Electricity prices / gadget power consumption
Discussion
I received a letter yesterday saying my monthly electricity bill was going to increase from £50 to £85!. Luckily I'm on a fixed rate until the end of the year, so they agreed my current monthly payment was right, so they cancelled the change. But I know there will be pain to come in a few months, so I invested a few pounds in one of those power consumption plugs. Being a tight git I've been around the house & managed to save 100W straight away..
TV in kitchen, 15W even when switched off (to power the clock on it I guess). Now switch off at the plug.
Broadband modem 25W (will now switch off when not in use).
Ipod speaker/base 10W.
Mobile phonechargers, about 10W each.
HiFi around 10W, dont know where that goes as no display. Must have been eating that 24/7 for the last 10 years! Now off from wall socket.
I feel a bit uncomfortable, like I'm turning into my dad complaining about lights being eft on & stuff. Am I alone in my quest to save a few pounds!
TV in kitchen, 15W even when switched off (to power the clock on it I guess). Now switch off at the plug.
Broadband modem 25W (will now switch off when not in use).
Ipod speaker/base 10W.
Mobile phonechargers, about 10W each.
HiFi around 10W, dont know where that goes as no display. Must have been eating that 24/7 for the last 10 years! Now off from wall socket.
I feel a bit uncomfortable, like I'm turning into my dad complaining about lights being eft on & stuff. Am I alone in my quest to save a few pounds!
If anything my power consumption has gone up. May as well burn it whilst you still can.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTI...
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTI...
We bought my dad an OWL one from this site last year, couldnt see the point in paying three times as much for a wattson one TBH.
http://www.electricity-monitor.com/features-compar...
One word of warning, you need access to the mains-in for the residence so that you can clip the transmitter part of the monitor onto it. I think you also have to clip it on before the wire enters the fuse box IIRC.
http://www.electricity-monitor.com/features-compar...
One word of warning, you need access to the mains-in for the residence so that you can clip the transmitter part of the monitor onto it. I think you also have to clip it on before the wire enters the fuse box IIRC.
Isoproturon1 said:
How much are these power monitor things, and where is the best place to get one?
http://www.tchibo.co.uk/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity/eCS/Store/uk/-/GBP/TdUkDisplayProductInformation-Start?ProductSKU=0014239Got mine here, £7.90
Edited by anonymous-user on Sunday 3rd August 20:32
Jimboka said:
TV in kitchen, 15W even when switched off (to power the clock on it I guess). Now switch off at the plug.
Broadband modem 25W (will now switch off when not in use).
Ipod speaker/base 10W......
Well, you need to put this into perspective; how much does a watt cost? If it is a penny a year to run a 10 watt item, I'm not going to mess about with it, but if we're talking £10 a year for every 10 watts I save then I'm going to do what you have done.Broadband modem 25W (will now switch off when not in use).
Ipod speaker/base 10W......
I'm looking at saving gas, as when our price freeze ends in two years I think I'll be in for a hell of a lets-re-mortgage-the-house-to-Ocean-Finance type shock.
Last week I turned off the gas heated hot water system, as we only use it for washing up about twice a day. We can boil a kettle for less than it costs to keep a whole tank warm. It was set to come on twice a day, but there is just no point.
I was planning to get a combi boiler fitted, this summer, instead of the current ancient boiler and tank system but I spent the money on a Harley off Ebay, yesterday. The wife is not a happy puppy now
King Herald said:
Jimboka said:
TV in kitchen, 15W even when switched off (to power the clock on it I guess). Now switch off at the plug.
Broadband modem 25W (will now switch off when not in use).
Ipod speaker/base 10W......
Well, you need to put this into perspective; how much does a watt cost? If it is a penny a year to run a 10 watt item, I'm not going to mess about with it, but if we're talking £10 a year for every 10 watts I save then I'm going to do what you have done.Broadband modem 25W (will now switch off when not in use).
Ipod speaker/base 10W......
I'm looking at saving gas, as when our price freeze ends in two years I think I'll be in for a hell of a lets-re-mortgage-the-house-to-Ocean-Finance type shock.
Last week I turned off the gas heated hot water system, as we only use it for washing up about twice a day. We can boil a kettle for less than it costs to keep a whole tank warm. It was set to come on twice a day, but there is just no point.
