+Warwagon MVC Posted April 19, 2018 MVC Share Posted April 19, 2018 Today, I walked around my house with my kill-a-watt in hand and testing certain things to see how much power they consume. While doing so I found a lot of stuff I could turn off or unplug from the wall when i'm not using them and save some money $$ .. here is what I found. I have an iMac in the basement which I only use while I'm downstairs. I put it to sleep but it always wakes up and when it does it consumes 89 watts on idle A monitor above my computer showing my security camera feed. I always want to turn it off when I leave to go upstairs, but always forget .. 14 watts. 2 Dell screens 1 on either side of my iMac which is on but sleeping. 1 watt each so 2 watts All of the above was plugged into a surge protector so, in addition, the other things were using 4 watts (Now I just shut the surge protector off which also shuts off my security cam screen) A light in the corner I always have on it has an LED bulb but I'm not down there much so that's was a waste, now getting unplugged. 7 watts I have an all in one HP on a desk that I use once a month does a trickle of about 1 Watt just being plugged in it's peanuts but I'll just plug it in when I need it. In my theater I put in a new receiver and a large sub, I forgot the sub was always on and after testing it realized it uses 14 watts 24/7. Everything else plugged into that surge protector (including the sub) was using 20 watts. It's getting unplugged from the wall. When I swapped out that sound system I put my old one next to my couch computer for better audio. But when testing it yesterday I found it was sucking 40 watts 24/7 so I swapped it out for another much smaller one I had downstairs, which came in at only 8 watts so a 32 watt savings. I hardly ever use my PS3 and Wii. Both when tested were tricking 1 watt. So I just unplugged them for a total of 2 watts I have an Raritan IP KVM 48 port switch and user console (got it cheap off eBay) which I only need to use when I come upstairs. So it's not used very often. So I put that on it's own surge protector so I can flip a switch to turn both on and off. Tested it and it came in at 20 watts Over all, I found 191 wasted watts. Which at 0.08719 cent per kilowatt-hour gives me a monthly savings of $12.16 or $145.98 per year. So go around your house and see what you can unplug, it adds up. DConnell 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason S. Global Moderator Posted April 19, 2018 Global Moderator Share Posted April 19, 2018 (edited) your point is not lost on me, but let's dive a little deeper. --> that iMac isnt on 24x7; it's only on when it wakes itself from sleep... so that 89W isnt all day and is nearly 1/2 of what your grand total is. --> the monitor shouldnt be on 24x7 anyway. at the very least it should have an automatic sleep timer. --> the other components should be off when youre not using them anyway, imo. --> not sure why the sub woofer would be on 24x7. is that common in stereo components? just curious - how did you derive $12.16 per month? what was the calculation? (edit) my calculation --> 191/1000 = .191; .191 x .08719 = 0.01665329; 0.01665329 x 24 x 31 = $12.39/mo so, i would expect some savings by turning off the unused equipment, but $12.39/mo would be a maximum, not the norm. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim K Global Moderator Posted April 19, 2018 Global Moderator Share Posted April 19, 2018 Watts * Hrs * Days / 1000 = kWh * Cents/kWh So, in his case 191 * 24 * 365 / 1000 = 1,673 * 0.08719 = $146 Edit: Yea, I thought it seemed a bit high as well ... but I checked the math. +Warwagon 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Warwagon MVC Posted April 19, 2018 Author MVC Share Posted April 19, 2018 7 minutes ago, Jason S. said: your point is not lost on me, but let's dive a little deeper. --> that iMac isnt on 24x7; it's only on when it wakes itself from sleep... so that 89W isnt all day and is nearly 1/2 of what your grand total is. --> the monitor shouldnt be on 24x7 anyway. at the very least it should have an automatic sleep timer. --> the other components should be off when youre not using them anyway, imo. --> not sure why the sub woofer would be on 24x7. is that common in stereo components? just curious - how did you derive $12.16 per month? what was the calculation? Yes, I was also thinking about that. The Mac technically isn't on 24/7 but I'm also not sure how often it wakes up, sure seems pretty quick. It's got an IR port on it so not sure if something is triggering that. True, the monitor does go to sleep but I think it trickles 1 watt. The one on my security was on 24/7 just so when I came downstairs I could see the feed. Mostly just laziness. As for the sub it has an on-off switch. Just forgot that i never turned it off. as far as the $12.16 per month I used a calculator https://www.rapidtables.com/calc/electric/electricity-calculator.