Always On (photo: uberculture)
The only way to find out: measure each outlet with a Kill-A-Watt! (Can you say “obsessive“?) But occasional obsessiveness is good for the soul. And budget.
So on the last grey Saturday, me and my trusty Kill-a-Watt
The answer was neither encouraging nor discouraging: it was simply illuminating. (And, another $70/year, tax free savings — see the link to my spreadsheet below.)
And isn’t that what it’s all about? My objective in writing this blog, working for Energy Circle, learning about software, or digital cameras, Economics, Physics — it’s all about understanding the truth.
Oh, and the exercise was enriching. In the sense of having more money.
Progress So Far
I have been obsessing writing about the things that are always on, even when they’re off since the early days of this blog. And I have made some serious progress.
Killing Vampires with Smart Strips
I have addressed some phantom load with BITS Smart Strips
Replacing Our Cheap, Dead Phones We replaced our cheap wireless phones (that sucked from the start, and died within a year) with higher quality Panasonic phones
. They work better, but the new phones also replaced 4 vampire transformers with 4 switch-mode type. Kill-a-watt reads 0 for all but the base station, which is 2W. Hopefully the new ones are not the cheap junk that defines most consumer electronics and will last a while. We’ll see.Et tu, TiVo?
I confirmed that my TiVo Series3 HD
Sleeping Beauties
I confirmed that Sleep is better than Awake, at least as far as computers go. (This finding seems to apply to cats and teenagers, as well.) My MacBook
Unfortunately, my Mac seemed to have the same sleep/standby problem as my Windows XP computer — it wouldn’t sleep automatically. I thought hitting the sleep button worked fine, then realized it did, but only for a few minutes, after which it would resume. I have been sort of careless with this, so spent some time figuring out how to make a Mac go to sleep reliably, and recently found a good (free) solution for sleepless Macs.
Not A Culprit! Sort of…
One interesting finding: I have been blaming the transformer on my cable modem as being a vampire — needlessly sucking power even when it wasn’t being used. So I bought a replacement switch-mode transformer, and plugged it in. But the cable modem still used 6 watts — it’s the modem itself. Rats!
In the experiment, I did, however find a simple device that could be used to replace vampire transformers with more efficient switch-mode versions
The little (cheap) Ethernet switch I have in my office draws 4 watts — I doubt I need wires since 802.11n wireless seems to just work. My wireless laser printer
Who You Gonna Call: Dustbuster
The Dustbuster charger uses 2 to 3 watts all the time so that we can bust dust once or twice a month? Not worth it! That’s going to my “battery charger station” (regular power-strip) which I turn on only when I am charging stuff all our rechargeable AA and AAA batteries. The control for the sprinkler system, which we only use a few times in the summer — unplug. A new or repurposed BITS Smart Strip for my son’s Apple Mini (and speakers, LCD screen, USB hub).
However, It Doesn’t All Add Up
Am I being obsessive? Of course, I hope you have come to expect nothing less!
When you do the math, it adds up — 115 watts of “always on”.
That’s a little odd. When you look at Google PowerMeter, it measures a bit less than double that for its always-on estimate — there’s about 100W unaccounted for.
Wherefore Art Thou?
I wonder what I missed? I covered every single 120V outlet in the house (I even moved the stove and fridge out). It could be that Google PowerMeter’s estimate is wrong, but it correlates pretty closely to PlotWatt’s. Also, when I go to bed the TED sometimes reads as low as 196W, but never 115W. Could it be something that’s hard-wired (dishwasher, furnace, various lighting, ceiling fans)? Maybe the Kill-a-Watt is wrong? Maybe my math is wrong?
I did a test like this back on Earth Hour, where I switched off breakers one by one while watching the TED 5000 display. I did manage to get it down to zero, I think, and I recall something about a 1920′s era doorbell transformer. Hmm.
