Behaviour Change

[andrewducker]

So, I picked up an Efergy wireless electricity monitor. Which proudly says on the outside of the box "Save up to 20% on your electricity bill through greater awareness!"

And I can see why they say that. Because the first thing I did, after clipping the sensor around the wire between the meter and the fusebox, was wander around the flat turning lights off and trying to get our electricity usage down to zero.

It turns out that the biggest thing I can do is turn off the TV and Amp when I'm not watching TV. That'll save me 1.5p/hour, right there.

The biggest thing I _can't_ do is turn off the fridge-freezer, which seems to gulp down electricity by the bucket load.

It seems that having the internet router/wireless use negligible amounts (the meter goes down to 0.01kW, but it didn't even register the router being turned on and off), so I shall cease worrying about that. Turning off lights as I leave the room is worthwhile though.

And so does replacing the fridge/freezer when we redo the kitchen, which is slated for next year. We'd been semi-planning to anyway, because it's noisy and clunky, but this moves it up the priority list.

I have a score to minimise, so now I am obsessed!

Comments

[gominokouhai]

> Turning off lights as I leave the room is worthwhile though

Out of interest, is that with proper light bulbs or energy savers?

[andrewducker]

I'm fairly sure that all of the bulbs we have are fluorescents nowadays.

[jack]

"I have a score to minimise, so now I am obsessed!"

:)

[anton-p-nym.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I noticed a big drop in electricity use after my new 'fridge arrived. Then came the big July heatwave, and my AC usage wiped out the savings pretty handily. I should see a nicely low bill again for September, though.

-- Steve is also pleased to know that his DVD player draws a staggering 5W when running. Remember when those things drew 5W of power just sitting idle?

[steer.livejournal.com]

How much did the Energy monitor cost?

[andrewducker]

£30. Maplin have it on special here:
http://www.maplin.co.uk/efergy-elite-wireless-energy-saving-meter-225407

[steer.livejournal.com]

Lovely. I will pick one up tomorrow! Thanks.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

I thought that, and then I thought I could probably save myself a lot of effort simply by generalising from the things Andrew turned off to my flat -- obviously mine are not guaranteed to be the same, but I think they probably are :)

[steer.livejournal.com]

I've seen this exercise done in a friend's flat and it can be completely surprising. For example we found a VCR which did not even work any more and which he'd pretty much forgotten was even plugged in consuming loads. On the other hand, a really vast TV (one of the stupidly heavy ones they produced for people who wanted large TVs before flat panels were invented) and that was using next to nothing on standby. I'm actually pretty lazy at turning things off so I'd like to know about things like my stereo amp, the charger for my wii controller and so on.

Things like phone chargers (which get a lot of publicity as wasting "millions of pounds of electricity a year") were using relatively little -- which made sense actually as "millions of pounds of electricity a year" is only around a quid per person per yet.

[andrewducker]

Yeah, I'm in agreement. I assumed that the router, for instance, was guzzling power. Turns out not to be. The Apple TV, on the other hand, turns out to be using the same power as when it's running when it's in standby. So I unplugged it.

[alitheapipkin.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, I drive the Boy mad insisting he turns the modem and router off when he isn't online but I don't think I shall stop - he'd leave everything on if I didn't nag him!

[andrewducker]

Measure the power and see how much it uses. If it's sucking up lots then you have ammo, and if it turns out to use negligible amounts then you can cease worrying about it.

[alitheapipkin.livejournal.com]

The blinking green lights would still annoy me even if the power consumption didn't though! (Yes, I'm odd)

[andrewducker]

They drive me crazy at night, because the router is in the bedroom. Nowadays they have a t-shirt draped over them...

[don-fitch.livejournal.com]

Yup, traditionally (at least in the U.S.) refrigerators are the major energy-hogs. I really ought to get around to replacing my c. 1955 one, Real Soon Now. Unfortunately (me being me) that would probably involve completely re-doing the entire kitchen, at a cost of ... ummm... I'm guessing something like $10,000. I think the applicable phrase, here, is "Sticker Shock".

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

When I used to come through to crash on your sofa, the TV was pretty much always on overnight, the amp too. Assuming they were left on overnight every night for a year, that's £65 a year just on that one extravagance. And to think you said once that there was no point doing things like turning off the TV because it used so little :-D

Would dimmable lights be good, or does that not actually change electricity usage very much? That'd be pretty handy for autumn winter, so you could gradually increase the brightness as it got darker.

[andrewducker]

The TV wasn't on - it was on standby. On standby it uses so little that I can't detect it. The amp may well have been on though. I was actually pretty shocked by how much power it uses even when there's no music going through it.

I don't have a light dimmer - and most fluorescents don't dim well, so far as I understand.

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

Sometimes it was on, but with no picture because other bits were turned off, actually :-)

You can -hear- most audio equipment even when there's no music going through it.

This is going to end up with you min-maxing your fridgefreezer to find out what the ideal amount of food to have in there is, to get the most efficient use of energy, isn't it?

[andrewducker]

Naah, it's going to end up with the fridge being replaced. With one that has independently settable temperatures for the fridge and freezer sections.

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

I'm hoping for a hilarious silent passive-aggressive conflict as you buy things Julie doesn't like so she keeps turning down the temperature of that bit of the fridge and freezing them so you can't eat it easily.

[johncoxon.livejournal.com]

I like you.

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

How much does your tv use when its on standby?

My new tv, I was a bit disturbed, it doesn't have an off switch. It just has standby. So unless I clamber behind it to switch it off at the wall, it will always be on standby.

[andrewducker]

Standby uses less energy than I can effectively detect with this box.

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

Good to know. Thanks.

