With everything focusing on environment issues lately ... (which is a good thing!) ... one suggestion broadcast on national television no less ... says we waste less electricity by switching off our equipment rather than leaving on stand-by. This is rocket science to me but surely turning a piece of equipment on and off all the time, i.e. TV, stereo, lights etc would use more energy than if you just left it on standby?
2006-10-27 09:05:25 · 28 answers · asked by Anonymous in Environment
I've had it on good authority that switching off is better than on standby. But I will not be putting video recorders off standby, as I would need to set the clock each time I need to record something. Tonight I will not be turning off digi box, because I will be recording The Avengers from BBC FOUR.
We should all do what we reasonably can, to save energy. It is difficult to keep turning kitchen light on and off, as I would need to walk in the dark to get to light switch, but it is low energy, as most lights I use are.
2006-10-27 10:49:09 · answer #1 · answered by Sprinkle 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Turning appliances on and off causes very minor power surges - far, far smaller in terms of energy use than leaving appliances on standby.
Some products are better than others. I bought a cheap power-meter plug from Tchibo a while ago. It plugs in between the appliance and the wall and tells me how much power an appliance is using. I tried it on my video. With the video turned on, it was using 35watts. With the video on standby, it used 35watts as well. With the video turned off at the wall, it used, of course, 0 watts. Like you say, reprogramming a video can be a pain, but it would save a lot of wasted power not to leave it on standby.
I checked a load of other stuff on standby too (it was a rainy Sunday!) - PC, monitor, hi-fi, etc, and the only one which wasn't wasting power unecessarily on standby was my old Sony TV, which uses less than a watt on standby. Most TVs waste a fair amount of power on standby, so I must have been lucky with mine.
I've been a bit of an electronics anorak for a while, and I can safely say (in an anoraky accent) that most people would be surprised by how sloppily most appliances are designed in this respect, especially as it costs the company no more to design a product which is efficient on standby than one which is wasteful.
2006-10-29 09:28:18 · answer #2 · answered by lineartechnics 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I'm no electrician, but surely the surge of electricity just to get things switched on is a surge to get all the little ions (or whatever they're called) moving, so it's a moving surge as opposed to a mass extra surge. With my thinking along these lines then it would be better to turn everything off and use no energy rather than constant little bit of energy. And the enviromental issues aside, your less likely to have an electrical spark fault that could cause a fire and prolong the lifespan of your equipment - so I'm staying with turning everything off unless someone else can totally disprove my theroy.
2006-10-27 09:12:58 · answer #3 · answered by bengimog 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
If your leaving your TV off overnight or for the most part of the day then turning it off is the better option as it uses no electricity, however if your just turning it off to go for your tea, for example, then you could just leave it on standby as it is not being left for that long.
2006-10-27 09:29:22 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Leaving things on stand-by still uses electricity, so obviously equipment should be turned off when not in use. Stand-by may be OK if it's only for a short while, and you're still awake and in the house otherwise it could be a fire hazard and dangerous - as well as costing you money, and the environment.
2006-10-31 04:41:00 · answer #5 · answered by Florence-Anna 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Turning off is better, and there is not a massive surge when you turn an electrical item on, just because you turn something on does not mean that you suddenly use loads of electricity. It uses less electricity if you turn it off then on again rather than using standby
2006-10-27 10:32:54 · answer #6 · answered by andy m234 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The averidge houshold produces 4 stones of carbon dioxide every year just through having electrical items on standby. This in itself is reason enough to turn appliences off.
In terms of energy consumption, I think it's better to turn things off than to leave them on standby.
2006-10-27 11:29:58 · answer #7 · answered by shell 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The power consumption during standby is different for different equipment types. TVs for example are on standby if they're plugged into the wall. There is a minute quantity of power being consumed, but it's hardly measurable. And if you unplug the TV from the wall, you'll usually have to re-autoprogram which is a pain.
2006-10-27 09:18:33 · answer #8 · answered by Johnson W 2 · 0⤊ 1⤋
All units on standby use 25% of normal consumption but for goodness sake don't leave anything on standby, it's a well known fact that teles are liable to burst into flames left unseen.
2006-10-27 09:11:12 · answer #9 · answered by tucksie 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
It depends how long you are leaving it on standby for compared to how often you will be turning it on and off. If you don't need it for a long time turn it off, if its going to only be a few minutes then it will take more energy to turn it off and on again.
2006-10-27 09:09:38 · answer #10 · answered by kyeshla1 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