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....)

"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.  

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

(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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.