Articles - How much does it cost to run your electrical items: you may be shocked

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How about over £200 for a TV if left on 24/7?

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Really good article. I'm amazed how much it costs to run a high end computer 24/7 :surprised:.

damn, i'm not surprised now actually, we recently got a gas and electric bill, i think it was around 600 quid :-| I think we're going to buy the eco eye.

Good article, I'll look at investing in an eco eye to show my parents how much electricity is wasted around the house leaving the lights on upstairs etc. Could be handy for university as well :)

damnn! that seriously is too much. but mine is pretty much stable, thank god. maybe im mostly at work and living alone.?

Really good article, I would be really interested to know what it costs to play my xbox 360, say per half hour, as in order to do that I have to have the TV (old CRT 28" jobby) and my seperates surround system on (3 amps running).

Thing is it is not something that I could 'save' money on as in order to use it they have to be on, there is no standby etc so I would never recoup the cost of an eco-eye, they would just be a purchase for intrigues sake!

I put in a order for eco-eye and a plug meter for individual appliances, going to see if we can get the usage and cost down.

Well I use an xps M1330 as my main system so I was happy to see that on the list being nice and cheap to run :) I also run my 20" monitor though so goes up by about double lol

Well i use my system about 9 hours a day but it runs about 3 hours load and 4hours idle(basic web browsing). My system isnt a energy hog either with just an e8400+ 9800GTX, from reviews it seems better performing systems(with 9800GTx) consumed about 100w idle and 210w load so i worked out that it costs me about £50 a year for it running at a cost of 10p per KWh which i believe is the correct price for me as we get charged less the more we use :).
Will be grabbing one of those power monitors though when they are around a 5er because £10 is alot when i can do it in my head xD. I think sky and virgin boxes are the killers as THEY force you to keep them on standby(unless you unplug/switch off at mains) as the button puts them on standby which is stupid.

I didnt know brightness affected power usage so much on tv's, i have a 22" LG tv which is only 50/100 as standard(better than sony aye :P).

Cheers for the thread, good stuff.

I'm going to look into the brightness setting for my LCD TV ~ I never thought of that so thanks for the heads up!

One small thing I do regularly is to unplug any charging equipment that's not actively being used e.g. my AA battery charger, sat nav and mobile phone chargers, I've read that these can still consume energy just sitting there and not doing anything. It might just be a few ££s a year but when you have lots of small things like this it soon adds up!

I am a low end user. Most of my time is on a laptop and I work over 40 hours a week, my g/f also works 40 hour a week so we are only really watching TV etc for a few hours a week. I play on my gaming PC once a week and have a Mini ITX atom based server running for 16 hours a day (HDDs spin down after 20 mins and the boot drive is a CF card.)

I go through about £10 a week or £520 a year.

The back of my TV reads 569W, that hurts. :crazy:

well worth getting a meter - I do it with everything I buy, so I know the running costs.

My AV stack is old tech..21" CRT, digibox, Technika DVD player, Wii..on 2 hours or so a day, uses a total of 110watts maximum. All on multiways, so I turn it off when not in use - even if you "turn off" an LCD/Video/TV, it's not necessarily off..I've got Dell TFTs that still eat 9 watts of power when turned off at the front. Awful.

Looked at my A rated fridge and freezer - together, they'll cost about £45/year to run according to the meter over 24 hours. Not bad. My PC is built using the AMD64 X2 EE chip etc, with a 19" TFT - it's not a power hog, but again it goes off at the mains when not in use. Soft-off/ATX off is useless.

I could recommend an intelliplug or one of the clones that are out there - they seem to work quite well and are more automatic than switching it off by hand.

With the TV, dual core PC in use nightly, missus dualcore laptop in use the same etc, turning it all off when not in use, my power bill is £5 a week..:) Can't beat that with a stick.

Even got my router on a cheap timeswitch - only on when we're home. Better for security too!

I worked out my Humax PVR uses much more electricity per day for the time I'm not using it (on standby all day) than when I am (a few hours watching TV per week). It is now on a simple plug in timer so it's only on standby in the evening.

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Originally Posted by Tidus

The back of my TV reads 569W, that hurts. :crazy:

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Ouch! Which model is that?

Personally I just learnt to unplug/switch off my appliances after use. Its not too hard to get into the habit and you can then save £30 on one of units that does it for you.

