kWh per day

I'd say your TV is about 2W on standby

= 0.032 kWh per day

Electricity say 12p/kWh

= 3.1 pence per day to leave in standby

which seems a reasonable £11 per year - how on earth did we get to £145 per year?

[Plotloss]

Adam B said:

how on earth did we get to £145 per year?

MMGW

The nonsense surrounding this subject is very annoying.

Apparently modern televisions use as much electricity in standby that they do when they're on.

Well no, more like about a 250th but dont let facts get in the way.

[esselte]

groucho said:

BigBazza said:

Doesn't seem a lot and i'm anything BUT an eco warrior - add it up over a year, say its on standy 20hrs a day while you are asleep/at work and at 2p/h its £145 a year.

All adds up!

Definitely worth saving.

But it's not £145/year it's more like a tenner a year....

[Mill Wheel]

BigBazza said:

Doesn't seem a lot and i'm anything BUT an eco warrior - add it up over a year, say its on standy 20hrs a day while you are asleep/at work and at 2p/h its £145 a year.

All adds up!

You only watch 4 hours a day??

Just remember, that leaving stuff on standby helps take the chill off the room, and might even save having to put a 1kw bar on to heat the place up!!
add to that the fact that cold start up is avoided, then LEAVE it on.

You don't turn the fridge off if the weather is cold do you?

[jesta1865]

Mikey G said:

dern said:

Mikey G said:

It was more of a pain of it turning itself off during late night telly after i get home from work more than anything. As i have said i'm happy to leave it on, i pay the bills at the end of the month, there are worse things to worry about than a sky box!!

While you were watching it? We've had our sky+ box for a couple of years now and I've seen some shoddy software in my time but I've never seen anything as unreliable and as crap as the stuff on the sky+ box. Keep thinking about digging the tivo out of the loft and signing up to that again.

Yes while watching it, the box cant tell if the telly is on i dont think. I thought there was a problem with it when it started going off, but it seemed strange that it was occuring the same time every night (1 or 2am iirc). The last straw was when it missed a recording one morning while it put itself into standby the night before, that was when i discovered the new settings in the box kindly supplied by Sky.

Never tried to record out of standby since so not sure if that is still the case with my box or if it is a fault with it.

hi there is a setting in there somewhere to stop it from going into standby, i can't remember where though sorry, mine only seems to fail to record when it needs a power recycle to reset it.

[Don]

Time was devices on standby used nigh on as much energy as when they were switched on.

This has not been the case for YEARS.

My TV (50" Plasma) uses the square root of feck all when switched to "stand by". I know - I got out a meter and tested it.

In fact we checked all our devices and found my Mrs old stereo was the only thing chewing power - so that now gets unplugged/switched off at the wall when it isn't in use.

I calculated putting my computers into standby overnight rather than leaving them on saved me £50 a year. Worth having but not a vast amount. Apparently the Sky box uses half the power when in "stand by" - but, of course, is still "on" really so it can record programmes.

If you want to save energy? Buy new modern economical fridges/freezers. The old ones burn electricity like it's going out of fashion.

[Mike400]

The only things left switched on in my house overnight / while we are out are the fridge and freezer.

Everything else is off at the mains, no standby nonsense here.

Apart from the cost savings its the fire risk thing that gets me - not likely to make much difference but I still sleep better at night.

Besides what is the point in leaving stuff on standby? Ok so the TV takes a bit longer to switch on from cold and the sky box takes a minute or so to find signal or whatever, hardly a big deal.

[Davi]

What's the safety aspect of modern TV's like compared to old CRT's?

My Dad used to be a TV repair / installation bloke donkeys years ago - he won't leave a TV in any state other than unplugged both from power and aerial due to the number of old clients houses damaged by fire or burnt down that originated from the TV!

Edited by Davi on Monday 12th January 12:40

[Don]

Mike400 said:

The only things left switched on in my house overnight / while we are out are the fridge and freezer.

Everything else is off at the mains, no standby nonsense here.

Apart from the cost savings its the fire risk thing that gets me - not likely to make much difference but I still sleep better at night.

Besides what is the point in leaving stuff on standby? Ok so the TV takes a bit longer to switch on from cold and the sky box takes a minute or so to find signal or whatever, hardly a big deal.

The cost savings aren't as great as you might think. I looked into it carefully and I can quantify around a £50 saving per year...across all the devices, mostly computers, and that was based on putting them into standby overnight instead of leaving them on! It's worth having - but really not that much. Modern standby is very effective...it's a tiny energy draw. Unlike those fridge/freezers that need to be on 24/7.

