Standby Buttons on Household appliances

more_money_for_me

Figures from the Energy Saving Trust on standby power use in the UK home are astonishing:


Stereos on standby cost £290m and produce 1.6 million tonnes of CO2
VCRs and DVD cost £194m and produce 1.06 million tonnes of CO2
TVs on standby cost £88m and produce 480,000 tonnes of CO2
It means that in one year, in the UK alone, our equipment on standby produces a total of 3.1 million tonnes of CO2.

Thought the thread was missing some figures, so here are some. Guess it would qualify as moneysaving if we didn't spend the above. As mentioned above computers are the worst culprits, but I'm not giving mine up, because I really need it for important stuff like errm posting on here.;)

moonrakerz

more_money_for_me wrote: »

Figures from the Energy Saving Trust on standby power use in the UK home are astonishing:


Stereos on standby cost £290m and produce 1.6 million tonnes of CO2
VCRs and DVD cost £194m and produce 1.06 million tonnes of CO2
TVs on standby cost £88m and produce 480,000 tonnes of CO2
It means that in one year, in the UK alone, our equipment on standby produces a total of 3.1 million tonnes of CO2.

The trouble with figures like this is that they are really meaningless. They look very impressive but actually mean nothing in the greater scheme of things.

If you added up all the bits of milk left in cartons/bottles you could probably say that we could slaughter 50,000 cows in this country. The value of the chewing gum stuck to the pavements of the UK is probably more than the GDP of East Timor, again, an equally meaningless figure.

This whole discussion about 'standby buttons' was started by a bunch of politicians who have absolutely zero knowledge of matters electrical; it was just a good 'sound bite' which the equally ill-informed green lobby then latched onto.

There are plenty of ways in which huge amounts of energy could be saved.
My TV uses 3W in standby, every 100W incandescent lamp is using 80W more than it should. What is the Government doing - holding discussions about phasing out these lights sometime never ! The take up of low energy lamps is still low.
There is is not one incandescent light in my house, if I wish to use 3W of the power I am saving to leave my TV in standby for a couple of hours - I will ! and I am causing the deaths of fewer giant pandas than those zealots who sanctimoniously preach about the evils of the dreaded standby button.

Cardew

more_money_for_me wrote: »

Figures from the Energy Saving Trust on standby power use in the UK home are astonishing:


Stereos on standby cost £290m and produce 1.6 million tonnes of CO2
VCRs and DVD cost £194m and produce 1.06 million tonnes of CO2
TVs on standby cost £88m and produce 480,000 tonnes of CO2
It means that in one year, in the UK alone, our equipment on standby produces a total of 3.1 million tonnes of CO2.

Thought the thread was missing some figures, so here are some. Guess it would qualify as moneysaving if we didn't spend the above. As mentioned above computers are the worst culprits, but I'm not giving mine up, because I really need it for important stuff like errm posting on here.;)

I don't know how many TVs are in use in UK but I suspect £88m would work out at between £1 and £2 per year for each TV; presumably they are assuming that they are all left on standby?

The Energy Saving Trust also state that the maximum standby consumption for new TVs is no more than 1.5 Watts, and they give examples of large TVs consuming 0.6 Watts.(my 3 TVs all consume less than 1 Watt - 32" Sony CRT @ 0.6W, 25" Panasonic CRT @ 0.9W(both about 6 years old) and a 32" LCD less than a Watt.)

So even a maximum consumption new set at 1.5w left on standby 24/7(never switched off and never in use) will cost about £1 a year to run. I doubt there are many old sets in use with a standby consumption of over 3W - about £2 a year.

ollyk

dounome wrote: »

Slightly off topic but as a firefighter we give home safety checks and advise not using stand by buttons as they are a fire risk.

Have you any statistics as to the number of fires caused by failed standby circuits? I would be interested to know whether the failed equipment was branded or not...

Cardew

Well this is the official government website on electrical safety.

http://www.firekills.gov.uk/electrical/01.htm

There is nothing there about standby being a danger.

The potential danger from an electrical fire hazard point of view is the cabling and plugs - shorting etc.

We have 240 voltage wiring going to our light switches, and sockets which it is impossible to disconnect short(pun) of switching off all electricity to the house.

What about a fridge, freezer, burglar alarm, alarm clocks, video timers, cookers, mains powered smoke alarms, door bells, security lights etc etc.

A red herring methinks.

moonrakerz

dounome wrote: »

Slightly off topic but as a firefighter we give home safety checks and advise not using stand by buttons as they are a fire risk.

Hogwash !

Just another case of over-nannying ! How many of these "safety checkers" have any electrical qualifications ?

Sarahwx

That is very interesting about the fire risk, i certainly dod not know that, although my parents turned everything off always at the wall. I guess they didn't have stand by buttons then...

Information here: http://www.theecologist.org/podcasts.asp by George Monbiot - he is really anti standby buttons and wants things made without them on.

Cardew

Sarahwx wrote: »

That is very interesting about the fire risk, i certainly dod not know that, although my parents turned everything off always at the wall. I guess they didn't have stand by buttons then...

Let us not perpetuate another urban myth about 'standby' being dangerous.

As stated above. What about your fridge or freezer? They have electricity applied to them all the time and a big compressor. etc etc

Do you not think the Government would warn us about the dangers of standby devices?

All electrical wiring is a potential hazard if it is carrying mains voltage. If you take the approach that this is an unacceptable risk you shouldn't have any electricity in the house and go back to the days of candles, open fires and oil lamps for lighting - no risk of fire from those;) As for gas - explosive and toxic isn't it?

thescouselander

There is a lot of mis-information going round about standby buttons. All the appliences in my house are fairly modern and all comsume less than 1 watt when in standby. If I left everything on standby to total consumption would be less than 10 watts. Thats about £5 worth of electricity over the year.

moonrakerz

Sarahwx wrote: »

George Monbiot - he is really anti standby buttons and wants things made without them on.

Wow ! a REALLY impartial person to pontificate on this subject.