On power strips

On power strips

05 Nov 2007

Got questions about the environment? Ask Umbra.

Hi Umbra,

Around the table at lunch today, my colleagues and I were discussing ways to conserve and be more energy efficient. We've all heard that "dormant" appliances still draw energy. We've all been told we should plug some of our electronics into a power strip that we can easily flip off when they are not in use. And, despite not really knowing the answer to my following questions, we all have done this in our respective homes. So if our TV, stereo, space heater, and cell phone chargers are plugged into a power strip, how much electricity is the power strip drawing (even if it has been flipped off)? Do we have to unplug the power strip too? Thanks for your wisdom and guidance on this matter!

Lily Lewison
Seattle, Wash.

Dearest Lily,

No, no, the power strip is there to save us from the arduous unplugging. In fact, I believe this labor-saving device is completely responsible for the hand-obesity epidemic amongst environmentalists and home conservationists. In fact, I have just learned of newfangled power strips that obviate even pressing an on-off switch. How will our fingers get adequate exercise with all these labor-saving devices?

Plug this puppy into a power strip.

Photo: iStockphoto

Let us provide background for those new to phantom loads. Home appliances and personal electronic devices pull electricity when in use, as we all would expect. Most also pull electricity when not in use, either while they wait poised on "standby," or because they have a clock or LED light, or because their plug is poorly designed. (Only today did I learn the term "wall wart" as applied to the black transformer boxes appended to our phones, laptops, etc., which draw power simply when plugged into an outlet, even if not plugged into their affiliated gadget.) The amount of "phantom" power drawn in an average U.S. home is expensive per home and truly impressive nationally. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, around 75 percent of the energy used by our home appliances is drawn while we think they are "off." Typical offenders include microwaves, stereo equipment, televisions, chargers for cell phones or iPods and co., and all the computer equipment.

Many of us solve this environmental and financial problem by plugging the offenders into a power strip with an on/off switch. When we are through using the appliances on a strip, we turn off the strip, which cuts the electricity to the appliances. Power strips control the electricity coming from the wall, and when they are off, the power is off to the attached equipment. Then, though the evil appliances wish to continue sucking power from the grid, they are thwarted. Trolling on the web will bring you persuasive testimonials from people who shrank their power use this way.

Now all kinds of equipment is available to tailor your phantom load reduction. From simply reading the descriptions, not actually trying the items, I think the most enticing fancy power strip is a Smart Strip. It has multiple outlets. One is the master outlet, so to speak, and when the appliance plugged in there is turned off by its user, all the connected outlets also shut off power. Two obvious ways to use this are in a home office, plugging the hard drive into the master outlet and the printer, scanner, fax, higgly-wiggly, into the connected outlets; and in a home entertainment center. A similar product is the Isole Power Strip, which does much the same thing but via a motion sensor -- you leave the room, it turns off. I haven't looked too far into this Isole strip, but logic dictates it uses some power itself to motion-sense, and it does occur to me that you might end up with the same problem one has with motion sensor bathroom lights. Sitting in the dark in the bathroom is easier than suddenly losing power in the middle of the World Series. Heaven forbid.

Ask Umbra continues below

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Other gizmos I must mention are various electric-use meters. One meter plugs into the outlet, the appliance plugs into it, the meter shows what the appliance draws. Two other meters measure energy use in the house as a whole and/or of the appliance to which they are nearest. These are good for motivation. The human often needs to see the effects of her actions before she changes her actions. But they are gizmos, and as such I hesitate to recommend them.

You can instead estimate your appliances' energy use with these numbers from the Department of Energy. Or, just follow common sense and buy energy-saving appliances, turn off their power when feasible, and don't buy too many unnecessary gizmos. And, yes, have faith in power strips.

Switchily,
Umbra

Yours is to wonder why, hers is to answer (or try). Please send Umbra any nagging question pertaining to the environment -- but first check out her FAQs!

The claims made in this column may not reflect the views of this magazine. Neither the magazine nor the author guarantees that any advice contained in this column is wise or safe. Please use this column at your own risk.

Umbra Fisk is Grist Research Associate II, Hardcover and Periodicals Unit, floors 2B-4B.

Comments: (13 comments)

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Laudable, but will anyone actually do this?

Everyone agrees that turning off a power-strip will result in energy savings, but faced with reprogramming their VCR/TV/Tivo/Microwave/(anything else with a clock or memory) EVERY TIME they want to use one of these appliances how many people will actually do this more than once before giving up on this one? There are a few units that can set their clocks automatically, but the majority can not. This seems like a good-hearted intention that just won't be followed through by most. (Possible hi-tech solution that doesn't exist currently: on-board (recyclable! long-lasting!) batteries that retain settings when no external power is applied for all these. Most clock alarms have them....)

by DougSimpson599 at 12:02 PM on 05 Nov 2007

I do it!

