# Got cable? Check your power consumption.



## begreen (Jun 26, 2011)

This is amazing, especially when the technology exists to dramatically reduce a ridiculous waste of electricity. 

"One high-definition DVR and one high-definition cable box use an average of* 446 kilowatt hours a year*, about 10 percent more than a 21-cubic-foot energy-efficient refrigerator, a recent study found. "

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/us/26cable.html


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## BrotherBart (Jun 26, 2011)

I know. I saw that. Old what's her name's companion is the TV, Sat dish and DVR. Sucker runs around the clock sometimes. Half of our electric bill.


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## ChrisN (Jun 26, 2011)

I have my TV and cable box/DVR both plugged into a power strip that is turned off each night and stays off until the next evening when it is all turned on again.  I read that story in the Times today and was disappointed it didn't suggest this simple solution for homeowners.


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## seige101 (Jun 26, 2011)

If you have directv they have newer energy eff boxes draw much less power in 'standby' mode


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## mbcijim (Jun 27, 2011)

Looks like I'll have to try out the Kill-O-Watt Meter.  That would explain my electric consumption.  New house, numbers have never really been where they thought they should be.


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## jebatty (Jun 27, 2011)

My Dish TV receiver/dvr is horrible in electric use, and if I shut it down, the reboot and satellite finding takes quite a bit of time, enough so that it is really inconvenient. Plus, the installer said it needs to stay on, especially in winter, to provide power to the transducer which needs to stay "warm." I don't know whether or not that is actually true, but I can understand that some electronics might be adversely affected by -40F temperature extremes, and maintaining power could be important. What to do?


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## nate379 (Jun 27, 2011)

Your electric bill is $12/month?



			
				BrotherBart said:
			
		

> I know. I saw that. Old what's her name's companion is the TV, Sat dish and DVR. Sucker runs around the clock sometimes. Half of our electric bill.


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## Adios Pantalones (Jun 27, 2011)

That's nuts.  I never would have expected that.  My 42" plasma- ya, the DVR box- no


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## Vic99 (Jun 27, 2011)

Just put your hand next to them and feel how hot they get even when "turned off".  It's crazy.


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## mayhem (Jun 27, 2011)

Both my plasma nad LCD tvs get warm enough while on that you can feel the heat coming off them when you walk by.  The DISH DVR box is always on, no question about it.  Its has a hard drive in there and it keeps power applied to the drive at all times so its ready to go at an instant's notice to record or pause tv.  A sleep mode like a modern computer would be good and would probnably trim about 90% of the "off" power consumption by powering down the ahrd drive and other components and simply spooling it al up a few minutes before the next recording event is scheduled.  If they could speed up the boot time ont hese things, they could more easily power them down.

Have to kill-a-watt my home entertainment center.  With the home theater going and the sub rearranging my dining room furniture I bet I'm pulling a good draw.


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## BrotherBart (Jun 27, 2011)

What is murder about my wife's stuff is that stack of stuff, including the big screen LCD and computer, are joined by a couple of mini-fridges. So this time of year the air conditioner is busting it pulling all of that heat that I pay for out of the room.

Fortunately the last couple of days have been fine with the window fan on "exhaust".


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## Slow1 (Jun 28, 2011)

BB beat me to it - all those things burning electricity around the clock are also generally generating heat too.  Not necessarily a terrible thing in the winter (although I don't like the economics of electric heat, at least it is sort of dual use), but in the summer I'd rather not have the extra heat in the house even if I'm not paying to cool via the A/C.

It really wasn't all that long ago that I didn't care about my electric bill.  I used to keep 3-5 computers (large ones) running 24/7 in the house among other things.  That was before we even had kids.  Now we just have the one notebook that is kept 'available' most of the time - standby when not actually in use.  We put our TV on a power strip along with the extras attached to it (no cable boxes but we do have a VCR and DVD player with clocks etc).   All these little things have added up to big changes.

That little "kill-a-watt" was a good eye opener for me I have to say.  Many little things got unplugged.  Don't need to keep so many things on UPSs - keeping those batteries charged costs a constant power trickle too.  Adjusting the fridge a bit warmer didn't spoil our food but saved power etc...   

Real challenge of course is that my oldest (girl) is 9 now... somehow I think we're about to see a serious upward trend in power use no matter what *I* want or try to do... (as my personal "power" will be on a decline....)


