Showerthought: My home energy audit turned into a month-long hunt for phantom power drains.

I got a smart meter installed in January and was shocked to see our house using 200 watts even with everything 'off'. It took me four weekends of unplugging things one by one to find it was an old cable box and a gaming console on standby. Has anyone else had a single sneaky appliance wreck their efficiency goals?

3 comments

3 Comments

jade_jenkins13d ago

Ever have a vampire device so old you forgot it existed? My ancient VCR was pulling more juice than my fridge.

markh8513d ago

My old cable box was the culprit too, so I just plugged it into a smart plug to kill the power automatically.

grays1313d ago

Yeah, that smart plug trick is solid. I did the same with my old DVD player after seeing it glow all night. It's crazy how those little boxes just suck power for no reason.