Comments on Patricia's review of Where does that electricity go?

Patricia T.
5 reviews
Send Message | Add to Friends

Unplugging everything.

Hi, I hope I can be a little help. I have been trying to lower our household electrical usage and I have a pretty good understand of electricity.

Plugging things into a power strip is definitely the best way to go. That way the switch simply cuts the electrical power to the appliance and you know you are consuming no power. But you're right that little LED indicates when something is drawing power, and even those items without LEDs can be using power as well even without a light.

The things you need to be most worried about are AC/DC converters on your chargers from laptops to cell phones and really anything that runs on DC. Even though the appliance it unplugged and not drawing power from the unit, the charger is still drawing enough power to convert voltage from AC (from your wall outlet) to DC (what the appliance uses). This DC voltage is always present on the output whether it is being used or not.

I measured my cell phone charger with a Kill-a-watt meter and saw that it really used an insignifigant amount of power when the cell is not attached. It may be that the converter senses the connection and turns off when not in use.

But still be wary of anything with a box between the plug and appliance, it may be drawing power. Especially if there is heat coming off it. That's one way the energy is being let off (so I guess it is going into thin air.)