You may have read the recent posts of Monitoring Electric Use and PowerDown Plugs and you may be thinking “Has this guy gone Eco Friendly??” – the simple answer is I had enough of chucking money away on Gas and Electric Bills and thought it was about time I stopped wasting on items that had no reason to be on. I know people who leave computers and monitors on all the time as well as many other items throughout the house that are effectively sucking down Watts and wasting you money – when that Bill hits the floor, you wonder why it so high right?
The Living Room
In here we have various device that were just “on” for no reason whatsoever other then they could be used if needed. I am not even talking about them in power saving mode, such devices as WDTV, 2x HD’s, DVD player, Cable Box and a few other items. At night when I went to bed, the whole lot was put into power saving mode (not the HD’s though) and in reality they were still all sucking up some energy 24 hours a day.
The Solution to all of this was actually very easy indeed, I removed all the devices I personally never use at all (such as the DVD player), split the WDTV + HD’s to a separate extension cable and powered it down – it only needs power when I need to watch something right! At the end of the night, a simple flip of the switch and all items are now OFF – no power usage whatsoever.
The Computer Room
The printer I have (Canon ip4200) already has a feature to power itself off when not in use (after 5 minutes). I used to leave all the monitors on in standby mode and they were this way until I may need to use the computer. I had laptops powered on running various servers and the list goes on. The solution here was also very simple actually, armed with the two PowerDown plugs, when I switch on my Dell computer, the 2 x monitors go off also. I attached the other plug to the Acer which has 2 x 19″ screen – same happens with this. No reason to run a computer 24/7 for something that may never happen (chat rooms, bots etc) – so this also gets powered down unless I want to mess about. If I need to download files overnight, I make sure this is started on the laptop which uses a lot less power than a desktop (Quieter too).
I would say now – the computer room alone has saved a good chunk of money in savings. What about the people who stream 24/7 repeated shows? What about the USA people needing AirCon’s – I bet this eats the electricity and thus money right?
Other places to save money.
Drying your clothes in the Drier for 60 minutes will have that electricity wheel flying and eating up money no worries but why not instead use either the natural wind (if the weather is nice) or use the central heating you are already using to heat the house anyhow? A Microwave is a no-brainer and the list goes on.
I think now that I am armed with a device to show me how much I am using and the fact money I save on the bills can instead go back into buying better equipment, I feel anyone can do the same as me and maybe even save the planet at the same time right?
