In general true, but the grandma cat of the house begs to differ. The proof is in the piddling -- or lack thereof.

I just had a home energy audit performed on my house and the phantom load that really surprised me was my desktop calculator. It drew 1 watt {per Kill-A-Watt meter} when turned off and 4 to 5 when in use, printer function on. I unplugged it right after I calculated 24 * 365 = 8760, or 8.76 kWh of power annually mostly wasted since I only use it to balance my checkbook once a month. Ok, I know that in my area, that works out to about $1.30/annually, but it's $1.30 that I get no value from. :)

It's amazing what you can find with one of those infrared "guns" the auditor carries around!

I am posting this in this thread as well as its own so its easier to find. Its really a great site that has power consumption data for different electronics. I stumbled across it while researching energy efficient wireless routers. You can also add entries for whatever you have too. Very cool idea! :thumbup:

The Power Consumption Database

I used to turn off/unplug devices. I can attest to the lazy part. It got old after a few months. A timer switch would be nice to have for something like this. Any ideas?

Here are a bunch of ideas. :)

http://ecorenovator.org/forum/conser...g-devices.html