Fun with Energy Meters

[c9]

I got a Kill-A-Watt last week, and carefully measured all the plugged in devices we have to check for excess electriicity usage. I found basically none. Damn our efficient stuff!

Item	Off	Standby	On
17" LCD	2 Watts	2	20-31 (depeding on brightness setting)
Speakers	6 (the evil power brick sucks power all the time!)	7	7
petele's Photo Printer	3	8	19-79
HP LaserJet 5L	n/a (has no off switch)	6	150-349
Computer itself	13	n/a (it can do standby but I never bother with it)	90-127
Shredder	0		54
Laptop			59
TV on, rest of home theatre off (most common mode)			100
Wireless router and DSL modem			19

Wasn't that fun? Here's some more items, but only the power they draw when turned off:

Microwave	2 (our friends have a microwave that sucks down like 50 or something when just showing the little clock)	ghettoblaster	4
coffee maker	0 (physical switch woo!)	cordless phone	2.5 (regardless of whether I'm on the phone, oddly)
washer	0 (new in 2004 and energy-efficient even when running)	dryer	weird plug so I can't check but ditto
little $8 timer I bought to put the fan on	2	fan itself	30-36 (depending on speed)
TV and home theatre rig	12	call display corded phone	2.5
clock radio	2	answering machine	3.5

Math is fun. For instance, I can deduce (just barely) that our power costs under 10 cents per kilowatt-hour, once you include all the fees and shit. This means that the $8 timer I bought for the fan would take... umm... abour four months to pay off if we ran the fan 24/7. Which we didn't. But anyway.

We go through about 7945 watt-hours per day. 331 per hour. So you can see that there are still things munching away somewhere.

Comments

[leapfish.livejournal.com]

He plays a mean game of solitaire too!

[simplisticton.livejournal.com]

So you can see that there are still things munching away somewhere.

One of the guys at work used to be an electrician; he tells horror stories of how poorly wired some buildings are. People figure there's no harm in replacing a light switch or a plug on their own and make some trivial mistake that draws off current, and *bam*, their power bill has an extra $50/mo on it.

[c9.livejournal.com]

Yeah, electricity scares me and confuses me, so I doubt I'll get into rewiring and making changes anytime soon. I'll replace a light or switch, but if anything's ever 1% different I get worried.

[sarah-sosiak.livejournal.com]

Ooh...I want to play too! I'm trying to be all energy concious in the new pad. My biggest dilema is whether to keep relying on gas heat (which only heats two rooms directly) or buy a space heater to carry around with me. Or maybe I should just heat the kitchen by opening the oven door...

Have I mentioned how cold SF is? It's making Seattle summers seen blistering by comparison. Maybe I should scrap the compact flouresent bulbs. I could use the heat of incandesents. :-).

[c9.livejournal.com]

Space heaters are pretty killer on electricity consumption, but they might be more efficient (big picture) if you keep them near you.

[thespos]

That is really interesting. We have been looking at ways of conserving power here, maybe I should suggest getting one of those doohickeys to help figure stuff out.

Cool.

Now, go play with Vincent. You are spending too much time doing this. :-P

[c9.livejournal.com]

The whole operation only took about 20 minutes. 8 to test things, 12 to type it. And Vin was beside me the whole time. :)

[primary-suspect.livejournal.com]

Cool info but scary that your printer uses twice as much power as your PC when on... ;-)

I'm still waiting for our Kill-A-Wait. We have one on reserve at the library but lots of people are borrowing them so we have a bit of a wait.

[c9.livejournal.com]

$25 at Canadian Tire (different brand name tho) in case you get impatient enough to spend the cash.

[primary-suspect.livejournal.com]

Ha, I just noticed I typed Kill-a-WAIT, so maybe I am getting impatient... ;-)

[ripper82.livejournal.com]

Are you going to be adding me or not?

[c9.livejournal.com]

Is it important to you that I do?

[ripper82.livejournal.com]

Well, insomuch that I keep my "friends" and "friend of" lists synched.

[c9.livejournal.com]

Ahh, I see. I don't do that. Doesn't that make it hard to follow along with someone interesting who doesn't add you back?

[ripper82.livejournal.com]

I allow for a grace period during which said someone can make their determination. If they have no interest in me, I see no reason to hold interest in them.

[c9.livejournal.com]

I see. Sounds pretty restrictive to me, but to each his own.

[ripper82.livejournal.com]

So is that a yes or a no?

[c9.livejournal.com]

I add people once I've read their journal a bit and find them interesting enough to continue reading. If you're demanding an answer today, that pushes you into the no category pretty quickly. ;)

[ripper82.livejournal.com]

All I'm saying is that if you don't even care to look at my journal, you'd never know if you want to add me or not. I view LJ friendings (as insignificant as they may be in the scheme of life) as an expression of mutual interest for some unpecified lenght of time. If you look at my journal and decide not to add me, then that means you have no interest in me... So at that point, I couldn't exactly consider you a "friend".

I'm not being an arrogant prick or anything, I'm just being blunt about it.

[c9.livejournal.com]

I never said anything about not looking at your journal. In fact, that's exactly what I do to decide whether to friend someone. I'm just busy and haven't been reading other journals much lately.

[ripper82.livejournal.com]

That's fine... just sayin'.

When I asked if you're gonna add me, I wasn't trying to rush you... just seeing if you'd already decided you don't like me. I prefer to retain my pride by unfriending people in those circumstances.