Automatic Garage Door Openers + phantom load
 

Hi everyone.

I was looking at a thread about automatic garage door openers. Keeping in mind that "if it has a remote, it's always on", I wondered how much power my garage door opener uses while just sitting there - not opening the door and not having a light on.

Fortunately, mine is plugged in to an outlet right next to it, so it was very simple to plug in to a Kill-a-watt meter and check.

Turns out it uses three watts while just sitting there. Not that that's a terrible amount of energy, but it's 24 hours per day, 365 days a year.

It does come out to $3.38 per year on electricity used. The worst part is that my garage generally is not used for cars, but as workshop and storage space - meaning that I don't use the remote. Still, there is no man door, so the automatic garage door is the only way in and out.

Even if I turned off the automatic opener and popped the emergency handle to put it into "manual" mode - there's no handle on the door to get a grip on. *sigh*.

Anyways, I guess I'm wondering if anyone else has tested how much phantom load their garage door opener creates. Have you? How much?

I checked the automatic driveway gate opener draws ~30-35W:eek:
That's why we flip the circuit breaker on only when one of the cars is not at home.

My grandma has a similar driveway gate opener which does not have its own circuit breaker, and she doesn't drive anymore. But it has to be on 24/7, because she says so:rolleyes:

Our neighbors were having their gate opener motor serviced last week and my Dad-in-law found out from the servicemen that the motors have a heating element on the circuit board to keep the moisture off. This may explain why the motor sucks 32 watts in idle:eek:

The wife and I are very happy that we turn the gate's breaker off when all of the cars are at home:)