Minimizing household energy consumption

I try to become more and more energy conscious nowadays.  I think it's important to minimize our resource consumption to save the environment.

A couple months ago I bought a power consumption meter and I've done a number of measurements.  I was only interested in quantitive amounts, that's why the some descriptions are inexact.  Here they are:

Videoton Precision 2000 - 56 cm diameter CRT TV

• idle: 4W
• powered on, dark screen: 65W
• powered on, bright screen: 85W

noisy (a PC of mine)

• idle, wake on LAN ready: 6W
• powered on, idle CPU: 104W
• powered on, busy CPU: 120W

LG Flatron F700P - 17'' CRT monitor

• idle: 0.4W
• dark screen: 77W
• bright screen: 95W

Videoton Waltham TS 3343 - 53 cm diameter CRT TV

• idle: 1.5W
• blank screen: 50W
• bright screen: 60W

Sony DVP-NS32 - DVD player (you shouldn't buy this piece of sh*t)

• enabled: 7W
• audio cd playing: 9W
• divx playing: 10W

Technics SA-GX130 - stereo synthesizer receiver + 2x big loudspeakers (don't ask how big)

• idle: 1W
• not so loud: 19W
• pretty loud: 40W

Toaster:  725W

Grundig P45-342CTI - 42 cm diameter CRT TV

• idle: 12W
• blank screen: 60W
• bright screen: 80W

My mother's halogen lamp: 26W

Pirelli DISCUS DRG A225G - all-in-one broadband DSL router

• powered on: 7W
• DSL link up: +1W
• active phone call: +1W

ASUS WL-500GPV2 - DSL router

• idle CPU: 2.2W
• busy CPU: ???W

Samsung 204B - TFT monitor

• idle: 0.7W
• powered on: 22W

Water pump that circulates the water for the house heating system: 44W

Goldstar ER-3520D - microwave owen: 830W

ENERGY SAVING TIPS

• Try to avoid to generate heat using electricity because it draws a vast amount of power.
• PCs are power hungry due to their inefficient power supply, so it's better to use laptops.
• Use compact fluorescent lamps instead of incandescent light bulbs.  They are being replaced in the EU anyways.
• You can keep your CRT TVs because in spite LCD TVs are power efficient per-inch wise, they're also larger than CRTs, so they're usually more power hungry in overall.  Plasma TVs are very power hungry on the other hand. LED TVs are the most power efficient, but it'll take some time for their prices to drop.  It's probably worth waiting for them.
• You should absolutely replace your CRT monitors with an LCD.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 24th, 2009 at 00:57 and is filed under Sustainable Development. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.