Daily Energy Saving Tips - Phantom Energy Loads

I was in the middle of putting together a Class Presentation this morning for Lone Star College and thought it could be fun to put together a list of Daily Energy Saving Tips for a Week or Two.

With Summer time coming, get ready for those Electric Bills to skyrocket!!

In your home, there are a ton of Little Things to do (besides changing your light bulbs) that can help you reduce your bill. With this being the first day, let's start with something easy. It shouldn't even take 10 minutes to do.

Phantom Energy Loads - We have a bunch of little things plugged in all the time. Like our Coffee Pot. We can set it to automatically turn off if we forget but the truth is, even when it is off - It is still using Electricity. The majority of Electrical Devices pull what is called a phantom or vampire load when it's off.

Are you a Technology junkie? This will probably help you the most then. Let's take a look at some things we often forget about because these items can be as much as 5% of your Energy bill.

• Ipod Charger
• Laptop Charger
• Cell Phone Charger
• TV's in rooms that we don't use
• Cable Boxes
• Coffee Pots
• Toasters
• Chargers for Electric Drills or other tools
• Electric Toothbrushes or Razors

In an average family of 4 with Technology based items being popular, with 4 cell phones and 4 Ipods, it is pulling quite a bit of energy. Before you leave the house, just go unplug all of them.

If you have little kids, assign one to be the 'Energy Police' for the week. Let them be Mom or Dad's little helper and have them remind you about it.

To learn a little more about Phantom Energy Loads, here is a short article on Treehugger about it.