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Originally Posted by Tarinder

Ouch! Which model is that?

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Panasonic (TH-50PZ70B) it's a 50" Plasma so I knew it would be high but that is still a suprise, this is a Full HD set and was not a cheap so you'd think there'd be some power saving features. After a quick look through the "operating instructions" as Panasonic calls them, under power consumtion you get Average Use (569 W) and Standby Condition (0.5 W).

I think I'll have to get a power monitor and see how it "averages out" myself.

Phew, my TV 'only' eats 240W when operating ;)

wow, some scary figures there. Great article!

You haven't said what version Xbox you tested, the Jasper uses considerably less electricity than the Xenon for example.

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Originally Posted by Anth

You haven't said what version Xbox you tested, the Jasper uses considerably less electricity than the Xenon for example.

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Yup, you're right. It's the Falcon, bought in October 2008.

Remember that nearly all of that used electricity ends up as heat which keeps your house roasty-toasty, saving your central heating from kicking in as often.

What you spend on the swings, you save on the roundabouts (with the UK climate anyway!)

:)

Talking about swings and roundabouts, the extra heat is a boon in winter, but noisome in summer.

Zak has gone into great deapth about this electricity usage vs heat production topic :)

No electricity bills for me =D My accommodation fees cover it- unlimited =D

it's become obsession for me :(

BUt I'm pleased to say that a PS2 or a Wii uses under 35w full tilt, and the very fact that I now that is sad, but it's good....

gaming is cheap on those two consoles :)

Also worth getting one of these, so much easier than pulling the plugs out! http://www.ebuyer.com/product/130425 http://cpc.farnell.com/jsp/search/pr...?sku=PL0920487 http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Produc...+EXTENSION.htm

Couple of things as I'm very obsessed with leccy usage too.

1) It would be nice if you do this article to do a standby wattage article for appliances especially.
Some appliances were notorious for only switching off the display and consuming virtually the same amount of electricity

2) If we are all serious about this, I think it would be good to add this to every appliance review. Power draw is a serious issue and it would be nice if reviewers did as you did for all kit, so for example mobile phone, watts to recharge, + power consumption of a charger left it with no phone. Some of these things may be negligible, but highlighting these issues stops manufacturers cutting the wrong corners.

3) I'm amazed at the C2D power usage. Pehaps rather than saying C2D usage nowadays we should always specufy GPU as well as its the combination that generates the power draw. I've always focused on minimal power PCs as most are idle. And for the last few years I've measure the output. For example I've just built 2 mini ITX workstations which are based on AMD X25600+/4GB DDR2 800/120GB 2.5" HD/780G chipset. draw when running memtest 80W. I can't wait to load XP and do some more testing with C&Q enabled. I've also just build an i7 920/X58/6GB DDR3 1600/4x 1TB system and without the drives, power on draw is 100W and memtest draw is 130W. I am very pleased with both figures. It also makes me wonder why people say 500W minimum power supply.If you are building a server and not overclocking, then not only is it a waste of money to put in 800W, but it will lead to inefficient PSU use as using PSUs at less than 50% load can mean dropping quite badly on their efficiency curve.

Perhaps hexus could do an article on right sizing a PSU. There would be lot of meat in such an article to make sure one allowed for the right loading, ie I try and make a machine with 60-80% load, as this provides a good balance of efficiency, headroom for expansion, headroom for inrush demands, quietness (fully loaded = fan on max) and efficiency (efficiency curves are best at 80-90% generally)

Cheers

Rajiv

The meters i ordered actually arrived this morning! Only thing is, i need to find out how much the charge for elec (kw per hour) to program them correctly, should be on the bill yes?

Should be, or just ring your provider.

I'm just used to turning my xbox/tv/sky+ off at night or when we're out for the day, no need for a device to tell me what they'd use when I turn them off anyway :cool:

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An average reading was calculated after running the appliance for two minutes.

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Tarinder, don't you think a longer test is necessary to get it reasonably accurate. E.g. a fridge doesn't have the cooling mechanism running 24/7 but it will for the first 2 minutes after turning it on (if turning on from warm, or the converse if turning on from cold)

My PC draws from the wall ~200w at idle and 300-370w when running a Game. That is: Athlon 64 4000+ @ 2.7, 2gb PC4000, Asus A8N SLI Premium, 600gb (2x320gb SATA), XFX GTX260 XXX, Seasonic X900 PSU, Thermaltake Tsunami Dream, Samsung 275T LCD. Overvolting the CPU to get the overclock increses the electricity use. Overclocking is bad for your leccy bills! Plus about 30 to 50w for the Z5500 speakers on top of that! It all even uses about 27w including the modem/router and speakers when supposedly turned off, so I use a switched extension lead to turn off whatever I'm not using at the time at the plug. So leaving it on 'standby' for a year would cost about £30.