[dreema.livejournal.com]

yeah, i noticed that on an LG tv we have in the conference room at work, the button on the front is a standby one not a power one.

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

I was amazed actually, in this era where they are trying to sell us energy efficient appliances. But, as said elsewhere, I imagine on standby it is only drawing enough power to light the little red standby button.

[steer.livejournal.com]

But, as said elsewhere, I imagine on standby it is only drawing enough power to light the little red standby button.

You would imagine but a friend and I did this exercise on his stuff and some kit used as much on standby as it did when powered on.

[alitheapipkin.livejournal.com]

Yes, my cable box is a good example. I unplug the damn thing when not watching TV and the fact that it takes about 3 mins to load up when it has actually been turned off rather than being on immediately after stand-by, illustrates perfectly that leaving it on stand-by saves very little power over leaving it on.

[andrewducker]

Mine is also a DVR, that frequently records stuff overnight, so that's not so much of an option.

But it actually uses significantly less power than some of my other gear, so I'm not quite so worried about it.

[alitheapipkin.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes that does make my solution difficult! We don't have much in the way of electrical gear so it probably uses more power than any of the other non-essentials (by essentials I mean electric shower, washing machine, boiler, oven, fridge and lights plus my work laptop).

[alitheapipkin.livejournal.com]

Oh, and the kettle of course, because I cannot function without tea!

[ajr.livejournal.com]

You'll probably find that the big consumers of electricity are anything involving heat. So, depending on your home setup; hot water heater, kettle, tumble dryer, washing machine, that sort of thing.

We've got one here, but it hasn't really changed our usage of electricity that much, as we're not the sort to leave things on/on standby anyway. The biggest thing it revealed is how much electricity the fancy lights in the kitchen use, but seeing as the alternative to using them is to stumble around in the darkness, there's not much to do about that. Just remember to turn them off when out, really. :)

[andrewducker]

The kettle is a big consumer when it's on - but I only put in enough water for a single cup of tea, so it's never on for more than a minute.

[autopope.livejournal.com]

Note the tumble drier/washer-drier point. I live in a top-floor flat with a tiny airing cupboard so we pretty much rely on the drier. Luckily I spent a bundle on a high-efficiency one about five years back when the old one died.

In general, anything running off a wall-wart that charges at USB power levels you can probably ignore; iPads, phones, that sort of thing. Even a laptop at full power only draws as much juice as a dim incandescent light bulb (and much less when it's asleep). The big surprise is probably going to be your monitor, if you have one -- I know this one in front of me right now (Apple 24" Cinema display) can draw up to 300 watts when it's also charging a Macbook via the built-in magsafe connector.

[andrewducker]

We don't have a drier, instead we have clothes airer on a pulley that runs the whole length of the front hall (about 15 feet long by about 4 feet wide).

The washing machine is also ancient, and probably less efficient than it could be. It's been repaired twice since I moved in, and will also go when the kitchen gets ripped out.

I am sooooo looking forward to having a new kitchen/washing machine/fridge freezer/cooker.

My 22" screen uses about 40-50 watts. Which is a fair chunk, but not as bad as the cinema display sounds! In fact, my 37" TV only uses about 70W, if I remember last night's measurements correctly.

[autopope.livejournal.com]

Strong rec: investigate Miele washer-driers. They're very expensive, but they're designed for a 15-20 year heavy-use life, they're really efficient, and they're ridiculously quiet compared to a regular washer-drier. (Oh, and part of the regular package is a five year warranty from the manufacturer -- who provide the kind of service you usually associate with folks like Rolls Royce --so you can laugh at Comet if they try to upsell you an expesive policy.)

Bought one seven years ago -- haven't regretted it.

[alitheapipkin.livejournal.com]

But any drier is going to be more expensive to run than just having a washing machine and air drying your clothes. Those pulley airers are seriously great things.

[autopope.livejournal.com]

Yes they are, and one of these years I'm going to see whether it's feasible to get one installed in this flat. (The problem I foresee is that they have to be load bearing, so they need to be screwed or bolted to ceiling joists. Which is way beyond my handyman pay grade (which is actually very low).)

[andrewducker]

Those look gorgeous!

And sadly massively outside of my price range. The whole kitchen is going to cost about £3.5k, spending a third of that just on the washing machine isn't really feasible.

But I shall remember the make for when we've moved somewhere nicer and are redoing things in style. If I was planning on owning a washing machine for 15 years then they look like something worth having.

[rosamicula.livejournal.com]

How full is your freezer and how iced up is it? The most expensive thing to chill is air and the more icebound it is the less effectively it works. If the freezer is ice-free and nice and full it should be cheaper to run.

[andrewducker]

It's full enough that we have "no buying anything unless we finish something off" policy, and not icy at all. So hopefully that's making it cheaper than it would be.

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

> turn off the TV and Amp when I'm not watching TV

I'm genuinely curious. There have been public awareness campaigns for years now about turning off your electricals, including specific ones about one's telly. How do they fail to get through?

> It seems that having the internet router/wireless use negligible amounts

That's nice to know.

[andrewducker]

I've been turning them off if they weren't going to be used for a couple of hours, but not worrying about it for short periods. Having some actual numbers allows me to decide what time period it's worthwhile turning them off over.

[apostle-of-eris.livejournal.com]

hunh
behavior indeed!
Everybody's talking about current draws, which aren't really news any more, but my thought was you have a wonderful maguffin for a psychology experiment there.
Everyone has heard about "saving electricity" (I wonder what % interest an electricity account gets?), but this gizmo got you running form outlet to outlet checking Real Numbers. How well does that generalize? What is the difference in scale between geeks and neurotypicals, for instance?
etc.

[andrewducker]

Sadly, I pretty much only know geeks.

But I would love to know!