Standby Buttons on Household appliances

stebiz

RichardJohn wrote: »

I hate it when that's brought up. Where are these villages? Why aren't they paying for their own electricity?

What I was basically saying is that if we do not 'waste' electricity then we won't need to produce as much CO2. There again we could all just waste electricity, not recycle anything and cause global warming.

Stebiz

stebiz

Cardew wrote: »

No I am not saying anything is 100% safe and it it would be silly from an economic as well as safety point of view to leave on any heating appliance.

The title of this thread is standby consumption and my comments were on that subject.
However as discussed above we all leave mains connected to appliances, switches, sockets 24/7.

Fair comment. And yes I too leave appliances on 24/7 were necessary and unplug when not necessary.

Stebiz

dounome

Cardew wrote: »

dounome,
I make no pretence to know anything about firefighting at the grass roots level, but I am a chartered electrical engineer and know something about electricity. I also have sat on two formal Government Boards of Enquiry on fires and listened to (and read and re-read) evidence from forensic experts.

I also spent many months with senior fire service officers and was involved with their training of firefighters; so I have a little knowledge of this field; but it is only a little.

I note from your other posts that you are a full time postman. So presumably you are a retained firefighter? If so I admire your dedication to work on Xmas day after such a busy period for Postmen.

I don’t doubt that your advice to not leave things on standby is well meant. However your advice and the comments below will cause extreme concern to many who read this thread and should be substantiated.


I must say I have reservations about your experience of attending a house fire which was caused by a TV left on standby.

I noted in another thread, to which we both contributed, the subject of safety of hair straighteners came up.

As in this thread, to re-enforce your views in an earlier post, you made this comment.



It does seem a remarkable co-incidence that you can back up your views with practical examples of situations that you have personally experienced. As you are at best part time, and have personally experienced such fires, is it not reasonable to assume that there statistically should be hundreds if not thousands of similar incidents across the country?

My understanding is that every call out incident is logged, damage recorded and investigations into the cause(s) are published internally and sometimes more widely. I assume your Fire Service(East Lothian?) do the same? As said earlier, why not silence us sceptics, by publishing details. They are a matter of public record.

Thankyou for taking the time to trawl through my posts to investigate me.
I dont claim to be an expert on electricity like yourself, nor do i claim to be an expert firefighter as i believe im always learning.
I dont know why you would doubt my claims to have attended these fires, i have no need to lie about such a serious matter.
Can i clear up one of your accusations, the fires involving the hair straighteners were not due to overheating or design fault or being left on, the fire was due to being left on the carpet. I could give you this persons address so you could phone them up and personally ask if this had happened but i see no need.
The fire involving the tv happened when it was left on standby and the tv was shown to be the seat of the fire.
I'm not claiming that leaving your tv on standby will cause it to catch fire, all i said was that as a fire service we "advise" you not to do this as the pontential to catch fire is greater than if you swich it off with the proper button on the tv. I fail to see what the problem is with this advise.

dounome

TV set our house on fire
Helen Loveless, Mail on Sunday
19 October 2005
A SMOULDERING cigarette end, a spark from an open fire, a forgotten candle . . . they are the major causes of 60,000 household fire calls a year. The cost is bad enough at £326m in 2004, but the human toll is worse with 450 fatalities, according to Government figures. The average house fire costs more than £25,000, says the Association of British Insurers.



HOME HELP: Insurance covered Kevin, Katrina and Katie Hartland's house for a fire that forced them out of their house for seven weeks

Even leaving a television on standby can lead to a devastating blaze, as the Hartland family from Halesowen in the West Midlands discovered. The upstairs of their home was gutted after a TV in the bedroom erupted in flames.
Kevin Hartland, 50, a welder, was in the garage and his daughter Katie, 19, was in the lounge, but both managed to escape safely. Kevin's wife, Katrina, 46, came back from work to find their home ablaze. She says: 'We certainly didn't realise that simply leaving a TV on standby could cause this kind of devastation.'