The reason why you want a Sky box on standby is so it can "wake up" to record programmes. If you't have Sky+ or Sky HD (i.e. no recorder) there's no benefit in leaving it on standby. But if you DO it's essential for recording.

[Hyperion]

I think the environmentalist view is that 500 TV's on standby = 500 watts of wasted electricity.
When you add up everything that's on Standby in every house in your street...you'd need a small power station just to keep everything doing bugger all.

Edited by Hyperion on Monday 12th January 17:52

[Parrot of Doom]

Hyperion said:

I think the environmentalist view is that 500 TV's on standby = 500 watts of wasted electricity.
When you add up everything that's on Standby in every house in your street...you'd need a small power station just to keep everything doing bugger all.

Edited by Hyperion on Monday 12th January 17:52

It isn't wasted if the heat generated is being used to warm the house, although that can be an issue during summertime.

[Jonny_]

Right, since I'm bored stiff and using any poxy excuse to avoid repairing the dodgy plasterwork in my lounge, I've worked out the costs...

Current rates I pay for electricity are:

T1: 26.081p
T2: 11.715p

(T1 applies for 1st 125kWh per qtr, T2 applies thereafter)

Current meter reading: 4764
Reading when I moved in (Aug 2007): 1404

Usage to date is thus 3360 kWh over a period of 17 months.

Average usage per month: 197.6kWh
Average usage per quarter: 592.9kWh, 125 of which is at T1 rate and 467.9 at T2 rate.

First 125kWh@26.081p costs £32.60
Remaining 467.9kWh@11.715p costs £54.81
Total: £87.41/quarter (or £29.14/mth; 29.14 x 12 = £349.68/year)

Average price per kWh over the 17-month period is 29.14x17/3360 = £0.147435/kWh

Assume each device draws average of 10W (i.e. 0.01kW) on standby (quite an exaggeration for most devices)...

0.01x0.147435 = £0.00147435/hour
Over 24h that means £0.03538 per device
Assume 20 devices in the home (few TV's, DVD players, PCs, stereos, clock radios, phone chargers, cordless phones, etc etc):

Over 24h = £0.7076
So over a year: £258.305

SHOCK! HORROR! OMFG how much £££ am I spending on standby'ing?!?! FFS, somebody call the Daily Mail, that Juniper c*nt from Greenpeace and Captain friggin' Planet! Quick! Before the planet melts and all the fluffy bunnies explode!

Bol locks... in reality, to most people, it's f*** all - think of it this way, stick a quid a day in a jar for a year and would you miss that quid? Personally I think it's worth 70p a day to avoid having to cock about resetting clocks, reprogramming radio stations and re-downloading TV listings.

(Of course, if Sky, Panasonic, Sony et al could be arsed to stick a small memory-preserving rechargeable battery in their products then I'd be much more inclined to switch everything off and instead set up a standing order for 71p a day into my savings account )

[miniman]

Totally O/T so apologies for that, but question for Pano Amo: is your username a reference to a certain film starring Chevy Chase?

[dern]

Jonny_ said:

Bol locks... in reality, to most people, it's f*** all - think of it this way, stick a quid a day in a jar for a year and would you miss that quid? Personally I think it's worth 70p a day to avoid having to cock about resetting clocks, reprogramming radio stations and re-downloading TV listings.

(Of course, if Sky, Panasonic, Sony et al could be arsed to stick a small memory-preserving rechargeable battery in their products then I'd be much more inclined to switch everything off and instead set up a standing order for 71p a day into my savings account )

Eh? When I turn off my tv, radio or whatever it remembers channel information and time. If you unplugged it from the wall it would forget this stuff eventually but it would take a while... certainly longer than overnight.

[miniman]

dern said:

Jonny_ said:

Bol locks... in reality, to most people, it's f*** all - think of it this way, stick a quid a day in a jar for a year and would you miss that quid? Personally I think it's worth 70p a day to avoid having to cock about resetting clocks, reprogramming radio stations and re-downloading TV listings.

(Of course, if Sky, Panasonic, Sony et al could be arsed to stick a small memory-preserving rechargeable battery in their products then I'd be much more inclined to switch everything off and instead set up a standing order for 71p a day into my savings account )

Eh? When I turn off my tv, radio or whatever it remembers channel information and time. If you unplugged it from the wall it would forget this stuff eventually but it would take a while... certainly longer than overnight.

I doubt modern equipment would lose settings like this, they will almost certainly be written back to a hard disk (in the case of things like PVRs) or solid-state permanent memory.