It is always in your house, lurking. It is in your kitchen, your bathroom, your bed room and your living room. It never sleeps, it only feeds. It is invisible yet makes a huge impact on your carbon footprint and your power bill. We call it Vampire Electricity.
What Is Vampire Electricity?
Vampire Electricity, also known as Phantom Power, is the power your household appliances draw while they are shut down. That’s right, even though your new home theater system has been shut down for the night, it is still drawing energy from the wall socket. While the amount of power it draws is relatively small, when you think of all the appliances you have in the house, add them all up and then multiply by 365 days, the drain can really add up!!
How Can I Prevent Vampire Electricity?
Luckily, solving this power drain problem is a cinch! The only thing feeding power to these devices is the wall plug. If you unplug the item from the wall, it can’t very well draw power anymore! Now, of course, going through and unplugging your entire computer system or your entire home theater system would be quite a daunting task, but there is an easy solution: power strips. Everyone had a few extra power strips in the closet, pull them out, attach all your devices to them, then leave the power strips out where you have easy access to them. When your done using you device, just flip the switch on the strip! It’s that easy!
Do I Have To Do This To All My Devices?
Every electronic device is drawing some kind of power while it’s turned off, which is why you should do this to every device you own, except the ones that require contestant power. Examples of these devices would be: clock radios, DVRs (it won’t be able to record if it isn’t on!), and anything else with a clock in it that you use. If you don’t use the clock on your microwave unplug it! Leaving your major appliances plugged in is recommended too.
If nothing else, changing your habits will save you a few bucks a month on your power bill, and no one ever complained about that!