Saving Money on Electricity: Be on the lookout for these energy-sucking vampires in your home!

Are you serious about saving money on electricity? Have you felt the bite of energy drain while you were sleeping? Have energy vampires taken up residence in your home?

"Energy vampires" are electrical devices, appliances and electronics so-called because they continue to use electricity even when they are in an idle state such as standby or off. This is also known as standby electrical consumption or leaking electricity and it could be costing you hundreds each year!

Most people incorrectly assume that electrical consumption stops once an electronic device is turned off or left idle. That used to be true in the not-so distant past but it certainly is not true today. Many of today's appliances, electrical devices and electronics have a standby state that allows them to continue working even when they appear to be turned off.

This means that many of the electronic devices in your home are never truly off - they're in a kind of sleep mode.

Identifying energy vampires

In order to start saving money on electricity you need to identify what energy vampires you have in your home right now! Here are 6 ways to identify energy vampires:

• Device has a standby label or indicator on it.
• Device is still warm to the touch hours after it was last used.
• Device has a remote control
• Device has an external power supply
• Device has a digital clock
• Device has soft-touch key-pad

Any device with one or more of the identifiers listed is likely to be an energy vampire. However, it is possible for an energy vampire to have none of these identifiers. The only surefire way to tell is by using a watt meter which measures standby power consumption.

Common Household Energy-Sucking Vampires

* source http://www.consumerenergycenter.org/myths/appliances.html

Saving Money on Electricity: How to minimize the effects of energy vampires

• Energy audit - If you're serious about saving money on electricity your first step should be to get an energy audit of your home. This will help you understand how the energy in your home is being used and just how energy efficient it is or is not. It will also help you determine where you should focus your efforts.

• Unplug electronic devices - Obviously this is the easiest way to reduce standby power consumption but you can't just unplug every device in your home; that wouldn't be practical. However, if you have devices that are rarely or never used - unplug them. Things like your old stereo systems and TV's can needlessly boost standby usage and ultimately your electricity bill.

• Use power bars with switches - If you are not doing this already, you need to buy one or two powerbars (with on/off switch). Group together devices like your computer equipment (computer, printer, monitor, modem, router etc.) and/or video equipment (TV, DVD player, satellite or cable receiver, game console etc.).

TIP: Generally, many of these devices use standby power to keep configuration information, powering them off via the powerbar may cause you to lose this information. One example of this would be, digital clocks resetting after power failures.

• Buy Energy Star rated devices - If you're already in the market for a device, look for the Energy Star label. They tend to have lower standby power usage.

• Use a watt meter - You can borrow one of these from most public librairies and/or your local power company. Measuring the standby consumption of items in your home will give you a better understanding of where most of the energy is being used and where to focus your efforts.

• Computer settings - Instead of turning off your computer you could change the power plan it runs on. A power plan is a collection of hardware and system settings that manages how your computer uses power. Power plans can help you save energy, maximize system performance, or achieve a balance between the two.

TIP: You can change settings for any of your power plans, including the three default plans—Balanced, Power saver, and High performance.

Minimizing standby power consumption wherever possible is a big step forward if your goal is to start saving money on electricity. You could slash your electric bill by as much as 25% - 30%.

More Saving Money on Electricity Resources

• Your Electricity Bill: One simple rule that can save you hundreds each year!
• Home Energy Saving Tips: No money ways to reduce your hydro bill

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