[Closed] Do you turn your tv off?

Haha what a crock of.... I'd rather pay the extra few quid a year on my bill and be able to just down and use the remote 😉

One of the features on my TV is "Full Power Down Option," complete with a little branding logo for the feature.

It's an on/off switch.

Mine uses less than 1w on stand-by. Not a big issue.

I have some E-On plug that has an IR receive...it knows when I've put the TV on standby then turns the power to the TV off completely after about 10 seconds.

some of them.

why bother inventing the remote control if you still have to go over to it to turn it on and off?

I have this device my old man bought me so when I put a device on standby it cuts complete power till an infra red remote triggers it on and saves me a few quid a year too.

Can't remember what they're called but saves power and good for the U.K. and environment!

RealMan, is this thread a subtle way of discerning which of us are fit cycling enthusiasts and which of us are overweight IT working bike enthusiasts? Clever.

Ours is on a cheap-as-chips timer so it's only on standby in the evenings and completely off the rest of the time. Not quite as super efficient as all these clever gadgets but a lot cheaper!

of course I switch it off - in a thunder storm the lightning can come down the aerial and blow it up otherwise 😛

Mine uses less than 1w on stand-by. Not a big issue.

Pretty sure these timer and remote stand-by units still use power 24 hrs. Modern TVs have pretty good low power stand-by modes anyway, maybe if you have an old TV its worthwhile.

I switch not only the telly off but also the microwave when not in use.

We also don't sit in a house in the middle of winter with T-shirts on because the heating is switched way up high either, higher than you would have it in summer. There are 3 water butts in the garden etc.
The list is endless to what I do to try and help our envoirenment, but if people aren't interested and it doesn't suit them, they won't give a flying fig.

However I would never blow someone up 🙂

However I would never blow someone up....

Not even with a homemade, sustainable, eco-freindly compost bomb?

Do you also leave the car engine running, while it is sat on the driveway all the time

The average car uses plenty of power just sat on the drive if it has remote central locking and an alarm. Do you disconnect the battery? TV stand-by is a popular target but in reality makes little difference. There are much better things to unplug (like the microwave as above)

Lol @ TSY

Mine [& everything else with it] goes off at the wall socket

I've seen at least 3 fires caused by faulty TVs, for the sake of 2 seconds, I can't see why not do it

Had an Amstrad tv a while ago, camer in one day when it was left on standby, just as smoke started coming out the back, it appeared the transformer had overheated ,a common problem then, and possibly now, luckily i threw a balnket over it and carried it outside , before it burst into flames.

Switch mine off whenever not in use. Bit odd if you want to watch it and can't wander across to switch it on before sitting down on sofa. Do all of you that have yours on standby have Jimmy Saville chairs with built in teasmaid for when you fancy a brew?

The last time I turned my TV off was in 2001. Then I unplugged it and took it to the tip.

Can't see me ever owning another one.

We did some tests of various bits of electrical gear round the house last year, modern TV's on standby use nack all energy. Not even worth thinking about. Plasma TV's don't use much more energy then LCD, dispite all the negative press about them. It's heating and boiling kettles that use the power, but the enviromental brigade don't really get excited about them, because there is nothing to be jelous about someone owning a kettle.

It's rarely on. I have a Cathode Ray Tube TV and I'm fairly sure it sucks electrons in standby. I have noticed that the digibox stays warm in standby. Everything goes through two wall switches so it is easy enough to fire everything up or down when needed. One day I might get a small LCD TV with a built in digibox.

I'm with [b]Bunnyhop[/b] here, anything with a little green or red light gets turned off overnight, Mrstubing calls me the power-nazi!

The average car uses plenty of power just sat on the drive if it has remote central locking and an alarm. Do you disconnect the battery?

Even at 1 watt on standby a device costs around £1.05p to run for a year, if you start adding it up in an average house, it soon turns into a significant amount.

It can sit there for a good few moths before the battery goes completely flat. (talking from experience)

I agree, its an insignificant amount, much like the stand-by drain on a modern TV. That was the point 🙂

errrr, see Dibbs post above

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The thing is that the reason there's a lot of waste about is that most people do think "ah, it's only a little bit". Sure it is, but lots of little bits add up to a lot. It's just a case of how much you're willing to contribute to the problem I suppose. I turn most stuff off because I dislike paying people for nothing. Things of note:

TV - standby - 1W
Digi box - 11W
Humax - 20-30W depending on recording or not
Wii - 40W turned off.
Hifi - 10W just to have the clock displayed.
Router 20W
Oven 5w (clock)
Microwave (didn't register on the tester).
By far the most surprising is PCs. Even turned off (not even in standby) a PC uses upward of 10W if it remains plugged in. The PSU sits there idly consuming power for no good reason.