Wait, I just remembered — what about the garage? I have a rechargeable lawnmower
Not Playing With A Full Deck
Well, if it’s not obvious by now, I am purely a nut. Crazy. Whacked. Not rowing with both oars in the water. A quart low. Or, perhaps most apropos: “A few watts shy of a night light.” (Check the link, there are some pretty good ones :-)
Somehow There’s Always More Savings To Be Had
The key thing here is this: I have been crazy like this for years now. I keep doing things to reduce how much electricity we use. And I keep thinking, well, that’s surely about as much blood as I can squeeze out of this stone.
And then I go off and find more.
I still have some incandescent lights (granted, the Philips Halogena Energy Saving bulbs
A Brief Digression on How Badly Dimmable CFL Bulbs Still Are, and Why Joe Barton Has A Point, Even If He Is A Lying Lier Who Has His Facts All Wrong And Is Just Trying to Get Elected, And How I Would Like Some Enterprising CFL or LED Manufacturer to Give Me Lightbulbs That Actually Dim Well So I Can Go Back To Disliking Joe Barton
By the way: that’s a direct challenge to any manufacturer who makes an R-20 or PAR-30 dimmable CFL, or better yet, LED that use a standard dimmer switch that can produce suitably bright light that isn’t ugly. I will be happy to accept demos, and if your product is good, I will write a great review here, and other places. But I am fed up and not spending more of my money for junk. I have now purchased more than 75 CFLs all of which claim to work perfectly, dim evenly, and all of which sucked!
I need 6 of the R-20 floods, 50W equivalent, and 7 of the PAR 30 or PAR 38 floods, 75W equivalent or thereabouts, both warm white. My email address can be found here.
(end of brief digression)
I suspect my fridge is worth replacing. We could use the dryer less (actually, here’s a great tip: if you have two medium loads of wash, dry both together and use about 30% to 50% less on drying). There are tons of things we could still reduce — but we try to only replace things when we need to.
The Bottom Line
Here’s a link to an Excel spreadsheet with device by device standby usage data.
With minimal investment my mitigations can save about 42W of “always-on” stuff. At my electrical rate, I’ll save about $70 a year. That’s a couple of very nice bottles of wine. Or a case of silicone caulk
I’m happy to know that I’m not alone with my obsession. It was your blog that inspired me to get the TED 5000, and with it I’ve been able to identify all sorts of power hogs–our furnace takes 10W, the electric stove takes 3W. Central AC is another 4W.
Once I discovered that, I turned them all off for the summer. Still had 56W of always on though.
Comment by Terry31415 — September 28, 2010 @ 11:42 pm
Love the posts! I have been an energy bunny as well. Had the TED5K for awhile now, been great in reducing usage.
Need to pick up some of those Smart Strips to help further.
Any comments on TrickleSaver? I’ve been pondering their PC one: https://www.tricklestar.com/US/150PC_US_W.html
I use a Mac Mini as my HTPC. If a show ends, and it sits idle (like I fall asleep), it will eventually go to sleep, but my TV stays on with ‘no signal’, which is very annoying. I thought that using that device above, when the Mac goes to sleep (and USB shuts off), that I could kill the TV also.
Comment by Derek — September 29, 2010 @ 1:40 am
@Terry31415 — I yearn for your 56W baseload! But of course obsession will do it’s magic, eventually. I doubt my furnace is a culprit (gas, although there are some circulator pumps, and probably a transformer to power the thermostat?).
@Derek — I had never seen the TrickleStar product line. A couple of their products look pretty clever. For example, they have a smart strip like the BITS, but instead of being controlled by detecting low power on a main always-on circuit, it detects through loss of power to a USB port — cool (I had trouble making my setup work with the Mac Mini on a BITS because the delta in power was not enough to trigger shutdown sometimes.) — This might work perfectly for your TV situation. You might also try SmartSleep for Mac which I wrote about the other day.
Thanks for the lead — I have contacted them and hopefully I can get a demo product to review here or on Energy Circle — maybe even sell in our store there.
