Appliances Hog More Energy Than High-Tech Gadgets

Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "A tech columnist looked around his home and wondered, 'All these TVs and cable boxes and computers and computer gear and chargers for various adapters have to be sucking up a lot of power, right?' So WSJ.com's Jason Fry bought a power meter to find the biggest power hogs in his home. They weren't his newfangled gadgets: 'The heavily used agglomeration of PC / two monitors / printer / hard drive / speakers in my downstairs study costs a bit more than $10 a month. The PC in our bedroom costs about $6 a month. The upstairs laptop? Less than $1 — a bit more than other always-on gadgets such as the router, cable modem, wireless repeater and Airport Express. So what were our apartment's power hogs? The lights and the dryer. I estimate our lights cost us around $30 a month, nearly a third of that from a chandelier with eight bulbs. Then there's the dryer. I don't know exactly how many watts it uses, but estimate it's costing us at least $25 a month.'"

Comments

Use a dimmer

[lpangelrob]

I'm about done with replacing the light bulbs (that I can) from incandescent to fluorescent, but we have a smaller chandelier that's hooked up to a dimmer. I generally keep it at 75% of full power. The light bulbs also last longer because (hearsay warning!) apparently, the fact that the lights don't flip on/off immediately helps the bulbs not burn out as quickly.

Anyways, somewhat on topic, I hear that in California all new development and remodeling requires fluorescent lighting. Is that true?

Re:Use a dimmer

[HuskyDog]

Many of the other replies to this post are at best mis-informed. So, here are the facts.

1) Reducing the power to incandescent bulbs via a dimmer does not save money. It is true that you use less power, but as you reduce the voltage the efficiency of the bulb goes down. Wikipedia has an article on this with some handy power laws. If we apply these to the example case (75% of the voltage, assume 100W bulb) we get only 38% of the light (i.e. about what we would get from a 40W bulb), but we consume 63W of electricity. Of course, the bulb will now last for about 100 times as long. Perhaps the original post didn't mean 75% of the voltage, but instead 75% of the light. Doing the maths for this case we get: 88W and 3.8 times lifetime.

Note that the above lifetime extensions are purely a result of the lower voltage and nothing to do with flipping on and off. You will get the advantage even if you leave the bulb on all the time. But, since bulbs cost more to run than they do to buy and replace (except in special cases such as traffic lights) then reducing the voltage is a false economy. You would be better off simply buying some lower wattage bulbs or better still getting some compact flourescent lamps instead.

When I first knew my wife she lived in Estonia and her bedroom was fitted with a very clever scheme for dimming the lights (something which I often wanted to do!). Her light fitting had three bulbs connected to a double wall switch. One switch operated a single bulb and the other controlled the other two. One could therefore have 1, 2 or 3 bulbs and they would always be running at optimum efficiency. I suspect that limited Soviet domestic technology was the motivation behind this scheme rather than power efficiency, but it worked very well. Sadly, although several of the rooms in the flat are still wired for this scheme, you can no longer buy the special multi-wired fittings. I have offered to modify my mother-in-laws new lights, but she is reluctant.

Finally, can I point out that dimmer switches do not rely on resistance. If they did then they would get very hot! Most use electronic components called triacs, which are essentialy switches which can be controlled in such a way as to permit current to flow for only part of each half cycle of the AC voltage. This reduces the average voltage and for incandescent bulbs this is what matters.

Re:The bottom line

[ergo98]

Wasn't there an attempt to force a label on every appliance saying "this device will cost you $x.xx per month if it's kept running" or some such? Can't remember. That would definitely make a lot of sense.

Yes, but they're still working out kinks with the measurements. For instance I bought a dishwasher that was world's better than the competitors on the energuide/energy star scale. Turns out that my dishwasher has a sensor that measures how dirty the water is, automatically (and significantly) shortening the cycle for small/null loads. Turned out that the energy test the government ran did a cycle with nothing in it at all, making a best case.

While the sensor will definitely help, it certainly won't to the degree demonstrated in the artificial benchmark.

Re:Dual Use Tech

[cayenne8]

I just use a gas dryer, gas heat, and gas stove.

There's really no other way to cook (if you like to cook) than to use gas stovetop. Electric burners suck....just no heat control there.

I've always been curious why more people don't use gas. Is it not readily available across the nation? I've lived in the SE and deep south mostly....and have pretty much refused to even rent from the few places that didn't have gas, tho, I rarely rent in apt. complexes...mostly I rent houses or lived in a part of a house built as a double (common in NOLA). This worked out for me in Katrina...we had 7ft of water at my place, the neighbors downstairs were totally washed out, but, I had the top floor, and nothing happened to my stuff...I was more worried about it getting looted, but, was lucky and got my stuff all moved out before they got to it...

Re:Lights?

[Line_Fault]

I put compact fluorescents in every light possible in my place after our renovation. The only other lights are the halogens in the kitchen. They are new 15w ultra compacts which emulate a 75w bulb, I thought this was better than the 13w -> 60w, a lot brighter for 2 watts!

It was around $20CDN for 8 of them.

They also produce a nice white light, not yellow!

But, now that I'm not producing incredible amounts of heat from light bulbs, how much more does it cost in natural gas to heat my house?

Estimate 18 Month Payback for CF Bulbs

[Doug Dante]

I estimate rather conservatively that my compact florescent (CF) bulbs will pay for themselves in less than 18 months, and double their investment in less than 36 months.