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## begreen (Jun 28, 2011)

We have a friend that put a whopper plasma screen with full amped surround in their den a couple years ago. It was nice in the winter, but by summer they had to install air conditioning. Even though it was dry and in the 70's outside, the tv room was an oven.


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## nate379 (Jun 29, 2011)

To the couple guys talking about putting the DVR/Sat box on a switch, why have an DVR even?

The reason I have mine is to record the shows I enjoy since I rarely have a chance to sit down and watch them when the are plaing "live".  Also if power is shut off to the sat box, it takes close to 10 mins for it too boot back up and start showing programming on the TV.  I actually put a UPS battery backup unit on it cause it would have to reboot if the power even flickered, which happens fairly often at my house.

For me it's worth the $5 or so a month on electric.  My bill runs about $50-60 a month so it's not too bad.


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## begreen (Jun 29, 2011)

It's the sum total of all these installations that is concerning. At an estimated $3 billion per year, this is not chicken feed. It's a lot of wasted fossil fuel. There are a better ways, many of these setups are old tech, but consumers need to tell their cable/sat companies that they want it.


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## Don2222 (Jul 4, 2011)

Hello

Well, I do not have a Digital Comcast Cable box and DVR, just the basic menu box.

I do have an LCD 46" Toshiba TV with a Yamaha 1,000 watt 20 speaker surround sound system including 2 sub woofers. I also have an HP 2.66 GHZ quad processor media server for hulu and youtube concerts and wii and a few other components.
The computer is also a 24/7 Internet web server that keeps my 8 gigs of web pages accessible for my blackberry!

The Kill-A-Watt monitor still says we are soaking up the electric at the rate of $20.30 bucks per month!

*Is that what you guys are also seeing??*


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## SE Iowa (Jul 4, 2011)

We have a large plasma and direct tv but always turn the receiver off when not watching.  It doesn't ever need to boot up.  The TV does heat up the family room as 3 of the 4 walls are ICF with brick siding.  I did not do my homework b/f buying the plasma otherwise I would have got something else.  We are able to get a digital antenna placed in our ceiling for about $240 installed.  Our neighbors said they did it and get 37 channels although there is some overlap, plus the benefit of it not going out in a rainstorm.  It would save $60 per month from direct tv.  We do not have many channels on the sat anyway (no national news, which is what I want anyway).


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## semipro (Jul 5, 2011)

I've been chasing (and killing) vampire loads at our house for years.  The entertainment center and battery chargers were my first conquests.  

Now if only I could find that stupid little doorbell transformer that I know has been sipping electricity for 20+ years.  We live on 5 acres in the country with dogs and a gravel driveway.  The last thing I need is a doorbell to tell me when someone is there.


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## nate379 (Jul 6, 2011)

Doorbell transformer uses about 10 watts.  That is about $12 a year in electric.  Though I do see your point with not needing a bell.

Anyone know what kind of power an old CRT TV uses?  This last months bill was $75!  My normal bill it around $50.  The only thing that has changed that I can think of is my renter brought a big old TV from storage and it's on probably 3-4hrs a day.


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## tjnamtiw (Jul 6, 2011)

NATE379 said:
			
		

> Your electric bill is $12/month?
> 
> 
> 
> ...



The OP said 400+ kilowatt hours a YEAR.  That's about $50 a year for me.  If you turn it off and the 'boss' has a program set up to record at night, it's worth the $50 to sleep soundly at night and not worry about her scissors!!


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## begreen (Jul 6, 2011)

That's the point of the article. Many of us will tolerate waste because currently energy is cheap. We would rather have another coal plant fired up, then demand higher efficiency from our appliance mfgs and cabel companies. Same thing with other resources like water. These resources are finite as some good folks in Texas are being reminded now.


