Pleae do not confuse Wikipedia for facts. As to that 75% number, it is highly suspect.
Again, a simple cost/benefit analysis would show the best path to follow. However, simple math is beyond many people who blindly follow whatever the current fad is (be it global warming, electric cars, or whatever) in an attempt to appear 'on top of things', and 'all wise'.
In the end, sure you can save a few penny's of electricity, and spend dollars doing so. And perhaps you feel good doing it that way. Fine, it's your house, as long as no one else gets hurt, go for it. But, if you are really interested in saving money (or energy) then I'd recommend thinking about what you are doing, looking at real numbers, analyzing the various factors (including items such as startup current) and seeing what is the real best solution.
Exactly. What interested people here I think was the the fallacy and futility of worrying about a minuscule amount of wasted energy; equivalent perhaps to the home heat lost during time taken to have the front door open on a cold day to bring in a few bags of groceries!
It's heartening though that in this day and age of wasteful and prodigal monster homes, jacuzzi and swimming pool styles of living, V8 Hummers etc. (A situation possibly being currently amended by 'tightening our belts'?) is that there is awareness and interest in WHAT IS WORTH DOING to conserve.
What seems to escape many is that by spending many dollars to use manufactured items one only saves a few cents worth of energy. All manufactured items require resources and energy to manufacture. For example how much elctrcity is required say, to refine iron ore, make galvanized sheet steel and stamp out an electrical outlet box, along with the energy required to run the factory in which it is made, package it, transport it to a local retail outlet, stock the shelves, buy or have screws to mount, bring it home, etc. etc. ??????
A neighbour (driven by a wife with virtually zero technical appreciation) has gone all CFLs. Even for those locations where lights are only used occasionally. Each CFL costs around $3 compared to the
25 cent el-cheapos I use and requires several manufacturing operations involving electronic components and a very small amount of mercury. But their electricity consumption has changed little.
Why? Because they like most here they use electrcity for heating. So any waste heat from 'inefficient' old fashioned incandescent light bulbs does not contribute to warming the home; likewise an 'inefficient' fridge etc. lost heat from an electric hot water tank etc.
One item that does waste heat energy is a clothes dryer; it just chucks warm damp air outside for some 20 to 30 minutes each time it is run. Hey must cost that out! We run ours as little as possible and whenver weather allows dry heavy items, blankets, towels etc. on our two cothes lines. See item on clothe line supports.
My best friend has degrees in electronics, electrial power and once was a design engineer for at the time a major power transformer manufacturer.
I asdked him about standby losses, he rreports it depends on ntheb transformer. they can be built to be ultra low, which cost more, or lossy and cheap to build.
government should require energy efficency numbers on everything with minimum standards
It's more than enough that the government has mandated energy efficiency labels on MAJOR energy consuming items such as HVAC components, water heaters, laundry equipment, refrigerators and freezers.
Mandating testing and labeling for energy efficiency on "everything" from toasters (virtually 100% efficient, BTW) to doorbell transformers would be too intrusive, costly and accomplish little if anything.
Government rarely "gets it right" with the big and important things. I shudder to think of it getting into such trivial things.
It's not that no problem exists. You've said that you've *saved* over $120/mo in electricity (more than twice as much as my entire electric bill!). Clearly somewhere in your house there are things pulling massive amounts of power.
What most of us are saying is that things like doorbell transformers and wall warts don't consume enough electricity to be significant in this. Now, unplugging unused wall warts isn't a bad idea. I've got most of the ones I use to recharge batteries plugged into an outlet strip, and only turn it on when I'm recharging something. But I don't know if I'm recouping enough money to pay for the (cheap) outlet strip. Where you need to look is 1) things that make heat (esp. electric heaters, furnaces, stoves, and water heaters, for the most part stuff like hair driers, coffee makers, waffle irons, etc. aren't turned on for long enough to be of major significance if you're not living in a restaurant or hair salon), 2) things with powerful electric motors (A/C, heat pumps, dehumidifiers, blowers, refrigerators and freezers), and 3) incandescent (including halogen) bulbs that are on for long periods. Pretty much in that order. Those things are where your payback can be real, and large.
I would be interested in seeing your list of 50 or 100 items and especially interested in seeing how much electricity they use.
I could do without electricity completely- except that I like the convenience. I suspect the electricity your appliances are using is providing some sort of convenience. If you'd rather use less electricity and don't care about the convenience, then unplug them- or put a switch on the plugs.
Most doorbell transformers consume a couple watts. Only a few hundred million amounts to an amount fairly typical for an electric power plant, at least an only moderately smallish one.
3 watts for a clock radio, 2 watts for the main cordless phone, 1 watt for the other cordless phone, 1 watt for the microwave, 1 watt for the DTV box, 11 watts for the TV, 2 watts for a doorbell... That is 21 watts. Over 50 years that amounts to 9 megawatt-hours, and I don't have a video recorder pluggen most of the time, and my computer, printer and monitor are on a power strip - and I use the switch on that. A household's idling load from low power constant loads can somewhat easily be 30 watts or more.
The incandescent lamp probably consumes about 1/4 watt maybe less, while the idling transformer consumes a couple watts.
I still do delivery work and I have done so for many years, and I have only seen one transformer-powered doorbell button with an LED. The LED was a model with efficiency similar to or less than even the models of incandescents lamps being used in doorbell buttons, as used in doorbell buttons, with intended life expectancy of decades. The LED appears to me to be from the 1970's or possibly early 1980's.
Yes, many houses do have 300 watt halogen torchiere lamps. Probably most houses have quite a few incandescents that can be replaced with CFLs, and a few still have older fridges that may consume twice as much power as their replacements.
Some have electric dryers and a few have electric heat. Then there are the big-screen TVs.
Along with air conditioning - some of which is used to pump out the heat from the electric loads.
I would battle both the active loads and the phantom loads.
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