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neufuse Veteran Posted April 19, 2018 Veteran Share Posted April 19, 2018 (edited) oh been there done that....... its great until you start seeing where the real power hogs are and they are things you can't really turn off... example with me: AC unit outside... in the winter it has heating coils in it to keep the compressor oil warm so it doesnt go back into the A coil... it's about 60 watts and runs any day non-stop the ambient temp is below 60 degrees until the outdoor temp gets to that ugh... to make it complex the sensor the thermostat needs to figure out efficient heating / cooling is in that unit so can't just turn it off.. network switches - My 48 port POE switch uses about 50 watts when in use... which powers the house surveillance system... still uses 25 watts when idle with no load... fridge - for a "efficient" fridge it still uses way too much electric... furnace - the thing uses 15 watts sitting idle... no idea why... but at least it has a PLC motor for the blower instead of a standard 120v blower so it only uses 100 watts at full speed and 25 watts at low speed. tivo - 15 watts... on 24/7, yes I use it to record all the time.... sump pumps - these things can use 500 watts! ugh... watch out for heavy rain... they run about once every 2 minutes in a rain storm... and I unfortunately have three of them to keep the basement from flooding due to the house being built almost right at the water table those things account for about 80% of my electrical load...... wish i could reduce it but it gets more expensive to do that then to just use it... (replacement of items, solar panels, etc) +Warwagon 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Warwagon MVC Posted April 19, 2018 Author MVC Share Posted April 19, 2018 33 minutes ago, neufuse said: oh been there done that....... its great until you start seeing where the real power hogs are and they are things you can't really turn off... 1 Yep, there are things you wish you could unplug but can't. In some cases, the best a person can do is replace something with something less power hungry. I replaced my security cam 115 watt Xeon system with a 28 watt Celeron system with built in decoding. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cesardrgn Posted April 30, 2018 Share Posted April 30, 2018 one thing to consider is a Smart Surge Protector. I have a couple from Monster that when the product is off the surge protector completely turns off all power going into that port so Zero power consumption A lot of companies make them Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Warwagon MVC Posted July 30, 2018 Author MVC Share Posted July 30, 2018 Just to report, since using that device and finding all of the stuff I could turn off when not in use, I have saved around $25 Per month. I've hooked a lot of stuff into Wifi outlets which are controlled by Google home on a guest network. This allows me to say stuff like "Turn everything off" before I leave home or after I have left home. When said, 9 things get the equivalent of unplugged. DConnell 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DConnell Member Posted July 31, 2018 Member Share Posted July 31, 2018 17 hours ago, warwagon said: Just to report, since using that device and finding all of the stuff I could turn off when not in use, I have saved around $25 Per month. I've hooked a lot of stuff into Wifi outlets which are controlled by Google home on a guest network. This allows me to say stuff like "Turn everything off" before I leave home or after I have left home. When said, 9 things get turned off. Nice. I just bought some outlet smart adapters which will do the same thing with Amazon Alexa. 4 smart plugs for $45, not a bad first step into a smart home. I could try for a smart thermostat, but at the moment I'm just leaving the AC off or set to a high temp when I'm out. Of course I have several ceiling fans which I leave on, but they use a lot less power than the central air. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dipsylalapo Supervisor Posted July 31, 2018 Supervisor Share Posted July 31, 2018 I need to give this a go and see what I can save. We bought our place a few years back and bought a bunch of new appliances so hoping that most things are relatively efficient. It's all the new tech that I've bought over the last few years that would be interesting to see. Most bulbs in the house are already LED and/or smart. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Warwagon MVC Posted September 27, 2018 Author MVC Share Posted September 27, 2018 So far the savings have been pretty consistent. $25 / $26 per month saving! DConnell 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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