By far the biggest use is not TV in our house. We average 7-8KWh a day in elec, the things that constitute the majority of that are washing machine/drier and stuff on standby. Watching TV in the evening adds about 500Wh, everything on standby has a base consumption of about 4KWh/day.

I think plenty of people think the "greenies" have some sort of jealousy problem or just are out to spoil peoples fun. Well you're allowed your opinion. I'm a fairly techy person, I like my computers, I like my gadgets, I like my petrol drinking cars. However I work in the field of renewables (actually waste energy harvesting) and daily work with the figures of just how much power we waste in various disguises. It really is pretty shocking, and the more I work in the field the more I realise I've no excuse - I can see the figures, I can see the problems and I can see I'm part of the cause.

The majority of energy expenditure is in space heating and transport. However vast quantities of elec are wasted in general tat on standby, so any move to reduce such waste is a good thing. However I'm not sure the end user should be the one targetted here - people don't change easily, and we've a tendency to be very wasteful. It's really not hard at all for the vast majority of the household goods that waste megawatts per year (combined) to be dropped to <1W consumption in standby. Very few items require more than that, a change of display method from VFD to LCD, using smarter power supplies rather than dumb power hungry ones. Businesses could make a huge difference with little extra cost.

A few months ago we got an energy meter, I went round the house and discovered that just turning off the DVD player and the Wii (never used anyway) saved me 3p an hour...about half of my 'always on' power consumption. Thats 72p per day, and I can't quite believe that I've done my sums right, but that works out at £65 per quarter. The TV on the other hand, didn't really make any difference.

Its the 'always on' power where you will make the savings, you don't have to actively save power, just work out where its all going for the 16 hours you are either out of the house or asleep. Bit like a dripping bath tap...its only a tiny amount of water but the bath will still be half full if you leave the plug in during the day.

I bet the Sky+ box and Router are costing me a fortune, and I just bought a network hard drive that is a pain to turn off (hold down a very hard to push button for 5 seconds)

I'm pretty sure I've left one of the burners on, on the gas hob today. Not very energy conscious but the house should be toasty when I get in 🙂

lol^^^

im bad for all, everything stays on standby unless i go on holiday.

my laptop is on 24/7 and i only turn it off for updates which i do once a month for maybe 2 minutes.

im an impatient person and want something to instantly work. i dont care about paying said 70p per day or even £2 a day as long as i have the convenience to just start it instantly.

your car wont last months btw if you have a tracker fitted 😉 all depends on what systems you have and are running just like in your house 😉

TV, Sky box, microwave, stereo, router/wifi box and PC all get powered off at night. I dont use them overnight so why would I need them on standby??

When I am going to be away for more than one day I also switch off central heating, hot water, again not a requirement if I am not going to be about.

nuke - Member

I have some E-On plug that has an IR receive...it knows when I've put the TV on standby then turns the power to the TV off completely after about 10 seconds.

This

Although since moving the furniture i've had to resort to standing upo and turning it off.

It's so hard, i cant believe how hard it is to do. I must have to move at least 3 ft.

Mine uses less than 1w on stand-by. Not a big issue.

Not for your bill perhaps. But it all adds up to a huge amount nationally, never mind globally.

Wiki suggests that appliances left on standby in the USA waste 18 whole power stations' worth of power all the time.

Our TV etc are all on one power strip that gets turned off at the wall every night. Must set something up for the wifi router too.

i dont care about paying said 70p per day or even £2 a day

Shame it's not just about the money, isn't it?

Mine uses less than 1w on stand-by. Not a big issue.

True. I just throw my rubbish into a field in't countryside. S'only a little bit, so it's not an issue.

Sheesh, these bloody do-gooder environmentalists eh? FFS.

TV - standby - 1W

Both TV's in our house measured c. 0.15w.

We've recently got one of the British Gas electricity monitors, and I've noticed that when I get up in the morning the display is showing between 0.2 & 0.3 kwh before I start switching things on. So far I've been too lazy to track down the culprits but this thread has spurred me into action.
0.25 kw x 365 x 24 x 12p = £262.80 per year before we start switching appliances on. 😳

Mine uses less than 1w on stand-by. Not a big issue

Not for your bill perhaps. But it all adds up to a huge amount nationally, never mind globally.

