Switch Off At the Wall
PLEDGE: Switch Off At the Wall
Many items of household and office equipment that use electricity consume power even when switched off. For example a small 4-in-1 printer may be using 26W when turned off, but still on at the wall. That amounts to around 200 kWh (units of electricity) per year extra, at a typical cost of over $35.
Turn your appliances off at the wall switch when not in use.
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I'd love to do this, but
what about those appliances that lose their memory after 1 hour off. One of our TV's does this and it's the worst thing in the world to reprogramme; then there's the videos's. My printer is hooked up with the computer and it's all on a surge protector. What happens if there's a power surge and the surge protector is turned off; will it still protect my PC?
I do turn the microwave and washing machine off, as well as the cell phone charger.
If you pull the plug out for
If you pull the plug out for the computer then you don't need to worry about surges at all, since there is no connection to the grid in any way. I hear ya on the TV thing though, I turn most of my appliances off at the wall, but I leave the microwave on because I can't stand resetting it all the time.
If it's hot, switch it off
Small chargers used to work by having a transformer to cut down the voltage. Transformers draw a reasonable current when not in use, but the vast majority are now switch-mode power supplies that switch on and off very quickly to supply the current drawn by the appliance. This means that when no current is being drawn from the low-voltage end the 'switch' in the power supply is in an off state and very little energy is being consumed.
Fortunately there is a very simple way of telling whether your power supply is wasting energy, because all the waste energy gets converted into heat. So if your power supply is warm, then it is worth switching off (unless you are also using a resistive heater with a thermostat in the same room, in which case it makes no difference at all).
...and
this includes phone chargers too!