Comment by Tom Harrison — September 29, 2010 @ 7:59 am
Tom, glad to hear. I look forward to a future review from you on their products. I saw the Mac post, already have that app installed on my Mini and MacBook :)
Comment by Derek — September 29, 2010 @ 10:43 am
Derek: when my computer goes into standby, the smart strip it’s plugged into thinks it’s been turned off and deactivates all of the peripherals. Maybe a smart strip will do the same for your mac mini, and turn the TV off whenever the mac goes to sleep?
Comment by Glaurung_quena — October 3, 2010 @ 1:56 pm
Tom,
Your obsession is both educational and inspiring. We encouraged to save a lot of hearing energy and money ~ 38% through insulation, new window balances, filling air leaks, thermal imaging and well a ton of insulation. I think these last few articles have given me the confidence that we can tackle electricity. Your ideas on killing the electricity vampires is great. We have way too many devices and rechargers plugged in all day that are just sucking off the grid for no reason. I am going to do something about it! …right after a weekend trip to NYC…
Comment by Andrew — October 9, 2010 @ 9:23 am
Hey Andrew –
While you’re in NYC, can you pick up a rountuit for me? Sound like to might need to get a rountuit, too :-)
Tom
Comment by Tom Harrison — October 9, 2010 @ 10:31 am
Thanks for being OCD about this so I don’t have to. I’ve learned a few easy tips and will get a few of those Smart Strips via your amazon link. Thanks, Kelly (Theresa’s cousin)
Comment by Kelly A — October 12, 2010 @ 6:49 pm
Hi Kelly!
Thanks for reading!
You must be one of those UPER cousins I hear about. We made pasties a few time until we realized we were not going out for a day and chopping down trees (instead, the pasties were going down to our waistlines).
Click those Amazon links and feel free to buy your next car or house on Amazon, as I get 4% commission. I could use it :-)
Ask Theresa what the scene was this morning as she was leaving for work. And then, be sure to check out my soon to be coming update to my clean your refrigerator coils post.
As it turns out, I have a little known variant of OCD — click here to learn more about OCECDD. Although all the symptoms are evident in this post. :-)
Tom
Comment by Tom Harrison — October 13, 2010 @ 8:08 am
I am one of those “down in the D” Michiganders and can only handle the inside of the pasties. :)
It’s quite warm under my fridge and I *know* we’re wasting lots of $$ with all the dust and cat hair so I look forward to your post.
Have you addressed those cable boxes in a post? I think if I unplug/power down my comcast motorola hd-dvr it will erase all the guide data so I’ve refrained and I’ve got some recordings set for odd hours. Nevermind, I think I answered my own question!
Comment by Kelly A — October 13, 2010 @ 9:30 am
Re: fridge coils — see the link in the previous comment to my first post on this topic.
Re: cable boxes — I would be very surprised if they lost their settings on power failure, and depending on the model, those puppies really suck up the juice. If you have a regular cable box, think about a light timer for about $9
. If you have a built-in DVR, you may want to be a little more judicious about when you turn it off (since shows sometimes record at times you wouldn’t be watching), but it should still be no problem.
Comment by Tom Harrison — October 13, 2010 @ 9:49 am
Other vampire’s are the control transformers internal to every furnace, central air conditioner, heat pump air handler, central vacuum cleaner systems and your traditional door bell. These transformers are very inefficient when at idle, pulling about 4 to 8 watts each, even when the appliance it serves is not running. I’ve never owned a gas fired water heater, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a similar transformer lurking inside them as well.
Heat pumps have at least one or two additional vampires besides the control transformer. Every heat pump has an electrically operated solenoid valve, commonly called the switching or reversing valve. Depending on who made your heat pump, your indoor thermostat will power the valve on or off to switch between cooling or heating modes. Most manufactures (like Carrier and Trane) require the valve to be on for cooling mode and off for heating mode. Heat pumps made by Rheem / Rudd typically work the opposite ( valve on for heating, valve off for cooling). The valve on my heat pump pulls about 15 watts when energized.
