How much power does your house use in standby.

[Ryland]

I need to double check, but I think mine is around 30-40 watts,
16 watts for my furnace.
Door bell transformer draws 3-5 watts.
GFI outlets draw around 2 watts each and I have 5, some draw more then others.
Motion sensor light switches draw a watt or two each and I have 2.

[MN Renovator]

When you are asking about standby losses are you asking about the load when everything is dead? No refrigerator compressor operation, computer(s) off, unoccupied operation(no lights or operable devices). ...or are you including common base loads like the refrigerator running as part of the standby load? I have nearly no load at all on even the entire house when the fridge is off. Oddly enough in a non-climate control month, my refrigerator(non-energy star early-2k) becomes the largest item to my baseload with its 30kWh per month, that is after I gave it the efficiency pin-pop. I'm having a difficult time trying to justify replacing it with new one that is energy star rated mostly because I'm not sure how much less energy I can really expect it will save compared to the standard one that I destupified. Even wrapping it in XPS is a bit tough at this point, granted its over a third of my energy load but from 30kWh of use on. monthly basis, what is the expected gain?

[pinballlooking]

I can’t imagine buying a new frig. would be worth it for you. That would be close to cost of a years’ worth of power for you.
I am talking about just the vampire stuff. We have two DVR’s I have DSL so I have a modem and a wireless router three hubs…
I will have to use my kill A watt to find all the offending items.

[MN Renovator]

My electric panel is in my garage and we've had below zero temperatures lately, once it's a little warmer to do this, I will clamp measure to determine my power use with everything idle. Probably around 10 watts based on what I measured with the Kill-a-watt for vampire loads. I've since replaced my wireless router ans haven't measured that.

[theworldtrekker]

Last I looked, we're around 70W for phantom loads.

But that was before replacing the DSL modem so now the modem and router get turned off again at night, which should lower that by ~15W for ~8 hrs/day. It also includes the cat's heated and vented litter box (~15W), the power data logger (~5W), plus the other common phantom loads.

[Daox]

I just measured mine to double check. I'm at ~60W. This is with nothing running like the fridge. I have really unplugged a ton of stuff to get it down to this level. There are no plugin alarm clocks anymore, smoke detectors are battery powered, the TV and stuff is literally unplugged since I use it so little. My computer is plugged in and draws 5W, but it is setup with a smart power strip so it cuts power to everything else until I turn it on. My cable modem and router are always plugged in and draw a few watts each. The main draws are probably from appliances and other things I don't really want to or literally can not unplug.

So, my house uses roughly 1.44 kWh doing absolutely nothing but keeping track of time and being ready for me to do... whatever. Thats more power than my fridge uses to cool food for me in a day. The fridge has been on the kill a watt for the past 131 days and is averaging 1.2 kWh/day.

[strider3700]

I actually measured this on saturday night. It was at 51 watts.

The only things that were actively running were the cable modem and the wifi router both of which never shut off unless we're out of town. Unfortunately it's not uncommon for us to use the tablet or phone on wifi first thing in the morning so turning those off and then back on in the morning isn't going to work.

[David]

How much energy is used to start up or switch on old technology compared to how much is used to be on stand by current technology?

When I was a small boy and I turned on our new Stromberg Carlson TV and recordplayer it seemed like an eternity until RIN TINTIN came on ( albeit the power was on .

My question is: If we eliminate stand by devices which device uses more power in the start up phase ? Is it the old systems or is it the newer standby systems. No doubt that without valves and etc. the current models of whatever will start up more quickly than the old.
In other words are we comparing like with like?

David from Australia

[Ryland]

Originally Posted by strider3700

The only things that were actively running were the cable modem and the wifi router both of which never shut off unless we're out of town. Unfortunately it's not uncommon for us to use the tablet or phone on wifi first thing in the morning so turning those off and then back on in the morning isn't going to work.

Unless you put them on a timer so they turn on without you thinking about it, same with turning off while you are at work, a 7 day timer would allow you to have them on on the weekend.

[Ryland]

Originally Posted by David

My question is: If we eliminate stand by devices which device uses more power in the start up phase ? Is it the old systems or is it the newer standby systems. No doubt that without valves and etc. the current models of whatever will start up more quickly than the old.
In other words are we comparing like with like

We are comparing devices that do the same task.
I don't have a clock radio to wake me up because my cell phone wakes me up, I don't have a battery charger full of batteries for my portable tape player because I use an Ipod, desk top computer with a CRT monitor is replaced with a net book.