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Home Energy Conservation Challenge – Week 5

By Solar energy | March 11, 2009

Home Energy Conservation Challenge – Week 5

Welcome to this week’s Home Energy Conservation Challenge! If you’re here for the first time, you can find how this challenge works here.

If you have implemented the simple, quick, action steps explained in the previous four (4) weeks of the Energy Challenge, you know or have these things:

  1. How many kilowatt-hours your home used last year
  2. The average kilowatt-hours used per month last year
  3. A tracking excel sheet to track kilowatt-hour usage,
  4. Home much energy your refrigerator uses (measured by your Kill-A-Watt meter)
  5. A refrigerator running as efficiently as possible
  6. A water heater efficiently heating water when YOU decide you need it
  7. A heating/cooling system set to automatically raise and lower your home temperature settings to accommodate your family’s lifestyle and comfort—and reduce your electric bill.

This week we talk about phantom loads.

Sometimes called “standby power,” phantom load is a term which defines the electric power used by electronic devices or appliances while turned “off” or in “standby mode.”

Examples of devices pulling phantom loads include:

The easy way to eliminate phantom loads is to simply unplug any unused devices. However, depending on how many devices you have, remembering to unplug them could be time consuming.

And how many of your devices are plugged into electrical outlets that are hidden behind furniture? Crawling behind desks, bookshelves, or sofas every time you turned your computer or TV off or on is possible I suppose.

There’s an easier way.

Install and use a power strip or surge protector and plug your phantom load culprits into the power strip. Simple turn the power strip off—and all your devices plugged into it—with one touch of a button.
Turning the power strip off eliminates phantom loads from devices plugged into the power strip.

Here’s a photo of the one that hides just under my sofa. I leave it here for times when the kids (and friends) bring their PC’s into the living room to work their techy marvels.

Where several devices are grouped together such as your computer, its monitor and printer, use a power strip or surge protector with multiple sockets.

Here’s a photo of the one I use at my desk. It sits right under the edge of my desk where I can easily reach it and turn it off.

Caution: A local computer maintenance expert informs me that DSL modems should not be continually turned off and on, as would happen if plugged into a power strip you turn off and on.  For reasons beyond my realm of understanding, DSL modems must be kept on. Check with your computer maintenance professional (who knows about YOUR computer set-up) before using a power strip for your computer.

As you can see from my photos above, I turn my computer off at the power strip. However, my DSL modem must be plugged into the wall, not my power strip! This saves me some phantom load dollars while keeping my DSL modem healthy.

But it can be easier still.

If you don’t want to be responsible for remembering to turn off the power strip switch, you will want to use this Smart Power Strip.

This nifty smart power strip—which I will buy next time—automatically turns off when you turn off your computer.

This means, when you turn off your computer, all peripheral equipment associated with your computer (such as monitors, printers, etc) turn off automatically. Very cool.

Now it’s your turn! Take Action:

  1. Purchase the Smart Power Strip on line or get one (or more if necessary) from your local home impovement store.
  2. Install a power strip for each group of electronics such as computer group, entertainment group, etc.
  3. Make a note on your excel sheet the date you begin using the power strips.

Topics: Home Energy Conservation Challenge | 1 Comment »

One Response to “Home Energy Conservation Challenge – Week 5”

  1. Myra Says:
    March 16th, 2009 at 3:34 pm

    Thanks for the info on the Smart Power Strip! I have been going around unplugging things. The coffee maker and cd player are on a strip that we turn off. The TV and DVD player are only plugged in when we watch a movie, which is not very often! The picture of your clothesline makes me homesick for you!

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