Getting Rid of "Vampire Power" and Becoming More Efficient-Earthjustice United States of Efficiency Contest Entry

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 1 What Uses the Most Power?

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

Comments

[digitalbrad]

I may be wrong as I have been many times in my life but arn't they phantom loads not vampire power.

[rclivin]

I have seen it referred to as Vampire, phantom and ghost loads, just things that are hard to trace or determine where they are coming from

[disturbia]

2009 and you have an original xbox? Y U NO HAVE 360?

[geeklord]

how much current does an average wall wart draw? I tried to do it with my multimeter, a 12v Lead acid battery, and a power inverter, but the inverter draws about a half an amp as it is so it didn't really work.

[uberdum05]

It depends on the size of it

[spideyusa]

The earth isn't dying and doesn't need saved but thanks anyway. I want to know what humans melted the first ICE Age anyway?

[dung0beetle]

"The earth isn't dying and doesn't need saved but thanks anyway. I want to know what humans melted the first ICE Age anyway?" I blame Encino Man!

[toogers]

NO WHEEZING THE JOO-OOCE!

[truemirror]

wouldn't a serge protector do the same thing?

[LDW]

"serge protector" ? Isn't that for keeping policemen's trousers clean? :-)

[truemirror]

ROFL that was a good one, lol sometimes it's fun to be a lousy speller

[willdabeast]

u can call it anything u want, but it still wastes the same amount of power.