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Loading ...Cut your bills with a volt meter - 1
khenry
If you want to monitor your own power consumption then Maplin has a simple voltage meter on offer until the end of September (Part no. N67FU) . It could be the best eight pounds you ever spent. It’s programmable to give costs, but it’s more useful to just get the wattage ratings and do the maths based on your own energy supplier’s Kilowatt Hour (KWh) price brackets. All figures were from the wall and rounded up to the peak except when noted.
Necessities and White Goods
The best news was that lightbulbs stick to the rated amount of power, whether they were used in fittings or plug-in lampshades. Also, ordinary gang sockets of up to six plugs, worked as the simple extensions they were designed to be and didn’t use any additional energy. Sadly, the same isn’t true of surge protectors. The six-way surge strips use a negligible 0.2 to 1.5W but the more complex and 8-plug models take anything up to another 2W. That’s why switched models are so popular, where you can individually or collectively cut the power to one or all sockets as promoted by PC Pro. As long as you remember to turn them off at night and whenever they’re not in use, you won’t have all these items trickling away for eight hours and helping to keep your bill high.
An early noughties Dyson uses a constant 100W, but dust is dust, I count a vacuum cleaner as essential and you will only use it in bursts, perhaps weekly at the most. My Whirlpool A-Class fridge uses the most power when running its frost control programme (90-100W, so 95W average). Its A rating derives from zero watt usage in standby until the fridge door is opened, when it will use 16W (including the lightbulb) and then idle back to 1.2W followed by zero when shut, unless you’ve put something warm in the fridge and it’s comparatively empty. The catch is that it will pick its own merry time to run the frost control even if that averages out to post-midnight. Since its peak is 100W and the minimum spend on my electric bill is always £30, at least that gives me an easy division to 30p per hour over a four-month period to run my fridge. By contrast I knew my Hotpoint washing machine naturally used a lot of power as its A-rating came from its programme dial power switch for zero watt use when off and reduced water consumption, but I didn’t realise it was segmented into the filling and purging of water (11W, jumping to 178-212W on the first combined spin or rinse), the actual washing (200W spike, then 63-89W for every spin, with combinations averaging 234-250W), and then the final spin was where the most power was burned. Since this is the stage where my machine needs a service, I’m turning it off early and stopping the machine from burning 430-500W then revving up to 700W peak on the fastest final spin, which is enough to power all the “fun” AV electronics in the house at the same time for over an hour, or slow-cook one dinner in my electric oven. Knowing this, my clothes can take an extra day to air dry rather than adding to my bill. Nearly seven years on, when it’s time to replace the washer I will know to look for comprehensive power usage figures rather than getting distracted by the seemingly Europe-wide A to G energy rating system.
Audiovisual equipment
Turning to those “fun” electronic items, the voltmeter revealed that hi-fi separates, rather than PC equipment, provided the best energy efficiency from my 1990s era of kit. Even my mid-range Minidisc deck used less than 9W for playback or recording and dropped to 5W in standby (As with any item lacking an off switch, I just unplug it). The amplifier never exceeded 14W. The best result was the Pro-ject Debut III manual turntable. Since the basic design of the record player hasn’t changed for a century or two, it used a measly TWO watts when powered on, moving to a punishing 3.2W when set to 45 for singles. Since it was a turntable without a phono stage or headphone socket it was useful that its power requirement could be added to the amplifier’s total and still use less power than the separate CD Player, which peaked at 26W (but dropped just below 10 in standby). The separate Sony analog tuner didn’t only feature a proper off switch but burned just 9.6-9.9W, I never saw it breach 10W while testing. If you have to let the tuner broadcast for a timed recording to a different device, it would be like leaving one single energy saving light on. The total hi-fi power use wouldn’t take much more energy than an old-fashioned 60W lightbulb especially when recording direct to Minidisc without using the amp - then call it 80W if you were listening to any one of the four playback devices. As far as I’m concerned that total makes listening to music at home a comparatively kind hobby on the planet compared to everything else we do.
Also, bear in mind that my amp was made 14 years ago and is the sole remaining part of the original set purchased in 1996. I hope the modern equivalents burn half this amount of power or even less. Ipod fans naturally use even less power just to charge up their portables from the wall, but would fall down when having to hook them up to computers to download their choice of music.
Remember all the magazines extolling the benefits of flatscreens over CRTs in the TV world? My 25in 4:3 CRT TV has a startup spike of up to 40W which is less than half that of my computer CRTs, uses 64W for normal use going up to 70W when receiving a DVD or console signal but if I ever used the dreaded standby rather than turning it off, it would power down to the same 4.5W of my noughties-era 17in CRT monitors.
I read in the September 2008 Which? Group test that they only found the one 32in Wide and flatscreen TV that used less than 100W, made by Sharp (even though I didn’t see a single standby rating over 2.5W). It also used 70W peak like my Sanyo CRT but perhaps inevitably, its picture suffered compared to bigger names. Digital picture quality certainly requires more power from the consumer at home and there is no guarantee that this will improve following the completion of digital switchover. My separate Freeview box uses a constant 6W, but the tuner in my DVD Recorder, uses 17W just to act as a passthrough for analog viewing when plugged in, and then 24W to provide the (admittedly much better) picture by itself, whether watching or recording. To balance this out, the deck has the option of timer recording without displaying the picture on the screen, so I don’t mind about the 17W needed for the unit to “sleep” until the required time. Since the recorder has a Freeview tuner, then unlike the VCR it’s replacing, it will always regain its date and time so at least you can unplug it or turn off its socket at the wall to save power.
Finally, an original Xbox burned 44W when idle, so given that a real hi-fi Pioneer DVD Player never used more than 16W, it’s another vote in favour of keeping to single-function devices.
The Exceptions
You don’t need the voltmeter for your humble electric kettle or your iron. Simply drain it, lift it off the base, turn it upside down and the power consumption in Watts will be printed on a label. The Hinari and Argos own-brand models I purchased over the past 8 years have used a consistent 2000-2200W (averaging 2025-2100W across both models) to boil water. Considering people drink hot beverages much more often than they run a washing machine, these kettles were my biggest energy wasters on a pro-rata basis. Even the fastest cooking setting on my electric oven was 1700W, so it was finally time to cut the cost of the great British cuppa.
Thankfully Argos now carries a token whistling model for ten pounds (I will edit in with the link but if it ever changes, it’s part number 840/5786) which is handy if you’re not within site of a market to find one on the cheap. It’s true that you’re transferring your energy use over to your gas bill instead, but you don’t need fancy devices to measure out the one cup. The stove kettle will always be cheaper than the electric variety unless you forget it on the hob and let it melt. If you fear that you’ll do this, then the water in a pot or pan will cost even less to boil depending on the gas mark.
Your iron, like your electric kettle, will also have its energy usage printed on a label so no need to measure it. In my case the low is 1280W and the high 1525W, second to my electric oven though I only iron single sets of clothing at a time and never the entire load.
Finally the humble toaster also has a label. At 750W for 3-4 minutes, the toaster is my sole concession to convenience - I wouldn’t rip out my ageing kitchen fittings just to toast bread with gas, so I eat the stuff less often and have turned down its settings.
Conclusion
If the electric device in question has a single function plus a proper off switch, it has a good chance of being among the most energy efficient items in your home. Combination devices may naturally use varying amounts of power but you can rest assured that some energy is wasted when leaving unused functions idle (eg, only playing back a DVD in a Freeview DVD Recorder, or only printing from a multifunction printer/fax/scanner) - so don’t sling out your separates in a hurry if you have the space to keep using them.
I’ll update regarding the power consumption of PC gear in another post.
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