This thread is very relevant to me just now, as I put £70 in the key meter today to see me though Feb. Most of that goes on heating, as I don't have gas, but stuff like my PC makes a contribution!

On the bright side, running all my systems save me money from NOT using the boiler. Taking in the boiler / circulation efficiency then it is not so bad.

My bill averages to 45 quids a month (per person) which isn't bad consider one of my flatmate always keep the boiler at maximum AND run an additional 600W electric heater. His window is leaky and he keeps his room at 25'C (Mine is 19-ish). He only run 2 laptops in contrast. I feel sad for my another flatmate who run 1 laptop and heater on low.

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Originally Posted by SiM

Tarinder, don't you think a longer test is necessary to get it reasonably accurate. E.g. a fridge doesn't have the cooling mechanism running 24/7 but it will for the first 2 minutes after turning it on (if turning on from warm, or the converse if turning on from cold)

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Agree with this. I've the exact same wattmeter and certainly for some lower wattage usage I'd leave it plugged in for at least an hour to get anything approaching what I'd call accurate and could more confidently extrapolate from. Extrapolating a 2 minute reading into an annual figure is definitely salt pinching time.

This is why people should switch off there pc's at night. I know alot of people who don't and its probably costing them loads.

£50-70 annually for running my TV everyday .... Total bargain and money well spent.

We both now use laptops anyway ... Just need to check how much the router and printer uses - cant be much. I am not going around flipping switches three to four time a day just to save 20-30 quid a year.

I think I will definitely get myself the Eco-Eye mentioned in the article .... I'm curious now.

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Originally Posted by Lyall3s1

Really good article. I'm amazed how much it costs to run a high end computer 24/7 :surprised:.

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Agree with that. Indicated my thanks to Tarinder.

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Originally Posted by SamanthaCarter

No electricity bills for me =D My accommodation fees cover it- unlimited =D

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You say that - but be careful your university (if it is a university - reasonable assumption?) may well monitor usage. Mine (RHUL) did - and they made regular checks to see if you were using things like fridges.

(I was, but intentionally bought a dark-silver one, so it, well, didn't look like a fridge.)

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Originally Posted by superscaper

Agree with this. I've the exact same wattmeter and certainly for some lower wattage usage I'd leave it plugged in for at least an hour to get anything approaching what I'd call accurate and could more confidently extrapolate from. Extrapolating a 2 minute reading into an annual figure is definitely salt pinching time.

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Funnily enough, I agree with this as well. I've updated the table to reflect the white goods after being switched on for 30 minutes. The figures are a touch lower for both, incidentally.

for fridges and freezers, I do a 24 hour run on the meter. For PCs/TVs etc, I do a 10 minute run.

When I did the living room, I got several multiways and connected them all together, plugged everything into them and plugged the 1 lead into the meter..that worked well. Also put the kettle in and made myself the ritual cuppa to simulate my typical morning usage.

My mum just had her bill - she was a bit shocked! I'm going to put labels on everything.."costs "x" per hour to run", and see what that does.

Good article. Since I've read this I've been unplugging the TV each night, which is also the plug that keeps the Xbox 360, Wii,PS3 Sky box, video and DVD player on standby 24 hours a day.

Thanks for that good article.

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Originally Posted by sirbendy

for fridges and freezers, I do a 24 hour run on the meter. For PCs/TVs etc, I do a 10 minute run.

When I did the living room, I got several multiways and connected them all together, plugged everything into them and plugged the 1 lead into the meter..that worked well. Also put the kettle in and made myself the ritual cuppa to simulate my typical morning usage.

My mum just had her bill - she was a bit shocked! I'm going to put labels on everything.."costs "x" per hour to run", and see what that does.

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You don't actually save a significant amount of money since it only take away the cheapest part of your usage.

