??do plug in timers save money ???

laingy

hi there, can any help me out with this question? trying to cut down on electricity usage and was wondering will it save me money if i use a plug in timer on my tv,virgin & smart meter socket when on stand by or will it cost just as much by using the plug in timer as that obviously also cost money to run ?at present i use 1 upstairs as i don’t want to leave the tv/tivo box on stand by for 20 hrs a day so that must be saving money surely.?? but then is the timer costing just as much there again????
🤔🤔🤔🤔worrying times !!
thanks all 

Olinda99

the timer will use less than the debice so yes, it will save you.money

QrizB

A plug-in timer will use a small amount of energy to run, so there's probably no gain if you're using it on a modern TV or a toaster or something with similarly low standby electricity use.

If you use it to control something with a larger standby demand, like eg. a games console, or use it to switch a multi-way socket with several low-power appliances, you might make more of a saving.

fly-catchers

I charge my Ipad once the E7 kicks in. But as you have two hours before it reverts to 2 hours of normal energy costs. And them finally the other 5 hours. And was wondering to use a timer so it would delay charging till the 5 hours kick in. As it is still charging when it reaches the end of the first 2 hours. With about 15/20% left to charge. Or would the timer use as much energy anyway. Also once the Ipad is fully charge does the charger still drip feed energy into it? 

Mstty

Roughly speaking a mechanical timer uses 1w an hour 24w a day and an electronic one 2w an hour 48w per day.

@fly-catchers an iPad charger generally uses 8-10w per hour.

Astria

A Virgin router/TV box will consume approx 10W in standby, so if you turn it off for 20 hours of the day you could save approx £2/month, but the switch itself could cost 60p/month, so that would be a total saving of about £1.40. Your broadband and TV however will take MUCH longer to startup when you need it however and will not be able to download the updates typically fetched over night, so is a saving like that worth it for you?

Gerry1

Mstty said:

Roughly speaking a mechanical timer uses 1w an hour 24w a day and an electronic one 2w an hour 48w per day.

@fly-catchers an iPad charger generally uses 8-10w per hour.

No such thing as a watt per hour.  Ever seen a lightbulb marked '100W per hour'?

EssexHebridean

fly-catchers said:

I charge my Ipad once the E7 kicks in. But as you have two hours before it reverts to 2 hours of normal energy costs. And them finally the other 5 hours. And was wondering to use a timer so it would delay charging till the 5 hours kick in. As it is still charging when it reaches the end of the first 2 hours. With about 15/20% left to charge. Or would the timer use as much energy anyway. Also once the Ipad is fully charge does the charger still drip feed energy into it? 

With split E7 like this, I'd say there it would benefit you to set a timer to make sure the iPad charges only on the cheap rate, yes. 

MattMattMattUK

EssexHebridean said:

fly-catchers said:

I charge my Ipad once the E7 kicks in. But as you have two hours before it reverts to 2 hours of normal energy costs. And them finally the other 5 hours. And was wondering to use a timer so it would delay charging till the 5 hours kick in. As it is still charging when it reaches the end of the first 2 hours. With about 15/20% left to charge. Or would the timer use as much energy anyway. Also once the Ipad is fully charge does the charger still drip feed energy into it? 

With split E7 like this, I'd say there it would benefit you to set a timer to make sure the iPad charges only on the cheap rate, yes. 

There would be a gross benefit, but when you factor in the tiny amount of electricity the iPad uses, together with the cost of the timer and the energy used by the timer I wonder whether you would ever see a positive ROI?

Using the largest capacity iPad battery and using a full charge every day, accounting for energy losses in the charging cycle it would use one kWh every 24 days, which is 15.2 kWh a year, at current prices that represents a cost of around £4.40 at day rate, based on the widest E7 differential I estimate a saving of around £2.05 per year. The timer would use around £2.60 per year so even with the timer for free it would mean an annual loss making exercise, once cost of the timer is factored in the loss becomes even greater, even more so when you account for the fact that the user is unlikely to us a full charge every day. 

Mstty

@Gerry1

I still think it helped explain the usage for a day regardless of terminology. Most understand that over watt-hour.

That's what matters most👍

Astria

Gerry1 said:

Mstty said:

Roughly speaking a mechanical timer uses 1w an hour 24w a day and an electronic one 2w an hour 48w per day.

@fly-catchers an iPad charger generally uses 8-10w per hour.

No such thing as a watt per hour.  Ever seen a lightbulb marked '100W per hour'?

No, but if you tell someone it's a 100W bulb and I've had people ask me "So how much does it use in a day?", if you tell them it uses 100w per hour, then they'll instead say "So it uses 2400W per day or 72p?" (assuming 30p/unit)