Energy Saving Appliances For The Green Homeowner
What does your television have in common with your refrigerator
? In some cases, it takes as much energy to run a refrigerator as it takes to run a television!
So, while you sit all evening and throughout the weekend watching your favorite shows, your energy bill is skyrocketing. At the end of the day, it's a decision we all have to make: is the beautiful, crisp picture worth the initial cost and the extra monthly energy cost? For most, the answer is a yes! Let's look at the big picture-how come your new television eats so much energy?
The Big Picture
Sometimes televisions need tune-ups. Their screen colors are all messed-up: yellow is green and red is yellow. While most people tend to trash a television with such a malfunction, but there's something else about the picture that can cause some annoyance-the brightness.
The brightness of a screen can burn a ton of energy. This is particularly true of plasma televisions because they don't separate resolution and power.
Over all, the best way to decrease power used by either plasma or LCD televisions is to reduce the light output. In doing so, you can actually decrease the amount of energy being used by about 50%.
Don't worry about all the settings, just focus on picture and backlight, which is sometimes called cell light.
There are some other settings that could save some power but these controls tend to also reduce image quality, so it may not be worth changing.
Add-ons
Most of the time we don't think that the items smaller in size actually contribute to the energy usage, but they do! Whether these add-ons come in the form of a DVD player, DVR, or gaming system-altogether these items can rack up an expense of about $200 a year.
Though not too expensive in itself, this is just one item's add-ons. How many additional items do we use in our bathroom, bedroom, garage, and kitchen? If there's a place to save, why not save?
According to ENERGY STAR, the energy being used by these particular television accessories could actually combine to being more energy than what's being used by the television itself! Here are the facts.
On average a plasma television uses about 301 watts and a standard LCD uses 111 watts. The accessories consuming the most energy are the Playstation 3, 197 watts; Xbox 360, 187 watts; and DVR, 33 watts. Although, there are different versions of the Playstation 3 and Xbox, which are equally energy hungry!
The Add-ons That Keep Going
There's another little tidbit about these accessories that can cause some unforeseen issues for homeowners. A DVD player or other accessory can actually remain on when in its off position. Okay, if any of the gaming systems or other items that are plugged into the wall still makes a noise, shine a light, display the time, generate heat, or move-- then the item is still using energy! This is called a phantom.
The best way to take control of your phantom loads from television accessories is by plugging them into a surge protector instead of the wall or an extension cord. A surge protector actually allows you to completely turn off all items it energizes. When you turn off the surge protector it actually cuts off the total energy flow of energy from the wall to the accessory.
by: John Smith
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