David Lock

OK I'm a naughty boy wrecking the environment. I have a few TVs and videos which I don't switch off every night just leaving them on standby.

Why does leaving a little red light on allegedly cost a fortune in electricity?

Always wondered. I have no gas or lpg TVs

dl

WRX_Dazza

hehehh we've covered this before David....

some other suggestions were:-

use the 4 slice toaster option at all times....
leave the CH on full blast, and vary the window opening for thermostatic control.
always boil a full kettle of water
leave you car running a min of 10mins to warm up and warm down...

there were lots more

Graz

What the tree huggers are on about is that if everyone leaves all their kit on standby all the time then this does make a significant impact to the total energy consumed in the country.

I very much doubt you'd notice a difference on your own bill though. Depends if you have a conscious with respect to the environment. I'm not one to preach with a de-catted Scoob!

Was considering getting a set of these so I can switch it all off when I go to bed Domia Bye Bye Standby Starter Pack - Ebuyer (Only because I can't reach the switch very easily.)

David Lock

Thanks Graz - could be useful for some appliances.

Still wondering if, by leaving on Standby, it is only the power needed to light up the little red light or is more power somehow being consumed (but I can't think how)? dl

gazza-uk

bout fifteen notes in Costco

warrenm2

modern standbys use about 5-10W. Compare that with boiling a kettle - its so minute, it makes **** all difference. Its all a total joke

boxst

The manual for my Television says it uses 2KW/h on Standby, which is much lower than the chart below:



Steve

pimmo2000

iTrader: (6)

Dunno.. I think every little helps. I mean what harm does it do to turn things off?

AndyC_772

iTrader: (2)

The excess power is lost as heat within the appliance's power supply. There are certain fixed losses that occur whether it's supplying maximum power or next to nothing.

For example: the power supply in a television, might lose 40W when powering a 200W load (83% efficient - not bad), but still lose 10W when powering a 2W load (just 17% efficient).

What is often missed, is that this power isn't totally wasted - it's heating your home. So, if you have your central heating set to maintain the same temperature, 50W coming from your TV and hi-fi on standby is 50W that doesn't have to come from the boiler. So it's only really wasted in summer when that excess heat isn't wanted.

dpb

Wasnt this a dragons den winner - some guys came up with a marvellous invention to reduce your standby charges...

modern living eh

Unless youve live in a small falt and never open teh windows its dificult to believe its a 'heating' source

g7prs

iTrader: (5)

I have a mate who's is the tightest person you have ever met and when he moved into his first night he would go round at night making sure that all plugs were turned of at the socket. This was fine until he got up one morning to find water all over the kitchen floor. The fool had switched off his freezer.

Luminous

iTrader: (3)

Nice answer there AndyC. So many people miss these important things.

There are other factors to look at. For example, some circuitry prefers to have power passing through it, rather than being cycled on and off. Having constant power can extend the life of the component. Extending its life does use power, but the fact that it does not have to be replaced so often is better for both your pocket and the environment (the new item will take resources and power to make).

You can buy little power meter plugs in DIY places/from the internet. I have one from years ago, modern ones can have some funky features. For the non scientifically minded you can program them with the price of a unit of electricity, and the plug something into it. When you come back later on it will tell you how much power it has used in £££. That way you can actually see if power saving measures are worthwhile.

As an example I used this power meter on my TV (really old portable) and a digi box. Combined over a 5 hours usage period they had not consumed 10p of electricity. The current drawn by these items when in standby was not measurable my the unit in Amps or Watts, the sensitivity being 1 dp for both amps and watts.

dpb

saved money at the gym sweeping it all up tho i bet

Luminous

iTrader: (3)

It is a heating source. One of the rooms where we have an office PC has its heating permanently off due to the heat output of the machine. The machine is on for 16+ hrs per day, combined with a few other pieces of equipment there is about 250-300W of heat coming from them.

It is very noticeable if all the kit is off, you do actually have to turn the heating on in the end as it just gets too cold.

dpb

and if you dont buy another one next year the economy will collapse and mr.chinaman will have nothing to eat tonite

dpb

What sort of geek are you

AndyC_772

iTrader: (2)

I'm guessing you've never worked in any kind of data centre or equipment room. A typical desktop PC and monitor draw around 200-250W between them. Ten PCs are, therefore, the equivalent of a typical fan heater. At the company I work for, the production area can be really uncomfortable in summer just by having a rack of equipment on soak test.

Unfortunately, although it's perfectly possible to design more efficient power supplies, doing so costs money - and with consumer goods in particular, nobody is prepared to pay the extra.

That's the extra price you pay on top of a £30 DVD player or set-top box.

dpb

no
sorry assumed we were talkin 'in the home'

boxst

On the other hand ... some things are just stupid. We bought a kettle the other day and didn't take any notice of the box (it was on offer) and instead of switching off it has a standby mode where it continuously changes colour. How silly is that? It means that we DO switch it off at the wall now when we've finished.



Steve

MattW

Changes colour, cool, got to get one of them!

David Lock

I would happily turn things off regularly if there was a nice easy-to-get-at wall switch.

But, like many others I guess, many appliances are plugged into awkward to get at plugs behind a cupboard or the TV itself. At midnight all I want to do is go to bed and not crawl around on all fours trying to find switches - and yes I can be a lazy sod

Dracoro

When TV's break, they break when turning them on/off (i.e. not put on standby) so 'properly' turning it off potentially makes it more unreliable.

The energy used in building a new TV far outweighs any energy used by standby.

Thus, it's more eco-friendly to leave it on standby than to continously turn off/on.

+Doc+

The energy burned for me to reach the plug makes me want to eat more burgers, which kills a cows, now that is really bad for the enviro...I`ll leave the tv on standby.

HankScorpio

Are you sure there's a K in there...?

Luminous

iTrader: (3)

the sort that notices when he gets cold

No PC = heater in winter

OllyK

My TV doesn't have an on/off button, it's standby or off at the wall so it stays on standby.

P1Fanatic

Do you have any facts to back that up? When my Sony 32" CRT picture went duff (colour distortion in right hand corner) the firm that fixed it told me that they see this problem a lot as people leave them on standby all the time. Tbh it was my ex being lazy and every since Ive switched it off whenever I leave the room for extended period of time. He could of been talking cobblers but I guess his professional opinion is better than a random post on here

Simon

AndyC_772

iTrader: (2)

Yes. When equipment warms up, components and PCBs expand, and when it cools down they contract. Repeated thermal cycles puts stress on solder joints, and over time, cracks form which lead to broken connections. Then, because it's not economically viable (or, depending on exactly where the break is, possible) to find and fix them, the equipment gets scrapped.

I've had one laptop and two A/V amps suffer from this problem - it's absolutely real, and not something that can necessarily be 'designed out' either. With the RoHS directive banning the use of lead in solder, this problem is only likely to get worse, as lead-free solder joints are more brittle than tin/lead ones.

It's another wonderful example of joined-up EU thinking: we now have less reliable products which require more energy to manufacture because lead-free solder melts at a higher temperature. And the rate at which lead leaches into the environment has subsequently been found to be around 1% of the rate which was assumed when the RoHS directive was first proposed...

Graz

I've got one of them, well cool. Changes colour from blue to red as it comes to the boil too

vindaloo

It damages the environment when it all goes up in flames, taking the house with it. I know of someone who's had one burnt down and one "room replacement" because of faulty tellys....