Cardew This isnt the fire i attended obviously but one in the national press so you can take whatever you like from it.

http://www.firekills.gov.uk/home/04.htm

see item 12,
again only advice but i thought advice was what i was giving before i was questioned on my experiences within the fire service

RichardJohn_2

stebiz wrote: »

What I was basically saying is that if we do not 'waste' electricity then we won't need to produce as much CO2. There again we could all just waste electricity, not recycle anything and cause global warming.

Stebiz

It's a joke mate.

moonrakerz

I apologise for re-joining this thread, but .........

I have already said that what we are talking about here is risk. There are many people/organisations that simply do not understand risk or its management.
Regrettably the fire prevention 'industry' and many so-called Health & Safety practitioners fall in this category.

There possibly have been fires caused caused by leaving an appliance in standby mode (this could never be proved as it is equally possible that any fire was caused by a fault when the unit was in use at an earlier time).
Any deaths due to this must be very few, if any at all.

We are constantly told we mustn't do certain things, because it is dangerous - like the clown in the paper today whose insurance company won't let him use bubbles in his act any more, in case he slips and injures himself. Who's the biggest clown, him, or his insurers ?

What is the safest thing you could possibly do ? with the lowest possible risk to yourself.
Motor cycle riding on the public highway ? driving a car, riding your bike ? definitely not - how about staying in bed all day ? it can't come much safer than that - can it ?

Equally NO ! In 2005, 86 people were killed by falling out of bed, another 12 by "accidental suffocation/strangulation in bed".

If risk management were being practised properly we would be telling people how to protect themselves from bed borne accidents, NOT telling them to not leave the TV in standby. Use paper bedding, no bed to be more than 25mm from the floor, no pyjama cords. Advice like this would be laughed at - but because respected people like firemen tell us that standby buttons are dangerous - we believe them. I don't blame the fireman, he is given this rubbish by someone sitting in his office who has never fought a fire or has the faintest idea about electrics - like the cretin who told dounome that in standby an appliance uses 80% of its normal power.

This is not misinformation, it is dangerous rubbish !

My figures came from the Office of National Statistics. 2005 fiugres.

Oh, and two people were killed by lightning.

Sarahwx

I think , from my point of veiw this thread has generated a really interesting debate, In the gaurdian today there is a live question and answer session by George Monboit so maybe he could further clarify some of his views on Standby buttons!!! as he is campaigning against them - should be interesting but hurry and have a look as I think it starts around midday ( although i'm sure the info will remain on the website)

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?p=5468692#post5468692

Cardew

Sarahwx wrote: »

I think , from my point of veiw this thread has generated a really interesting debate, In the gaurdian today there is a live question and answer session by George Monboit so maybe he could further clarify some of his views on Standby buttons!!! as he is campaigning against them - should be interesting but hurry and have a look as I think it starts around midday ( although i'm sure the info will remain on the website)

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?p=5468692#post5468692

The shadow environmental minister was also advocating the manufacture of TVs without standby buttons today, as was the boss of DSG(Dixons)

I think there is a real danger of this discussion on TV standby consumption giving the subject far more prominence than it merits. As witnessed by people posting on this forum, there seems to be an assumption that switching off a TV is the biggest single economy measure they can take; when in reality it is one of the least important in terms of power saving.

Martin has posted in the Utilities forum(Sust it) a new website that gives average costs of running appliances. Some of the new TV’s now have a standby consumption of 0.3 or 0.4 Watts and the cost of leaving them on standby permanently is a few pence per year.

If all my three TVs were left on standby permanently(and I am not for one moment suggesting you should do so) they would account for 0.32% of my consumption of electricity.- and I don’t use electricity for heating.

To put savings in perspective, the replacement of a single incandescent bulb by a low energy bulb would make far greater savings.

moonrakerz

Sarahwx wrote: »

In the gaurdian today

Brilliant !!

Sorry, very old joke; see:

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=grauniad

stebiz

Cardew wrote: »

Some of the new TV’s now have a standby consumption of 0.3 or 0.4 Watts and the cost of leaving them on standby permanently is a few pence per year

And some of the older ones a lot more - and a lot more dangerous.

Stebiz