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You may not know this, but all of your plugged in devices, turned off or not, are using up power as we speak. This is what we refer to as "vampire power". Think of it as your never used VCR plugged into the wall, or that coffee maker you got as a gift even though you don't drink coffee. Even a small turned off cel phone uses up small amounts of power. "Vampire power" accounts for about 5% of your electric bill every month. In other words, 4 billion dollars of wasted electricity per year in the USA alone. You might not think that your small electric toothbrush uses up much power at all, but it adds up. Now of course it would be hard to unplug every single item in your house when not in use for a little while, but the goal is to get rid of the unused electric devices that are polluting our atmosphere bit by bit.
Step 1What Uses the Most Power?
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As I said, everything plugged in uses power turned on or off, but some use much more than others. Mainly the bigger devices will use the most, but it depends sometimes. Here is a list of some things to watch out for.
-That old TV that you never use hooked up to all those game systems
-The dusty VCR/DVD player
-The loud dryer that keeps you up at night with it's rattling
-The big coffee maker that smells strange
-Chargers of cell phones, ipods, gameboys, or whatever else you charge
-The fridge in your garage
-ANYTHING that you don't use often or that is very big that you could afford to unplug