Do You Have Energy Hogs in Your Home?
June 4th 2008 by Dr.MOZ in Home, Tech and Web 
If you are like most parents, you tell your kids to quit opening the refrigerator door or unnecessarily turning the lights on and off. It’s a waste of electricity, and let’s face it…the power bills won’t be getting any lower this summer. Patrolling the refrigerator is a great start, but if you really want to cut your power consumption and save money you should take note of a recent study by the Australian consumer agency Choice. In their study, Choice found a few common household electronic devices like TVs and video came systems to be serious energy hogs.
Choice – “Our tests found that leaving a Playstation 3 on while not in use would cost almost… five times more than it would take to run a refrigerator for the same yearly period. The plasma TV set was also a power hungry device, consuming over four times more power than a traditional analog set.“
I consider myself to be pretty hip to the green/energy thing, but I’ll admit that I was floored to see these results. One Playstation 3 costs five times more to power than a
refrigerator? Just imagine how much energy is being sucked up if the PS3 is attached to a plasma! This can really add up considering that many homes have multiple computers, radios, and TVs on perpetual standby mode. Luckily, there’s an easy fix. Simply plug your power-consuming electronics into a powerstrip, and flip it on before use.
Do you have any other power-saving tips and tricks for the home? If so, click on the comments bubble above to share them with the moose!
Have fun and stay healthy,
Dr.MOZ
June 5th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
Wow.. I didn’t know that about the Playstation 3.. That’s ridiculous. My boyfriend has his plugged in at home — and as soon as I get to the house, that thing is getting unplugged!
Thanks for sharing!
June 6th, 2008 at 10:53 am
Here are two more pointers
1) Make sure to at least put your computer on hibernate mode when you are not using it, it saves more power than on standby mode, to access hibernate mode just go to the standard log off restart shutdown screen,hold the shift key and standby turns ino hbernate.
2. Oddly enough leaving items pluggin in that you are not using like a vacuum, toaster, TV set still drain power! Unplug everything that you dont need to keep going constantly!
June 8th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
Thanks for the great tips MR. Tip number two is especially good…just think of all the random kitchen gadgets we have around the house that only get used a few times a month!
Dr.MOZ
June 12th, 2008 at 11:08 am
I have both an LCD and an Xbox 360 and they are both energy hogs. They also make my room super hot so I try and not use them less than normal. I also make sure than no lights are ever running stray. All in all I think our apt saves a bit on the energy bill.
June 20th, 2008 at 11:52 pm
At the extreme top of the list for power hogs are the computers. I have three computers and I leave them all on 24 hours a day supposedly because it’s better for the power supply in your computer.
My energy bill rises my $23.00 or so, I tested it over the course of last year.
Kim
July 18th, 2008 at 10:48 am
If that’s the case I’m burning more than I thought! I’ve got a Playstation 3 rigged up to a massive 42 inch plasma. I think there’ll have to be sacrifices to be made lol
James