Can you tell me whre I can find a reputable resource to confirm that a plugged in item still pulls electricity

Question

even if the item is unplugged (ie a computer, radio or tv, etc). My family thinks that a plugged item in the off position is not draining electricity

Answer 1

as was said, anything that works with a remote has some power draw..anything that is "instant on" has a standby power draw......any transformer, for a video game box, or a cell phone charger or whatever; if it is warmer than room temperature when not charging or powering something, it is drawing current.

MIT did a study....and I'll leave it to you to find the link.....that suggests that 5-10 % of America's power consumption is wasted  keeping TV's VCR's. computers etc on standby mode.

Best thing to do? Plug everything into a power strip and turn the power strip off when done with the appliance

Answer 2

Call your power company or go to their website listed on your powerbill. This is very true they do still draw electricity.

A bit of a science project. Unplug everything you can (TVs, clocks, microwaves, etc)...Not frig of course. For a whole month everyday while you are gone,  and check your power bill. You will have the proof in the pudding.

Answer 3

wat the f.....

Answer 4

If it operates with a remote control, then it's still drawing current, even a small amount, when it's turned off.  Anything with a pilot light, front-panel display or any type of external sensor will draw a current while the main set appears to be off.  Just about all computers will draw current when they appear to be off; just how much current depends on the "mode" (hibernate, sleep, standby, etc.)

Answer 5

i googled "electricity plugged in" and got a link to an article published in new york times. it's a question and answer article. here's the link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/11/scienc...

hope that helps

Answer 6

It is called phantom power check the PG& E website for ideas.

Answer 7

You can construct a plug in unit from a duplex receptacle box that has an ampere meter plug in on the second receptacle wired in series with the first. When the appliance is plugged in you get a reading in amps of the current it draws. You need to be able to switch the amps to miliamps,

If your sole objective is to determine whether ANY current is drawn, just use a voltage meter. any voltage means current.

If you want to quantify usage, evaluate a milliamp of 110 volt power will use a kwh in 20 days, not exactly nothing.

Would you do anything about an appliance wasting ,01 miliamp. There are ever so many more significant things you can do.

My computer and most of my phantom users have power bars that shut them off, so I do not bother testing how little power they are using. That has cut my power usage by about 5%.

Answer 8

If it has a clock it is using power all the time. If you turn it on and it tells you the right time, it has been running an clock inside, invisibly, all the time.

If you can turn it on with a remote control, then it has a receiver on all the time. The receiver is listening all the time for a signal from the remote. That receiver takes a little power.

But the amount of power is extremely small. If you TRUELY care about this you will take the trouble to measure it yourself. Go look at your electric meter; the one the power company uses to measure how much electricity you use to calculate your bill. You will see some numbers, and also a disk turning visibly inside the glass meter. The speed the disk is turning is the amount of power being used. You can time how long it takes to go around once to find out exactly how many watts you are using. See the source for more information. If you are using zero power, the disk will be completely stopped, not turning at all. If you have an electric oven, turn it on and go look at the meter. The disk will be spinning fast! So go turn of EVERY device in your house. Look at the meter. It may be turning VERY slowly. If it is, unplug the computer, TV and whatever else may use standby power. It should now be completely stopped. You must have EVERYTHING unplugged. Your clock radio, your alarm system, your thermostat, your refrigerator, EVERYTHING. Verify the disk is completely stopped. Then plug in the device you want to test. The TV maybe. See how fast the disk turns. Do this for all the things you want to test. Even with all of them plugged in I bet it turns so slowly that you can hardly see it. Compare that to the power use with the TV on, or the electric oven. Or a hair dryer. Or an air conditioner. I bet you will be amazed at how much power those devices use. One minute of TV watching probably uses more power than a whole day of standby power for every device in your house, and 1 minute of the electric oven uses even more power than that.

Like most people, air conditioning uses the majority of electricity in my house. In summer my electric bill can be $200 a month. More in a hot summer. In fall and spring the bill drops to maybe $50 a month. That is with normal use of other things like oven, refrigerator, lights, TV, computers, clock radio and so on. And all the standby power too. So if you are REALLY serious about saving electricity, take all that time and effort you are now wasting worrying about 5 watts of standby power and do something about your 1,500 watt hair dryer or your 2,500 watt electric oven or your 5,000 watt central air conditioner. It won't be easy. It won't be cheap. Unplugging the TV is cheap, but you will not save 5%. Probably not even 1%. And it is really hard to make all the other people in the house, who know as I do how pointless it is, remember to unplug it all the time.

Answer 9

It's easy, clamp a no contact amp probe around the circuit. I'll tell you right now, that a computer is drawing elctricity when off still plugged in. Thats what keeps the clock and date correct. The battery would be dead quickly if you had to reley on it evry time you turned it off. But it is such a small trickle you can't notice by watching the incoming power company meter.