Beware of Energy Vampires

Why don’t you try something a little different this Halloween? Turn off all the lights in your house and see if you can find the energy vampires that haunt your home! In a typical home, you’ll probably find lots of red and green lights once the lights go out. What those lights mean for your electric bill may scare you. Many electronics with red or green lights are always running in standby mode, which means they are always using power. We call these appliances and electronics energy vampires or phantom loads. They include TVs and DVRs, satellite boxes, gaming consoles, CD players, computers and printers, cell phones and iPods, chargers and digital photo frames.

All of these electronics can cost you an extra $100 every year. To stop these energy vampires from sucking up more of your hard earned money, try to remember to unplug chargers, CD players and other devices when not in use. Installing power strips to consolidate the cords from electronics so you can turn them all off with the flip of one switch. Finally, when you replace electronics be sure to buy Energy Star rated appliances, which use less energy.