I was planning to get a combi boiler fitted, this summer, instead of the current ancient boiler and tank system but I spent the money on a Harley off Ebay, yesterday. The wife is not a happy puppy now
https://www.ukpower.co.uk/running-costs-elec.asp
Jimboka said:
King Herald said:
Jimboka said:
TV in kitchen, 15W even when switched off (to power the clock on it I guess). Now switch off at the plug.
Broadband modem 25W (will now switch off when not in use).
Ipod speaker/base 10W......
Well, you need to put this into perspective; how much does a watt cost? If it is a penny a year to run a 10 watt item, I'm not going to mess about with it, but if we're talking £10 a year for every 10 watts I save then I'm going to do what you have done.Broadband modem 25W (will now switch off when not in use).
Ipod speaker/base 10W......
I'm looking at saving gas, as when our price freeze ends in two years I think I'll be in for a hell of a lets-re-mortgage-the-house-to-Ocean-Finance type shock.
Last week I turned off the gas heated hot water system, as we only use it for washing up about twice a day. We can boil a kettle for less than it costs to keep a whole tank warm. It was set to come on twice a day, but there is just no point.
I was planning to get a combi boiler fitted, this summer, instead of the current ancient boiler and tank system but I spent the money on a Harley off Ebay, yesterday. The wife is not a happy puppy now
https://www.ukpower.co.uk/running-costs-elec.asp
My mate has a plasma tv that he tells me does not have an off button. It is permanently turned on, or standby, and only unplugging it completely will kill the beast.
King Herald said:
My mate has a plasma tv that he tells me does not have an off button. It is permanently turned on, or standby, and only unplugging it completely will kill the beast.
Far too many bits of kit these days do all the power switching by logic on the low voltage side instead of by physically interrupting the AC line. So the power supply has to be alive all the time purely to power the logic to detect you pressing the "on" button. The destructions may tell you the thing is "off" and it may be showing no lights or indicators but it isn't "off", it's essentially in standby and doesn't have an "off". What's it do this for? Because a single-pole clicky keypad type button is cheaper than a double-pole mains-rated on/off switch.
It's a pain in the arse. It forces you to switch the thing off at the wall otherwise you can't switch it off... and then to add insult to injury it also means it doesn't just come on when you switch it on at the wall, you have to press the bloody button as well.
The other similar bit of cheapskate arseachery is powering the kit off an external plugtop power supply, which of course is on as long as it's plugged in. The kit may have an on/off switch but this doesn't turn off the input to the PSU, so you're still carrying the transformer losses unless you turn off at the wall. The reason so much kit has a plugtop power supply these days is due to loads of poxy overregulation which means you have to spend stupid amounts of money on approvals for anything powered by the mains. So you dodge this by making it run off a low voltage and buying in plugtop PSUs which are already approved.
Amen to that.
What I'd like to see is better management of the plugtop PSU problem. More commercial switchmode PC PSU's with a capability to power external low voltage devices would e great.
The size of the transformer is always going to be a compromise, but if they just would put common low voltage rails on the back of the supply or somewhere on the PC case, then I could drive my printer, modem, KVM switch, telephone base unit...... all from the PC supply.
It's got to be better than the alternative I have, which involves having no less than ten 240VAC socket outlets by my computer, all of them used.
It would certainly save on having all those plugtops leeching needlessly away all the time.
What I'd like to see is better management of the plugtop PSU problem. More commercial switchmode PC PSU's with a capability to power external low voltage devices would e great.
The size of the transformer is always going to be a compromise, but if they just would put common low voltage rails on the back of the supply or somewhere on the PC case, then I could drive my printer, modem, KVM switch, telephone base unit...... all from the PC supply.
It's got to be better than the alternative I have, which involves having no less than ten 240VAC socket outlets by my computer, all of them used.
It would certainly save on having all those plugtops leeching needlessly away all the time.
Edited by dilbert on Monday 4th August 03:19
Muntu said:
+1Bloody brilliant these things.
Switch it to £'s and show it to your kids (if you have any). This then prompts them to run around the house turning things off and unplugging them. Better than me doing it and I think I must have saved a fortune already....
P.S. Not being environmentally friendly at this point, just refuse to let the energy companies take any more money from me!
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