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## tjnamtiw (Jul 6, 2011)

BeGreen said:
			
		

> That's the point of the article. Many of us will tolerate waste because currently energy is cheap. We would rather have another coal plant fired up, then demand higher efficiency from our appliance mfgs and cabel companies. Same thing with other resources like water. These resources are finite as some good folks in Texas are being reminded now.



you have a point, HOWEVER, if we truly want to demand higher efficiency, then why don't we demand from our legislators that the EPA adopt the European Emission standards for our cars, which are focused on 'being green' rather than benefiting the oil companies and automakers?  Europe, especially Germany, is far ahead of us in the Green Arena, yet European diesel cars make up half of their fleet and get 40 to 60 mpg, as I have personally confirmed over about 15 years of travels throughout Europe.  Imagine how our dependence on oil would go down if we traded in our gas guzzlers for cars that get double or triple the mileage!  Sure, I expect everyone will come back with 'Just feel safer with more steel all around me' or 'I NEED a big car for my family'.  Next time you are on a trip, take note of how many SUV'S and large pickups have ONE person in them.  I actually kept a log on a 700 mile trip and the % of such vehicles was over 75%.  Almost the entire remainder had 2 people.
Some will also say that you can't crack oil and get more diesel out of a barrel of oil, but how does Europe do it, then?

Oh, and electricity isn't cheap when my summer bills top $350 a month.  I installed a TED electric monitoring system to see where the waste is and we are slowly cutting back as we see money going down the drain.


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## heat seeker (Jul 6, 2011)

My old tube-type CRT television would draw about 300 watts, 19" screen. My solid state CRT set drew about 100 watts.


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## begreen (Jul 6, 2011)

The new sets are getting much better. Our 37" LED tv draws 50-55 watts. We also have a class D amp for the surround. Even with the home theater cranking we are under 200watts.


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## nate379 (Jul 8, 2011)

Wow I didn't know those old TVs pulled that much power!

As far as conserving resources, yes it's great but you get to a point that it's not practical.  The DVR might use juice all the time, but if I would turn it off, then it would never record, therefore making it pointless to own, not to mention it takes a good 10 mins for the dish receiver to boot up from being powered off.

I could unplug the stove and microwave, I'm sure the clocks use some power.  Could unplug the alarm clock when not in use.  Could build a pedal powered gen set and not worrying about the bill... and I'd loose a ton of weight!  Electric is 0.16 kw/hr which is quite cheap for the state.  I know some guys paying .50-.75 kw/hr


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## jebatty (Jul 8, 2011)

It seems to me that, especially with all the talk in favor of low taxes (as long as the govt services being cut don't affect me) and less regulation (so long as the reduced regulation doesn't result in me being fried), that if we want higher efficiency, the power rests in our own hands to change our own lives. No one makes us do anything - we make choices and either pay the consequences or reap the benefits.

Yes, my wife and I have become much more efficient in use of all forms of energy because it is the right thing to do. Waste not, want not. But also, we have become much more efficient because we save mucho buckos $$$ in the process, and we have a far more relaxed lifestyle which is not pressured by the monthly bills or the need to work to pay for frivolous things. Waste not, want not.

Conservation = money in our pockets to live a better life rather than working longer and harder simply to pay someone else for our own waste.

Certainly, we are not the models of hyper-efficiency or hyper-conservation, but by changing our habits regarding use of electricity, we have reduced our electricity usage by more than 25%, and we probably can do better yet. These are utility meter readings which are made on the 7th or 8th of each month:


```
kwh        2007     2011
January    610      729
February   620      511 
March      689      465
April      649      434 
May        773      423
June       909      442

Total      4150    3004
```

We have a 1500 sq ft house + full basement which includes 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, electric clothes dryer, electric clothes washer, electric oven and cook-top, side-by-side refrigerator/freezer, upright freezer, a 5 gal dhw heater for the kitchen sink and dishwasher (other electric hot water is on a separate meter, average < 100 kwh/month), and a 42" LCD TV with full surround audio system/tuner/blue ray/satellite TV/DVR. It is the two of us, plus family guests, like the 12 family members just with us for 5 days for the 4th of July holiday. 

Regarding use of electricity, this is what we have done and live not only as well as before, but also have more money to live a more full and relaxed life:

Turn completely off computers and entertainment center (except satellite TV/DVR) with power strips 
Unplug device transformers when not being used
Turn off lights when not being used
Dehumidifier in basement â€“ reduced setting without adverse effect

CFLâ€™s and fluorescent for lighting except dimming circuits and outdoors
Dishwasher full loads only
Cold water clothes washing
No air conditioning, use ceiling fans and open windows
Outdoor lights on motion detectors (no yard security light dusk/dawn)


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