Halloween's coming up, and we'd like to remind you that vampires are real, and that they're sucking power in your house. Energy vampires are appliances or household electronics that continue to draw electricity even when you think they're turned off. Truth is, a lot of these gadgets and gizmos aren't actually turned off until they're cut off from the power source altogether. Until then, they're often actually on standby mode, in which they continue sucking power - whether they're doing anything useful or not.And we're not talking small potatoes here. When you add up all the vampires in your house (and you can carry that on to all the vampires in the country, or in the world!), it winds up being a lot of wasted electricity, and wasted money. According to the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE), standby power actually accounts for 45 billion killowatt-hours of electricity in American households each year, costing U.S. consumers more than $3.5 billion annually. ACEEE also estimates that vampires are responsible, on average, for about 5% of household electricity consumption.
The good news is that you can stop this leaking electricity, kill these energy sucking vampires, reduce standby power, save money and help save the planet - and it's not all that hard to do. One option is to make sure any potential energy vampires (TVs, DVD players, video game consoles, printers, fax machines - pretty much anything with a light on) are unplugged when they're not being used. Another (easier, and therefore more effective) option is to invest in a smart power strip like a BITS Smart Strip, and kill those energy vampires where they lie.
This EnergyCircle video shows how you can use a Kill-a-Watt or a similar electricity monitor to identify vampires, and a smart power strip to take 'em out. And it's funny, too:
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