"William Sommerwerck" wrote in
message ...
Its been pointed that you don't really need a watt or
watt-hour meter to
save money -- you just turn off things you're not using.

This is not altogether true.

My electric bill was ridiculous, so I started checking.
I'd been too lazy to
regularly turn off my A/V system's equipment, which
includes a number of
vampire devices.

I was surprised to discover that the Parasound controller
pulled 30VA, even
when not turned on. And a Lexicon CP-3plus drew 20VA,
simply in standby. As
I rarely use it, I turned the standby switch to "off".

Most of the vampire devices are items I don't use
regularly. I'm going to
move them to their own strip, so that they will always be
off, except when
actually being used.

I have just two comments on this:

1) If you are a residence, you are metered and billed by
watts ( real power) rather than volt*amps. Measure the
watts to see the power consumption that actually is part of
your billing.
2) If you live in an area that requires heating your house
for a majority of a year, the power dissipated is added to
the heating of your house during the heating season and
reduces energy consumption from the furnace energy supplier.
The power is not wasted in this situation. This fact is
rarely considered by the media.

David