My point was that TV stand-by is an insignificant mount for me [b]less than[/b] 1w. If you actually want to do some good then look at other appliances (Oven, Wifi, PC) where stand-by really can make a difference. Or better yet look at your lifestyle and make some real changes. The problem with token gestures like un-plugging a TV is that they make people feel green when they aren't. Don't get me started on re-cycling 🙂

http://www.bikeradar.com/news/article/new-world-record-for-bicycle-generated-electricity-28021
[i]
a group of 500 cyclists who gathered at Manchester Velodrome on Friday for an event organised by Soreen, the fruity malt loaf company.

Their aim? To generate as much electricity as possible in 24 hours using static bicycles.......generating around 72,414 watt hours (this still has to be officially confirmed)[/i]

So around 72kWh (*edited* 🙂 )

Power gadgets yourself and you soon appreciate how blinded we are to what we use!

Ah, this is also about the 10:10 film (or was!)
It's on Youtube and is damn funny.

72kwh not 7kwh, we use around 20 to 25 kwh per day here. 😥

Is that Scully? Blimey...

I think I actually fancy her more as a mousey schoolteacher. 😯

EDIT: No it's not her. I thought 'cos it said 'starring' Gillian Anderson', that she was the schoolteacher. Little viewer window din't help.

No, she's doing the voice over at the end.

Trouble is, I now want her to be a mousey little schoolteacher. All prim and proper....

Oooohh....

Time for a lie down? But Nurse, it's not even dark yet....

Dibbs - Member
No, she's doing the voice over at the end.

Her eyeballs are sliding down the window at the end 🙂

The problem with token gestures like un-plugging a TV is that they make people feel green when they aren't.

So does that mean we shouldn't do it in case people accuse us of tokenism?

i leave everything on standby. It may use 1w of power, but 100% of that power is distributed as heat (or light, which is absorbed by things around it, and converted to heat) which in turn reduces my heating bill. You can't have inefficient generators of heat, so if you had electric heating the cost would be 0.

I have gas, which is cheaper to generate heat from than electricity, but frankly i'm too lazy to get up to turn the tv on, and i earn enough money to spend it on my laze.

It may use 1w of power, but 100% of that power is distributed as heat (or light, which is absorbed by things around it, and converted to heat) which in turn reduces my heating bill.

However you are mostly heating the house at night and when you are out at work (if you are) which is pretty pointless. Plus the heat ends up in one corner of your living room too (typically) which is also daft.

and i earn enough money to spend it on my laze

I'm amazed people can't think beyond the money issues.

So does that mean we shouldn't do it in case people accuse us of tokenism?

Yes, if by doing it you think 'I'm doing my bit' so don't actually go on and do something that actually could make a difference. If it is part of a proper regime of energy saving then by all means do it.

Right, but posts along those lines LOOK like you're saying it's pointless to even bother, which it's not. It's exactly the kind of argument people use to avoid having to do anything.

well, a gas fired power station creates 350g co2 per kwh, a coal one around 950. So lets say 750g/kwh as a generous blend.

a typical car uses around 160g/km of co2 per km - around 250g/mile

my tv uses 0.5w on standby. so approx 4.5 kwh per year. That means that if I avoid one single round trip of 6.5 miles each way in my car, I've saved as much carbons as I put out leaving the tv on standby.

Frankly, the best way to save the world is to not have kids. An extra 2 humans in the world will use far more power (especially in the next generation) than you could ever save in yours. Yet I'm not going to not have kids to save the world, so I may as well not turn the tv off.

An extra 2 humans in the world will use far more power (especially in the next generation) than you could ever save in yours

How do you know that?

Yet I'm not going to not have kids to save the world, so I may as well not turn the tv off.

Well done 5lab, good [s]post[/s] attitude 😐

If we all thought like you there may not be a world for future children, thought of that one?

a group of 500 cyclists who gathered at Manchester Velodrome on Friday for an event organised by Soreen, the fruity malt loaf company.

my tv uses 0.5w on standby. so approx 4.5 kwh per year. That means that if I avoid one single round trip of 6.5 miles each way in my car, I've saved as much carbons as I put out leaving the tv on standby.

What that should show you is how damaging driving is, rather than TV standby not mattering.

The fact is that standby power does waste a lot of power, for no real benefit. Not rocket science.

Yet I'm not going to not have kids to save the world, so I may as well not turn the tv off.

