wrote:
In misc.consumers.frugal-living Jeff wrote:
wrote:
In misc.consumers.frugal-living Jeff wrote:

Many appliance use more power "off" than on (collectively).
Uh, cite? No, never mind, the above statement is just
pure BS.

kitchen appliances. In the average home, 75% of the electricity used to
power home electronics is consumed while the products are turned off.

That is not the same as "appliances use more power 'off' than on."
The power usage rate is certainly less during standby than during
regular usage. Duty cycle of off time vs. on time can certainly
mean that an appliance *may* use more energy over time during standby, but
only because it is in standby for much longer periods.

Yes, did you miss the collectively?

How could you possibly think otherwise?

Isn't this whole thread about the amount of energy wasted while in standby?


When dealing
with kitchen appliances, the standby current is very low relative to
in use current because most kitchen appliances tend to be fairly big
energy users. I doubt the LED clock on my stove uses as much energy
in 1 year as one burner uses to boil a pot of water in 5 minutes.

Actually, and I had misnamed before, Energy should be what we are
talking about as energy has a time component. The power company bills
for the amount of energy you use. The amount of power you use at any
instant is usually irrelevant (unless you have peak billing).

Now, I would say that most stoves use more energy on than off(there's
wide range here, I'm sure my old Jennaire uses no power when off).


I don't know how much power a typical stove with electronic controls
uses but I found this.

http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/transformers.html

The clock on the microwave uses more energy than the oven

The first time I heard that statement I thought,"Great, another
electrical myth, like the myth that you should leave lights on because
they take a lot of electricity to start up.". After all, I knew that the
oven uses about 1000 watts while the clock uses five.

But then I thought, wait a minute, the clock is running 24/7, while the
oven is running just a few minutes a day. Then I did the math:

How much energy the clock uses in a day: 5 (watts) x 24 (hours) =
120 (watt-hours)

How long it takes the microwave to the same amount of energy:
120 watt-hours / 1000 watts = 0.12 hours, or 7.2 minutes

This means that if you use a typical microwave oven for less than 7.2
minutes/day, the clock uses more electricity than the oven. Wow.

That sounds perhaps even low to me and it is possible it uses twice
the power while off. I suppose I could dig out my amprobe and check my
late model name brand microwave since I don't have a kill a watt meter.


They are but one "electronic" device in a home though.


The big hits on standby power are going to be VCRs, computers, TVs
and the like. Those tend to not use a lot of power when in use, so
the relative difference between standby and in use is not as much to
overcome.

Who said otherwise? If you read this thread, I've never advocated
removing a clock from a stove, quite the opposite.


Jeff

Bill Ranck
Blacksburg, Va.