I love my Smart strips. And I don't have to reprogram anything.

In fact, I wrote a whole post about smart strips and how I use them on my blog just last last week:

http://www.fakeplasticfish.com/2007/10/smart-strips-are-r ...

If you have a piece of equipment that needs to stay on because of programming, plug that one into the CONSTANT HOT outlet and you won't have to reprogram. Everything else can be shut down automatically without your having to remember to flip the switch.

Beth Terry http://www.fakeplasticfish.com

by Beth Terry at 12:35 PM on 05 Nov 2007

Bit surprised

I just wrote somewhere else that unplugging devices is a drop in the bucket in the big picture and that NOT USING products has a higher impact. I am surprised to find those high numbers here. I may have to revise my thinking.

I do find it annoying that we have not been ABLE(?) to design products that cannot be disconnected. I try to do it whenever I think of doing it, but several products need re-programming when I do it. I can imagine that settings could be saved on a magnetic strip that could be read when you plug the device back in. That would not require even batteries. But why do it if no one really cares about this more than the convenience factor? Most Americans are too lazy and believe that recycling is the cure to all of our problems. Doing that is enough.

BTW, stop using your electric clothes dryer and, depending on how many loads you need to dry, you will much likely have a much larger impact on your energy use than unplugging those devices.

Karsten
http://www.polluteless.com

by PolluteLessDotCom at 12:55 PM on 05 Nov 2007

some data

"I just wrote somewhere else that unplugging devices is a drop in the bucket in the big picture and that NOT USING products has a higher impact. I am surprised to find those high numbers here. I may have to revise my thinking."

I have a Kill A watt device to measure energy consumption. Devices like my cell phone charger and toothbrush consume about $.50/month in electricity. My EnergyStar TV and stereo when off use about $3.50/month if left plugged in when off. A computer and CRT monitor running 24/7 use about $11 in power per month. A vending machine (basically a refrigerator) in my office building eats about $71 per month in electricity.

Based on this I think you can conclude it's worth turning off devices like computers and TVs at the power strip as the amount of power they consume is significant, choose an EnergyStar refrigerator, and not worry too much about toothbrushes and the like.

by rsmith02 at 4:20 PM on 05 Nov 2007

Estimating power usage

Instead of using a gizmo to measure the overall power-use of your home, you could just read the power meter each day and do the sums to see how much you use each day. You soon yet to spot the energy patterns of your household - when there were two washes done, when someone baked a cake or roasted something in the oven.

Re: the Tivo problem. The open source Tivo-equivalent, MythTV, can be configured so that it powers itself off and just powers back on when there is something to record. Because its based on a PC, it still draws power when its off (you see the LAN connection LED glow), but you can safely put a timer device on it if you never record (say) day-time TV. That's what we use in our (sub 5kWh/day) house. Still looking for a microwave without a clock.

Andy

by undyau at 5:06 PM on 05 Nov 2007

Here's my brother's retort

(No doubt, his cost figures are grossly underexaggerated)

Yeah but I tried that and I must confess to being a inpatient American. When I added the power strip to my digital cable box it shut off just fine, but when I powered it back up the next day it took 20 minutes for the cable box to update the program information and for an agonizing twenty minutes I didn't know what I was watching... Then the saga of power stripping my internet cable modem, which is connected to my wireless router and then connected to my vonage phone modem, they have to be powered up in sequence -or- one or another of the devices doesn't work properly and then I have to reboot my storage array server because it operates on Windows 2000 server and doesn't automatically connect like XP does. This causes another agonizing 20 or so minutes without internet, phone or access to my teraflop of stored data. Then the real offender is the microwave - I hate the blinking "SET TIME" whenever it losses power and setting the time on my microwave makes programming a VCR easy. Next we have my HP laserjet printer, power it down and need to print something... there is nothing fast about the warm up time of a nice laser jet printer, alas another 15 minutes.

So all that to say I leave it all on and use that hour normally spent waiting for programming info to load, frickin' routers to connect, clocks to set and servers to reboot by grabbing a beer and either surfing the net or flipping thru the channel guide to see what I can veg with on TV, well worth the $1.oo a day is costs to leave all that powered up.. My electric bill in my all electric house last month was $83.00.

Just my humble opinion...

kenbro

P.S. Powering down electronic equipment every 12 hours or so causes the internal components to cool to ambient temperature, then power them back up 12 hours later and they rise to a "warm to the touch" operating temp (maybe 110 degrees). This cooling and warming cycle loosens components and shortens the lifespan of said electronic components. Then they are replaced and buried in the dump where they leech toxic chemicals and polute the environment and undermine any green savings in electricity....... Humans leave a footprint on the planet and there's nothing to be done about that, it's life.

by RecordRat at 8:00 PM on 05 Nov 2007

Inconvenient? Maybe. Worth it? Totally.

