How to convince a family member to be energy conscious

GasPants

I have been switching things off at the socket when not in use (... goodbye Alexa). However, my husband insists on keeping his PC running all day (large PSU), probably 15 hours a day - approx 1.8kW per day. I've tried to explain that he is using between a 4th-5th of our daily electricity consumption - for no good reason. He is very resistant to changing his habits, although he has now enabled sleep mode and screen off timer. Any suggestions on how I get him to just switch the thing off?

Spies

Do you both pay the bill? Surely its his choice.

Sleep mode will use very little compared to when its on, I'd just chalk that up as a win.

GingerTim

Show him the bill, and what proportion thereof is made up by the use of 1.8kwh/day?

YBR

Translate it into the cost over a year?

brook_heather

My desktop PC uses around 60W while idling (it has an Intel Core i5-9500 and GTX1060 graphics card) so that would be around 1.44kWh per day however when sleeping it only uses 1-2W - have you measured the actual sleeping power consumption?  So long as the PC is going into sleep mode then it won't be using that much power.

Mr.Generous

Spies said:

Do you both pay the bill? Surely its his choice.

Sleep mode will use very little compared to when its on, I'd just chalk that up as a win.

Maybe not if its a PC base unit and a monitor, I'd have thought the base unit would still be consuming. I know laptops are pretty good when they go to sleep but do desktops perform similarly? 

OP I suppose you could temporarily switch everything else off inc the fridge freezer and show him the consumption if you have a smart meter. It would be interesting to know what some items consume, If we turn our Virgin box off it takes about 5 minutes to work again after a switch on so its left on 24/7 - If it's taking a load of juice I might be persueded to switch off overnight.

MWT

GasPants said:

He is very resistant to changing his habits, although he has now enabled sleep mode and screen off timer. Any suggestions on how I get him to just switch the thing off?

Sleep mode is as close to 'off' as makes no difference, so that is a win already.

Similarly the size of his PSU is less relevant than what the PC is actually doing, and from your numbers, at around 120W it isn't sitting there crypto-mining territory.

Talk to him about the actual sleep settings he is using to make sure it is sleeping with a relatively short delay when not in use, and remind him he can simply put it into sleep mode himself when he knows he is going to be away for a while so that would save a little more time.

Alnat1

Our Plusnet set top box was using too much electricity for my liking, so it goes off at the plug now when not in use, as does the TV. I do leave the router on so we always have Wifi.

The 5 minute wake up on the set top box is a bit annoying but has also stopped us turning on the TV just for background noise when we're not really watching. Now the TV often doesn't go on until evening so it has been a bigger win than I imagined.

matelodave

My solution was to make my wife pay the leccy bill - it didn't really have the effect of saving energy, in fact she now reckons that as she is paying the bill she can use what she want's without any hassle from me 

EssexHebridean

matelodave said:

My solution was to make my wife pay the leccy bill - it didn't really have the effect of saving energy, in fact she now reckons that as she is paying the bill she can use what she want's without any hassle from me 

From a female perspective I'm going to say that serves you right then!

MattMattMattUK

GasPants said:

I have been switching things off at the socket when not in use (... goodbye Alexa). However, my husband insists on keeping his PC running all day (large PSU), probably 15 hours a day - approx 1.8kW per day. I've tried to explain that he is using between a 4th-5th of our daily electricity consumption - for no good reason. He is very resistant to changing his habits, although he has now enabled sleep mode and screen off timer. Any suggestions on how I get him to just switch the thing off?

The size of the PSU makes little difference overall, it depends on the components and what he is using it for. My desktop has a 1,000 PSU, it never draws that amount. At full whack (i7 12700k and RTX 3080) including the monitor it will draw 600-700, but even gaming or video editing and encoding it rarely gets that high, at idle it is under 100 watts, in sleep I think around 15-20. Accept that sleep mode has pretty much solved the problem. 

Turning off Echos is also mostly pointless, they draw 2-3 watts in active standby. TVs use less than half a watt in standby, games consoles use 1.3-2 watts in standby etc. Phone chargers plugged in but not charging use nothing. Even modern LED bulbs draw 4-8 watts at most.

The big electricity costs will be fridges and freezers and any electrical heating (which includes laundry and especially tumble dryers, dishwashers) and electric ovens.