If some want to go further to save money, perhaps run a night-shift and you pay at E7 rate :stupid:

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Originally Posted by Johnnyboy

Remember that nearly all of that used electricity ends up as heat which keeps your house roasty-toasty, saving your central heating from kicking in as often.

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Still way more expensive than using Central heating though (Gas) :)

The bill was around £300 for Jan->March and Oct->Dec. That's when it's most expensive :D

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Originally Posted by moogle

Still way more expensive than using Central heating though (Gas) :)

The bill was around £300 for Jan->March and Oct->Dec. That's when it's most expensive :D

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Yes, I believe it costs around 3 times more to heat by electric at normal prices than by gas, so using your PC to heat your home is not a good idea.

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Originally Posted by Ciber

Yes, I believe it costs around 3 times more to heat by electric at normal prices than by gas, so using your PC to heat your home is not a good idea.

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Yeap thats right. Was around 4 times as much before iirc (for me), elec at 16p and gas 4p.

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Originally Posted by Ciber

Yes, I believe it costs around 3 times more to heat by electric at normal prices than by gas, so using your PC to heat your home is not a good idea.

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Depends on how good is your house insulation. My radiator sits right next to the windows so majority of the heat go straight out of the windows. My flatmate, happens to have a leaky window, is even worse. I reckon the radiator effective efficiency is around 20% which makes it "cheaper" to use the computer as heater. And you also get some work done, for example Folding :P

His room running the radiator at maximum and boiler at 55'C is colder than my room running 400W of equipments.
http://www.simplifydiy.com/plumbing-...%20with%20fins
(This web page seems to suggest the radiator output 2680W, no idea about temperature though)

And my gas/electricity bill was £480 from Sep -> Jan... The majority goes into gas, which pretty much proved my point. That is with me not using the radiator most of the time.

I think all my systems + ext hdds + monitors adds up to 350W average.

O.o

Explains why I had a quarterly bill of £900..

Now i'm on pas-as-u-go.. which is even worse

Any ideas on how much a UPS wastes? I have a 40" LCD and PC running through a UPS for stability

I have started to unplug some of my electrical items due to high bills and bad economy.

Eco-eye costs 29.99 on ebay incl P&P

I'm not turning my PC's off!!
My wife will just have to do without the Fridge & Freezer, and those hair straighteners she has will just have to go on Ebay and she will have to learn to sleep with her hair under her pillow to keep it flat.....or something.

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Originally Posted by Gazza

I'm not turning my PC's off!!
My wife will just have to do without the Fridge & Freezer, and those hair straighteners she has will just have to go on Ebay and she will have to learn to sleep with her hair under her pillow to keep it flat.....or something.

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& what did your wife say? (Thought so.)

Wilkinson have 'Green Power Energy Tracker' meters on sale for £2.25 (75% off) I just pick one up today.

Here's a question for ye. I use my laptop more like a downstairs PC, 90% of the time plugged into the mains. Would it be better to run it plugged in like I am now, or run it from the battery and recharge it when needed?

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Originally Posted by Norky

Here's a question for ye. I use my laptop more like a downstairs PC, 90% of the time plugged into the mains. Would it be better to run it plugged in like I am now, or run it from the battery and recharge it when needed?

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Keep it plugged in (with battery removed). Battery get hot when discharged (i.e. wasting power).
Alternative you could use RMClock to tune your laptop to use minimal amount of power. (Could save 15W watching movies or folding)

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Originally Posted by Lyall3s1

Really good article. I'm amazed how much it costs to run a high end computer 24/7 :surprised:.

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Quick turn everything off before the wife see's the article and complains about the size of the leccy bill :surprised:

That really is a shock, especially on the computer usage Vs the TV. Time to start putting this thing on standby when I go to eat or whatever, at the end of the day every little saving adds up.

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Originally Posted by kyle2020

at the end of the day every little saving adds up.

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Every little helps.

HI EV1,IM NEW HERE. DOES ANYONE KNOW HOW MUCH IT COSTS TO RUN A HOME MUSIC STUDIO AT HOME AS MY SON AND I ARE CONSTANTLY IN DISPUTE OVER THE ELECTRIC BILL? PLEASE SOMEONE HELP!!! FED UP WITH THE ROWS!!!!:help:

Depends on what equipment he has.

Best way to find out is to buy one of the plug in watt meters - connect the home studio equipment through it and measure the power consumption. You can then calculate the cost per hour from the unit charge your electricity company makes.