So you want to reduce the amount of electricity you’re using with your household appliances… how to do you do it?
First, take stock of the appliances you have. If you have an older refrigerator or freezer, it’s quite likely that you’re using much more electricity than you have to. Improvements in technology have made today’s refrigerators and freezers orders of magnitude more efficient. For example, you can now purchase a refrigerator that is up to 4 times more efficient than a traditional one. This will save you money too: according to energystar.gov replacing your refrigerator with an energy star certified one can save you up to $1,100 on energy costs over its lifetime. Also, if you have a secondary refrigerator or freezer in your basement, ask yourself if you truly need it – it’s typically the oldest and least efficient unit in the house and phasing it out may result in a noticeable reduction in your monthly electric bill.
Second, avoid phantom loads. A phantom load is electricity that an appliance uses even when it is switched off. For example, a TV or stereo with a sensor that allows you to turn it on with a remote control continues to operate, and continues to consume electricity, even when it’s off. Your microwave, food processor, toaster or other countertop appliance may all have clocks or other functions that stay on 24/7 – to power these functions, you are using electricity. I tested a compact stereo recently in the off position and discovered that the device – because of clock and flashing message functions – used almost as much energy (2/3) of the total amount it used when it was on! That’s a lot of phantom load. And with all the modern devices in our homes today, and with all of the phantom loads built in to them at the factory, the electric usage and electric bills can really add up. Image how phantom loads continue to use electricity while you’re asleep! You can eliminate phantom loads by putting your appliance on a power strip that has an on-off button. Just flip the power strip switch to the off position and all appliances connected will not be able to draw power when they are off. When you want use the device, just flick on the button on the power strip first.
Third, use an appliance energy tester to determine exactly how much energy a particular device uses. For example, I bought a Kill-A-Watt meter for about twenty dollars. You just plug it into a wall socket then plug the household device into the front of the meter. Power flows from the outlet through the meter and into the electric device, allowing the meter to display aspects of the power. Pushing one of the buttons on the front of the meter allows you to see the volts, amps, watts and watt/hours associated with the device. I used my kill-a-watt meter at an electronics store to test a fancy new LED flat screen TV I wanted to buy, and when I determined that the TV used less than 60 watts (equivalent to a single traditional light bulb)– fantastic! So I bought it!
By using these simple techniques, you an easily reduce your household appliance consumption of energy, and thereby save money, and get the satisfaction of knowing that you’ve done something good for health, the environment and the planet.
