Power saving?

Well, I thought that I was doing my bit to save electricity and money by turning my telly off at the switch on the screen, turning other appliances off at the power point, switching to energy saving light bulbs, etc. It turns out I should be going even further. Apparently some appliances still use some power even when turned off at the wall. When I heard this I thought this was completely ridiculous! How could it when I have turned it off at the wall?

Apparently our new, modern appliances are not great for the planet (well this is a broad statement, maybe looking into it a bit further I might find some savings, but this post is about electricity and in this respect many modern appliances don't seem to have improved our well-being). They are super electricity consumers when they're on and now I find out even if you turn them off at the wall they still consume some power. From my brief look into this, it seems that because these appliances 'turn on' straight away (because we expect them to) instead of having a warm up period they draw some power constantly to ensure they can turn on when we demand.

Gees, maybe we should just learn to be a little more patient. We don't always need such instant gratification surely. Apparently the solution is to take the power plug out of the wall point. Sounds extreme and since most of my power points for these larger electrical appliances aren't easily accessible this isn't going to be a comfortable exercise. Maybe I should just avoid turning the thing on and leave it permanently unplugged! Well I have threatened to throw the tv out on a number of occasions and discussed how we should learn to appreciate true down time....but that is another story.

Can I achieve anything more than I already do to make my footprint greener in regards to my power point/electricity debacle? I'm not sure. Certainly to achieve this I need to undertake some behavioural change in my life...I need to extend myself... am I prepared to do this for something like a cost saving of $10/month. Probably as electricity gets more expensive, as I become more environmentally aware and sensitive and hopefully as my partner becomes more open to such ideas, such behaviours will come more easily. We will see. I will report back later as to whether I have been successful on this issue or not. Pin It