Beware of Electric Vampires In Your House

November 4th, 2009 by Money Reasons Leave a reply »

My computers suck… literally!

At one time, I use to have up to 6 computers plugged into power strips sucking electricity nonstop.  Looking back, now I realize what a needless waste of money that was.  By my calculations, I was probably wasting $25 to $30 extra per month on them sitting doing nothing.  What many people don’t realize, is that when the screensaver shutdown mode is on, the computer is still pulling the same amount of energy as if a user was surfing like usual.

Here are my calculations for my computers:

    

Computer Mode Watts Used per Month Cost per Month
Standby 17280 $2.22
On/Screen Save On 223200 $28.63
  Total Cost per Month———-> $30.85
  • Notes about the table above…
  • I’m using a 12 cents per kilowatt hour cost base for electricity. 
  • I made my numbers conservative (I didn’t include monitor electic usage).
  • I used the following site to figure most of the math for my calculations above: michaelbluejay.com.

I didn’t include any other appliances that are draining electricity in standby mode, like TVs, DVD/VCRs, home entertainment systems, etc…

Now that I have wised up, I only have 1 desktop computer on full time, and 2 desktop computers in power save mode (oh well, at least that’s a little better…).  If you have any computers that are on and not doing anything useful, it might be worth your while to turn them off.

-D

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2 comments

  1. We cut down our electric usage by 40%, just by turning off computers at night, and putting the microwave on a power bar and turning it off..

    same with the stereo etc

  2. admin says:

    Ahhh, nice move! I didn’t realize how much it was costing me until I started digging… I’ll probably do the same.

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