Checking "Vampire" Electrical Loads
A Kill-a-Watt device allows you to find out how much electricity an appliance is drawing, both when it's on and off.
First, unplug the appliance. Plug the Kill-a-watt into outlet, then plug the appliance into the Kill-a-watt. Press the center button that says Watt. You might have to toggle it once to get it from VA to Watt.
This will show how many watts the appliance is using.
If you turn off the appliance and the Kill-a-watt still shows that the appliance is drawing energy (the watts doesn't go down to 0.0) then the appliance draws a "vampire" load. You're paying for electricity even when the device is off.
To figure out how much the vampire load costs, at 20 cents per kWh, as the price is currently in the Boston area, you can double the watts used and that's roughly how much it costs to have this appliance plugged in and drawing electricity 24 hours a day all year long (i.e. a .15 watt vampire load uses roughly $30 worth of electricity per year).
If the vampire load is more than 15 watts it's worth installing a power strip on the appliance to turn it off when it's not being used.
There are:
- Smartstrips, that turn off peripherals automatically once the main device is shut off - cost @$30
- Belkin remote switch strips that have a remote switch so you can turn off the device with a light switch-like switch on the wall - cost @$30
- And just plain old power strips that require the resident to reach down and click them off - cost @$10
