Tiny House Life Frugal Tips - Ghost Power Draw

Ghosts sucking power from your outlets? Vampires drinking from your electric bill? Sounds scary or crazy, right? Well there's a real thing that often goes by the names ghost power use, vampire draw, phantom power use, and a host of other terms. For me this is an issue of concern due to my house being powered by a pretty small solar power system. So my electricity is limited in the first place and I don't want to waste it. But even if that's not the case for you, it's likely that you pay for the power you use. And who wants to pay more to a utility company than they need to?

Continuing with the theme of tips that can help reduce the total expenses one has, just in case you want the option to

work less for money, spend it on other things you care more about, or really need to cut bills and have a hard time making ends meet, here's another one I use in my life. I know due to all the things going on in the world right now related to business closures and job losses, some of you are newly in that situation. 

So a lot of us for one reason or another would like to save on power use, and usually therefore, some money as well. So what are we talking about? Something like this quote from Wikipedia: 

"Standby power is electrical power used by appliances and equipment while switched off or not performing their primary function, often waiting to be activated by a remote controller. That power is consumed by internal or external power supplies, remote control receivers, text or light displays, circuits energized when the device is plugged in even when switched off.  While this definition is inadequate for technical purposes, there is as yet no formal definition; an international standards committee is developing a definition and test procedure."

According to the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the average home in the States has about 40 different items or appliances drawing power when turned off or not in use. Accounting for about 10% of total power use in the household. The figures for the averages in other countries seem to range from 7%-30%. All that sneaky power use adds up, costing over 10 BILLION dollars in energy use each year in this country alone. Which I'm told breaks down to at least $100 per household. No you are probably not going to get rich by saving a hundred dollars a year, but all the little things do add up. As anyone who has done things like bartend or wait tables for a living can attest to. If I offered to hand you a hundred dollar bill right now, you probably wouldn't turn it down. 

Of course that's not even mentioning the other costs often involved in electricity production like damage to air, water, plants, and wildlife. So even if you have lots of money to spare, you may be interested in reducing the amount of electricity you consume. Especially if you don't actually see any real benefit from the extra use. 

So how do you keep this ghost power draw from happening? Well to most of us it's pretty obvious that when something like my overhead light is turned on, it is using power. But many things draw power when you wouldn't think they are. Like these little power boxes that plug in on many devices adding surge protection etc. Which is wonderful if you are actively using something. But there's really no need to have that power being used if you have the item turned off anyway. 

Or any of the now myriad things that have little power indicator lights, power on/off lights, etc. In fact those lights drive me crazy when they glow in the dark, so even if I am using something, I generally cover them up with a bit of electrical tape. Light pollution is a separate issue, but it really does bother me in my own home, so I just hide them all. 

Now of course there are a few things that you probably do want power going to even when you are not actively using them. Like an answering machine/phone if you have a landline phone. A smoke detector, which is why they almost always have batteries too even if it is one that is hard wired. And such. But for many things, what that phantom draw is doing is keeping the device actually on standby mode and not fully powered off, even if you thought you turned it off. This often allows a faster start up, but are those few extra seconds worth 10% or more of your power bill to you? 

If you really want to know exact numbers, you can buy something like this little meter and measure the draw for each device. https://amzn.to/3cJd3zD  But I see no reason to do so, especially since we're trying to save money here. What I do personally, is just unplug every single thing, every single time I'm not actively using it. In my tiny house this is really simple as I only have a handful of things that plug in and use power anyway. A laptop, desktop, phone charger, kitchen aid mixer, fridge, tiny vacuum and camera battery chargers pretty much total my electric appliances. Occasionally there's some other random thing like the power pack for a drill, but I just don't use that many things powered by electric. Though the ones are I do are super handy and I do enjoy the luxury of that little bit of power use in my life. 

Handy bonus tip, if you ever have to drive anywhere in a vehicle, you can probably charge your phone, camera batteries, etc. with the spare power, otherwise wasted, that is created by the running alternator using a cigarette lighter or adaptor. This is what I normally do so those things are almost never plugged into the house anyway. 

If you have lots more electrical items than I do, it might take more time to unplug every single item every time. Especially if there are things you use all together such as a TV, DVR, speaker, and cable box, or a computer, printer, scanner, and internet connection, or a coffee maker, toaster, and any other breakfast appliances, one easy solution can be to plug all those things into a simple power bar like one of these https://amzn.to/350TkJ4 and then you can just flip the switch on it, or physically unplug that one cord. This can also reduce wear and tear on cords, cables, and plugs. Of course, be sure to properly shut down things before just pulling the plug, but assuming that's been done, physically unplugging those devices when not in use can save a lot of electricity use. And even reduce the risk of fires started by overheating electrical items. 

The power draw varies widely with the device, when and how it was manufactured, and it's features. Some TVs for instance, left plugged in while turned off, use as much power as running a refrigerator. For some examples, again calculated by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, check this out. Find their full list of appliances at https://standby.lbl.gov/data/summary-table/

  

I highly recommend reading through their whole list to see what the biggest potential power wasters you might have are. Or here's another slightly less detailed and more visual chart for some devices - https://www.ji.com.au/standbyenergy/

Then if you want to get really into this on a whole 'nother level, here is a secret about another thing I do. I unplug the entire house from the power source when I go to bed. For me, this just means pulling the plug that connects the battery bank to the rest of the tiny house. If you are on grid power instead, it would mean something like flipping the main breaker. And since those breakers are not designed to be turned on and off regularly like a light switch, you'd want to look into wiring in a switch that is designed for that purpose. But I won't get into that here. For me there is no downside, I'm not needing to use power at night for anything as even my little fridge/freezer stays plenty cold till I awaken and plug the power back in to the house. It cuts just a little more from my overall power use. And my body which we now know has a lot of electrical signals that are used at a cellular level, gets to rest, sleep, and do most of it's rebuilding and repair work with no interference from any other electrical items, even wiring that runs through the walls. Just to plant a little thought in the back of your brain for consideration at some point. 😊

Back to our ghost power draw, some folks have described to me saving 25% or more on their power bills by just unplugging everything not in use, so why not give it a try? I'd love to hear in a month or so if you notice a difference!