I've always been pretty conservative when it comes to electric usage (shutting off lights, using energy star appliances, etc.), but over the past couple years, switching to CFLs and unplugging everything has made a big difference in what was already a pretty minimal load.

I have the entertainment center on a strip, which makes it really easy; my laptop pretty much stays packed up for travel; my kitchen appliances stay unplugged until I'm using them, and then I unplug them again - ditto for the printer, lamps, and miscellaneous other appliances. The VCR, microwave, and stove all have clocks - but even when I kept them plugged in all the time, they weren't set to the right time. The only clock I trust is on my cell phone.

Admittedly, I don't have cable or high speed internet or Tivo devices to worry about messing up the programming...which I guess could be a pain; but personally, these sacrifices (such as they are) seem to me pretty manageable when it saves both money and the planet.

by TariRocks at 10:22 AM on 06 Nov 2007

It's true

While Kenbros comments about cable boxes taking 20 minutes to reprogram each time they are powered back up after being off is true( mine takes 30) and the same is true for cable modems, you can work around this by plugging the cable box and cable modem into an traditional hot outlet, and placing everything else on the power strip.

Example: the TV. Follow the directions for the cable box listed above. Then plug the TV, dvd player, any sound system and (gasp!) video games into the power strip. You WILL notice the savings on your next bill. Any additional power strips you buy will likely be paid for within a year.

by econpolyeco at 11:37 AM on 06 Nov 2007

I will correct what I said earlier

If you own a bunch of gadgets and machines that make your life more comfortable which use electricity even though you are not using them, it makes sense to unplug them (or turn them off by using the mentioned power strip).

However, if you do not own these things now (say you cannot afford them yet, you are still a child, or find them not that important to own) do not purchase and use them thinking that unplugging them will save the planet. Most products require more energy to be made than you ever save by unplugging them.

Unless you have to use/replace a product necessary for your well-being, any product you do not use EVER is better.

Karsten
http://www.polluteless.com

by PolluteLessDotCom at 12:26 PM on 06 Nov 2007

Pollute less, consume less => produce less

What Karsten said is right - consuming less consumes less.

There's a flip-side to this (and its neat) - we need to produce less too. With your reduced consumption you shouldn't need as much money anyway. Reduce your productivity, slack off at work, play more.

Andy

by undyau at 11:01 PM on 06 Nov 2007

Power Strip with Timer

If, like me, your apartment or condo outlets aren't wired to on/off switches, and the motion sensor power console keeps flipping off your tv, another great power strip solution is to buy one with a timer.

Philips makes one that I plug our TV & Cable Box into. Our Comcast cable box draws 40W, even when it is off. Thing is, I usually want the cable box on, even when the tv is off, so I can record shows on my DVR.

I don't record at night, however. So, the timer just shuts the whole system down at night, but powers up the cable box in the morning, so it can redownload the channel guide and all of my DVR settings by the time I'm ready for the morning news.

Philips Surge Protector w/ Timer:
http://www.amazon.com/Philips-GS4T6FO-4-Outlet-Household- ...

http://www.bravenewleaf.com

by brave new leaf at 2:10 PM on 08 Nov 2007

Tried this for a few weeks.

We tried this for a few months and it didn't go over well. Now I just unplug certain appliances when they aren't being used. The only thing on a power strip that is turned off now are the cell phone chargers.

Aside from the programming and the satellite receiver requiring 10 minutes to boot up every time it is turned off, is the fact that we experience a lot of power brownouts during peak draw periods. I work at home so am required to use my computers during the day and these brownouts have caused hardware damage. So all 6 of the PCs on the network are on Uninterruptible Power Supplies and line conditioners. They prevent me from losing equipment. Television and DVR are similarly setup. Unfortunately, these have to constant draw power or they do not serve their purpose.

When I did turn off everything and reduce the power draw, I saw absolutely no effect on my electric bill. Not even a dip in the average kilowatt hours used per day. Instead, we started switching from CFLs to LED lights, switched all outdoor lights to solar power, have battery powered Alarm Clocks (with rechargeable batteries), do most kitchen work by hand, and conserve where ever we can and the power usage has dropped 70% in the last year. Part of that is because we moved to a new energy efficient home. But a good portion is due to saving efforts. Now I am trying to figure out if the environmental cost of new energy star appliances (refrigerator, freezer, washer, dryer, microwave) versus long term energy savings and if it is worth it to replace my existing appliances.

by wayneluke at 6:49 AM on 13 Nov 2007

Re: electric-use meters

I'm a little late arriving to this conversation, but I wanted to mention that my library system (Arlington County, VA) lets people check out the Kill-a-Watt Meter, so that might be an option for people wanting to shock themselves into unplugging appliances, etc. If your library system doesn't do this, maybe your local government does.

by erin79 at 9:53 AM on 15 Nov 2007

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