Do electrical appliances that are plugged into the wall but are powered off consume electricity?

Answer 1

By and large - yes. Especially if there is a remote involved or if there is a light indicating standby. When you see an item with a light on it (like an electric heater or TV) they are still being powered.

The only way you can be sure something is truly off is that it is unplugged from the wall and any internal batteries are removed.

Answer 2

What you are asking about is sometimes referred to as "phantom power", where the machine has been switched off, but there is still some current being consumed. Many modern applicances and gizmos do consume some amount of electricty even when turned off. The prime example of this is TV's. If you are old enough to remember (pre 1990), when you turned a TV on, it would take 10-30seconds for the picture to appear. In the 90's many of the TV designs were changed such that the picture would display just a second or two after hitting the on button. This is because the TV would go into standby mode where the CRT would stay powerup and ready to beam a signal. This draws electricity and is so called "phantom power".

Other examples are anything with a remote, anything with a digital clock in it, anything with a timer.

To find out more about phantom power and a more comprehensive list of applicances and how much they cost to have plugged in the wall even when off, visit the referenced website below.

Answer 3

some don't like dc (direct current) devices like a light bulb
but alternating current (ac) devices will consume the power because the current coming out of the out let is dc and in order to conver the dc current to ac it still has to run a ciruit (the circuit doesn't die so it end up on the electric bill)
a good examle of an ac device would be the tv

and another thing is that is they will still be on if they have a stand by light on them (what is the purpose for those things anyway they just run up the bill), and in one of my appliances you can hear buzzing so it is clearly not turned off

it just so seems that the appliance manufactures are just trying to run up the electric bill
if you want to see how much power these thing consume look for the ul listing lable and anaylize it carefuly if it doesn't have one ten it isn't ul listed (product that aren't ul listed shouldn't be plugged into the wall because they didn't pass their inspection)

Answer 4

Macroscopically no.
Microscopically yes (a little).
All those things that everyone has been saying about standby, remotes and phantom power are also correct.
To be ultra-ultra-nit-picky I need to point out that anything with a power cord will have the two conductors in that cable capacitively coupled.
Each conductor also has a finite measurable resistance. This will form an RC circuit that will consume power; probably in the range of femto-watts or even smaller. This is ignorable and may not even be detectable.

Answer 5

Almost every modern electronic appliance today consume electricity as the are not truly powered off, they are actually in stand by or low power consumption state. Conventional merely electrical appliances (e.g. a conventional lamp) with no electronic components inside it uses no electricity when they are powered off.

Answer 6

Not switched on then no electricity consumed. However if you have new wiring in your house with the trip switches instead of fuses, a faulty kettle or toaster can cause the trips to activate if they are plugged in even though they are not actually switched on.

Answer 7

In general no but any device (e.g. TV) with a remote will eat up a small amount of power as will anything with a clock in it.