The thing that really winds me up about this is that people keep thinking in relative terms. X is worse than Y, so Y therefore doesn't matter.

We need to reduce everywhere we can. Do you not realise that lots of little things add up to big things?

(And let me stress again that I am making an ACADEMIC argument. I am not trying to pretend that I am better than anyone else, because I'm not.)

ok well lets compare it to something else.

The average human breathes out 900g of co2 per day. With an average life expectancy of 79.9 years, that's 26 TONNES of Co2 per lifetime. Just through breathing, not even including the co2 produced by the food we eat, the warmth we require, and so on.

in fact, just breathing for 3 days is going to use more co2 than leaving your tv on standby for a year.

Yeah well the trees have got used to us breathing over the years -

Breathing doesn't liberate CO2 from underground though does it.

ok well lets compare it to something else.

No, let's not. Comparisons are meaningless. Total amount is what's important. There's no point in NOT turning your TV off when it's so easy. Solving the world's transports issues is a very difficult problem that ties in economies and people's lifestyles, and will take a lifetime to change if it can be done at all.

Turning your TV off at the wall is the flick of a switch, literally. So do it.

The average human breathes out 900g of co2 per day

Which ultimately comes from the atmosphere. The carbon footprint of food is of course greater than that, which is why it's important to buy local food.

Doesn't sound like you really understand the issues. It's ALL important.

Breathing is essential for life, leaving your tv on standby is not.

_________________ pahhhhh, aahh, huh, aahh-huh, ahh hus, ju, just held my bre.. breath for 90 seconds, huuuhah huhhh.

How many more minutes until I've off-set a flight to NYC?

For all you people that don't turn things off at night, why don't you do the sums, save some money and then treat yourself to some nice shiny bike bits. It seems to me that you are throwing money down the drain that could go towards some cool anodised bike parts.

Do a deal with your self that all the money you save you treat on yourself. If you did it on the quiet the wife wouldn't even notice!!

heh, I'm not winning this one, but I'll keep going (why not)

what about the energy cost of getting up to turn your tv off?

if you weigh 180 lbs (approx right for me) a brisk walk uses 5.5 calories a minute. lets say that standing up, walking to the tv, turning it on, and walking back to your chair takes around 30 seconds, of similar output (it takes less time, but standing up, and bending down to fiddle around at the sockets is harder than just walking around). so 2.5 calories each time. The food intake of a average person is 2000 calories a day, the co2 output from breathing is 900 g of co2, so each calorie burned is 0.45g of co2. So every time you turn the tv on, or off, its going to cost you just over a gram of co2. If you leave your tv on standby all day, the cost (of my tv, at a rather hungry 0.5w) is using about 10g co2 per day, so if you turn your tv on more than 5 times a day (I probably do if you count all the tvs in my house), its actually better to use the remote.

on the same kinda basis, how bad for the environment is cycling as a hobby? all those big meals after a ride don't come for free

what about the energy cost of getting up to turn your tv off?

Lol! One of the very best examples of detailed straw-clutching I have ever seen.. chapeau 🙂

The impact of cycling is an interesting one. If you are then able to cycle to work every day then that's great. If it just makes you live longer and eat more food, then I am guessing it has a negative impact. Plus the energy cost of making all those bikes...

What I want to know is why all gym equipment isn't fitted with dynamos or something...

Up and down the country, each day their must be millions of people working away like rats on spinning bikes and eliptical trainiers etc. At the very least they could capture this energy to power the treadmills?

5lab - your theory only works if you never walk psat your tv on the way to the place that you'll watch it from, and if your remote is always in the place that you sit?
Imagine the carbon conundrum if your remote is on a seat further away from you than the actual tv!

Some gym stuff is powered by your own effort, and not plugged in. Makes sense to me.

There was also a gym in the news a while back that was entirely powered by the people inside it. Bit of a one-off tho.

Imagine a velodrome powered by the riders - the bikes would have to be held stationary, and the track revolve underneath them. Sweet 🙂

For all you people that don't turn things off at night, why don't you do the sums, save some money and then treat yourself to some nice shiny bike bits.

your theory only works if you never walk psat your tv on the way to the place that you'll watch it from, and if your remote is always in the place that you sit?

Are people really so lazy they can't be arsed switching their tellies off? 😯

It's Obese Britian. No wonder you're all so fayt. 🙄

And they call it progress

My god most peopple walk PAST their tvs when they enter/leave the room. It takes literally no effort to press the button.

Sometimes people take energy saving to far trying to impose it on other people but some things are just a huge waste.