That's better than a 26% per year ROI. The 100 Watt equivalents are about than $2.70 each when purchased in 3 packs at Walmart. I replaced every bulb that didn't have an occlusion due to a light fixture (about 30) in my home for around $80.

It's a better investment than the stock market any day.

Re:Estimate 18 Month Payback for CF Bulbs

[RealGrouchy]

I estimate rather conservatively that my compact florescent (CF) bulbs will pay for themselves in less than 18 months

Sorry to burst your bulb, but this is a really dangerous style of reasoning.

For example, there are a lot of ads at the bus shelters here in Ottawa talking about how ethanol and biodiesel "reduces" greenhouse gases.

I'm sorry, but when you burn any hydrocarbon there are more--not less--GHGs in the atmosphere as a result. Carpooling with one other person will reduce your emissions by 50%; teleworking or cycling one day per week will reduce by 20%.

Similarly, CF bulbs (yes, I do use them) don't "pay for themselves": you don't get paid to use them, they only cost less, when compared to an older, less efficient technology. Do you still hear people talk about the money that they save from not having to pay for lamp oil by using incandescents?

That's why I don't bother with those LED Christmas lights: sure they use less energy than the old kind, but I use no energy at all when I don't have any Christmas lights! (well, plus I have it in for Christmas; see username)

The advantage of performing a task with less energy (or at less cost, or with fewer pollutants) often distracts people from asking themselves if that task needs to be done at all, or as much.

- RG>

Re:Felt the article was lacking.

[schwaang]

When I measured power usage around my house not long ago, most remote-on devices used 1W each in standby. But there were some exceptions:

A cable co.-supplied DVR uses 52-53W ON, and 50W when "OFF". (I put a lamp timer on that thing, since I don't record overnight anyway.)

A regular (non-DVR) cable box uses 15-16W ON, and 15W OFF.

An HP4110 fax/scan/printer uses 10-11W ON(idle), and 10-11W OFF. (Ok, not a remote-on device. WTF?)

Stereo, LCD monitors, and CRT TV each uses =1W in standby.

Re:Dual Use Tech

[PAjamian]

I think safety issues are the prime concern, these days. Cooking on an open flame just seems risky. An electric heating element can turn black very quickly after you turn it off but is still hot enough to burn. I would rather be able to see when the element is on than risk my 2yo son burning his hand on one that looks like it's cool but isn't.

Re:Dual Use Tech

[Maxo-Texas]

I'd really doubt you can drive an electric stove from alternative energy that well.

You'd be much better off to have one of those solar cookers most of the year- they can hit over 300 degrees in sub-optimal light.

Maybe when solar drops by an order of magnitude in price.

Re:Dual Use Tech

[Shakrai]

-1, FUD. Ever heard of a Thermocouple? Any modern gas appliance with a pilot light has one. And saying that old appliances can be dangerous is hardly unique to gas.

Re:Dual Use Tech

[raddan]

I think safety issues are the prime concern, these days. Cooking on an open flame just seems risky.

Safety is definitely the concern with natural gas. My brother is both an EMS first responder and part-time firefighter. He has pictures of what can happen when your house fills with gas. There was an elderly couple who were killed recently (unfortunately they died after much suffering from the burns, weeks later) when their house filled with natural gas-- the old man happened to be working on his dryer at the time. He finished, plugged it in, and BANG. They found their front door about 50 yards from the building, and all of the condo units in the building ended up being condemned-- the explosion actually cracked the foundation of the building. The fire was so intense that the firefighters spent most of their time putting out the blaze on the building next door which was caused from the heat of the original building. It was a real tragedy.

Re:Quality?

[Detritus]

If you look at a spectrogram of the light output of an incandescent bulb and a fluorescent bulb, you will see one of the major problems with fluorescent lighting. The incandescent bulb produces uniform energy over a wide range of frequencies, while the fluorescent bulb produces a very spikey output, most of its energy is emitted in a very narrow range of frequencies. See here for some examples.

Was it really your dryer or was it your washer?

[ProppaT]

Recently I bought a Fisher and Paykel washing machine from an appliance outlet store. It's quite the unique little washing machine. Instead of having a clutch and transmission, it runs off of a brushless electric motor. This thing spins and spins fast! The ending cycle spins the clothing at 1000RPM to sling all the water and soap out of them. Since this purchase, my clothes take about 1/2 the time in the dryer that they used to. Instead of pulling out soaking wet clothes from the washer, my clothes are only a few steps from being dried. I have a dryer with a moisture sensor built in, so they spend no more time than they have to in the drying cycle. I actually prefer them to be slightly damp so that, when they fully dry, they will be wrinkle free. I seem to be saving an average of $10 a month on electricity, and my clothes have never been so soft and clean smelling....

Re:Lights?

[Chris Pimlott]

Sadly it is a very common misconception that you can't get dimmable compact fluorescent bulbs. It is true that they are next to impossible to find, however; none of the big-box retailers in my area had any, aside from a few large bulbs clearly meant for spotlight/outdoor use. Every employee I asked was surprised to find out that they actually exist; I even went to a few specialty lighting stores and was told flat out that it couldn't be done, that it would require special circuitry.

Ultimately, I gave up, since I am planning to move soon anyway. I will certainly be careful to check what type of lights are used in the next place I live, though; every single overhead light in my current apartment is on a dimmer. Bleh.