What’s not openly published is that the indoor thermostat will maintain the valve at it’s last state, even when the compressor is not running. This means that for all the hours in a day that the compressor is not running, your reversing valve is energized during the winter or summer, depending on who manufactured your system.
Another heat pump vampire is the compressor crankcase sump heater. These heaters are always found on heat pumps with reciprocating compressors. Heat pumps with scroll compressors tend not to have them. The heater in my heat pump draws about 60 watts. Some heaters run all the time (ouch), some are thermostatically controlled to come on whenever the outdoor temperature falls below about 60~65 degrees, while others (the best) use the same outdoor thermostat only when the compressor is not running.
Comment by Steve — December 6, 2010 @ 3:19 pm
Steve — they lurk everywhere indeed — thanks for the awesome list.
I can answer the one about the gas water heater: no — it’s not plugged in. (Although it has a sort of gas vampire in the pilot light!).
I was pretty convinced that my doorbell transformer (1930′s era) was one of the unidentified sources of vampire power — I just haven’t gotten the energy up to crawl back over to my breaker panel and unwire it to see how bad it is :-).
Thanks for the comment!
Comment by Tom Harrison — December 6, 2010 @ 4:11 pm
Tom – Thank you for the great blog!
1st off I made a typo in my post. My heat pump sump heater is more like 60 watts.(Updated)As for door bells transformers, mine was pulling ~4.42 watts in idle. This summer I disconnected the 18Vac wires and attached them to a ordinary 9 Volt transistor radio battery. The door bell seemed to work just fine. Maybe a wee bit less louder than before, but good enough for me. Based on that result, I went ahead and disconnected the 120 AC to the transformer all together. So, after 4 months things still seem good.
Comment by Steve — December 6, 2010 @ 5:22 pm
OK, you have motivated me sufficiently to get off my rear and deal with my doorbell transformer. Maybe its 1930′s vintage means it’s where my unaccounted for 60 or 70 watts are going :-)
Tom
Comment by Tom Harrison — December 6, 2010 @ 5:31 pm
Hi Tom,
I’d be very surprised if you’re going to save 60+ watts, but it’s worth a try. I suggest removing the low voltage wires first and see if a battery will be sufficient to ring the bell. Another consideration is the type of doorbell button. If the button is illuminated, be it a small incandescent lamp or even an LED, that lamp is going to drain a battery pretty fast. My button was illuminated, so I just pulled the bulb out since my front porch has plenty of illumination from my CFL powered porch lights.
Comment by Steve — December 6, 2010 @ 7:22 pm
Hi Tom,
I have a hunch as to what that 120 Watt spike is on your nifty PlottWatt graphs. Your refrigerator is probably similar to my freezer in that every 12 hours of compressor run-time, it initiates a defrost cycle. The defrost cycle will last up to 30 minutes or whenever the temperature sensor on the cooling coil exceeds 40 degrees (whichever comes first). During the defrost cycle the compressor is stopped and an electric heating element (similar to the ones in toaster ovens) in energized. But this just a guess… :).
Comment by Steve — December 7, 2010 @ 10:59 am
Heh, I did the same thing; see this post:
http://sandeen.net/wordpress/?p=415
In my case I found 76.5W of “little things” under 10W; then there are the big things (fridges, radon fan, the computer serving the above blog post…) With those, it was a whopping 186W always on. And I’d already gone around doing the easy stuff!
I’ve recently realized that there is an abandoned 24VAC heater transformer in the basement somewhere.
Which reminds me, BTW, you forgot to measure your doorbell transformer ;) You could save a couple watts there: http://www.olino.org/us/articles/2009/02/03/an-energy-saving-doorbell
Comment by Eric — February 9, 2011 @ 12:36 am
Oh, I’m sorry, you did cover the doorbell! Wow. Nicely done. ;)
Comment by Eric — February 9, 2011 @ 12:38 am
I am glad someone went through the trouble to discover every meaningless killowatt for all us followers! Thanks for the hard work!
Comment by Karen — February 18, 2011 @ 9:10 am