Apr 19 2010
A Step-By-Step Guide to Finding Phantom Loads
When you get your electricity bill, do you find yourself wondering why it’s so high (apart from the obvious rate increases, that is)? It’s not like you’re doing more loads of laundry or running the dishwasher more often, yet you can’t seem to account for the amount of electricity the bill shows you’ve been using.
The answer could well lie in what are known as phantom, or standby, loads. This step-by-step guide will help you find your phantom loads and explain where all that electricity’s going.
Are They Some Kind Of Ghostly Apparition?
OK, first things first. Before you can fix something, you have to know what it is you’re fixing. Same thing with phantoms. So, let’s do a sort of DNA analysis of just what it is we’re looking for.
What does “load” mean in this instance? A load in electrical terms is basically anything that runs off a circuit. So, once you plug something into a socket, that becomes a load, because it interrupts the circuit’s flow.
If you have something that’s controlled by a remote control, chances are that’s a standby load. Standby means that, even though the device or appliance is turned off, it’s standing by, using energy to stay in the ready state for when the “on” button’s pressed so it can spring immediately into life. And it’s that standing by that’s drawing the power, resulting in a phantom.
Other examples are devices which have a digital display or are in a constant state of charge, such as a DVD player, cordless phone, microwave oven, etc.
What About The Rest?
These are examples that are fairly easy to spot. But, others are much more elusive and tricky to track down. So, how do we go about finding them?
It’s time to get down and get dirty! To find out just what is costing you how much, you’ll need to arm yourself with a pen or pencil, a notepad, a calculator and a digital power meter (fairly inexpensive and simple to use). First, find appliances that have remote controls, digital displays or external power sources (such things as cell phone chargers, or any other device that needs a wall cube like that), and these are good bets for standby losses. Then, follow these steps:
- Unplug the device to be tested
- Plug the power meter into that outlet
- Plug the device into the power meter
- Set the power meter display to watts
- Note the wattage when the device is a) turned off, b) turned on and c) in use
- Take the wattage noted and multiply by 24 or by the amount of time the device is not being used each day
Spend an hour or so tracking your phantoms down, and the amount of energy you lose may scare you more than any Phantom of The Opera could!
Follow this step-by-step guide to finding phantom loads and do yourself and the environment a big favour.
Grab your FREE report, and much more information about finding phantom loads and becoming more energy efficient by clicking on the only solar power resource you’ll need. Ray Boreham suggests you’ll find a wealth of information and tips on solar and renewable energy at http://www.all-you-need-is-solar.com/
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