Your Appliances are “on” even when the Switch says “off”!

Green Irene is all about saving money while going green. One easy way to save electricity is to reduce the “Vampire Power loss” in your home.

Vampire Power loss is also referred to as standby power or phantom load and it refers to the electric power consumed by appliances while they are turned off or in standby mode. Electronic devices that constantly draw electricity include those with “instant on” functions, a standby mode or remote controls. Those black box power adapters (also known as wall warts) that convert AC electricity into DC electricity, whether or not they are powering any device, consume energy, as do devices that get warm after they are plugged in for a while. Some home video game consoles (such as Sony Playstation and Microsoft XBox) can cost up to $160 per year if always left in “standby” mode whereas others (such as Nintendo Wii) are much more energy efficient.

If you scan your home for devices that fall into those categories, you will see that vampire devices quickly add up. Although each vampire power load is relatively small, the fact that the devices are continuously plugged in, and that there are 20 or more of such devices in the average household, means that the energy usage can be significant!

The only way to eliminate that power loss is to either:

1. Pull the cord out of the wall when the appliance is powered off
2. Plug it into a conventional, inexpensive, power strip and turn off the power strip, or
3. Plug it into our new brand new Conserve Energy-Saving Power Strip with Remote.

Option 1 is free.

Option 2 is cheap (perhaps $5) and good for some items in the home. For example, put your cell phone, PDA, iPod and other chargers on a cheap power strip and turn the strip off when not charging.

Option 3 is more expensive ($55), but is perfect for Entertainment centers and home office setups (i.e. computer CPU, monitor, laser printer) where people are unlikely to crawl under a desk or to the rear of an entertainment cabinet to turn off the conventional power strip while leaving on the items which do need to stay on all the time (Internet wireless router, Digital Video Recorder). Option 3 is BRAND NEW and overcomes the hurdles to saving money in your home entertainment center and home office. Every home should have at least one.

Green Irene is very focused on helping to MEASURE the savings possible from going green in a home or a small office so that you can make smart decisions about what to invest in to save money.

To battle these Vampires, Green Irene has designed a Vampire Power Loss Calculator to show the annual amount of money and electricity that are being “sucked” from your home. Your local Green Irene Eco-Consultant has a calculator customized with your local electricity rate, and so by merely walking around your house and tallying up the devices that consume phantom power you will see how much energy and money your devices consume while “off”. For example, a household with an electricity rate of 20 cents per kWh and just 23 vampire devices, the yearly money wasted is almost $200! If you have a higher rate or more vampire devices (which most of us do), the savings are even greater!

Your local Eco-Consultant can help you fight those pesky Vampires as well as show you your specific energy, water and money loss through our Water Conservation Kit Savings Calculator, Lighting Savings Calculator, and Rechargeable Battery Savings Calculator and others. They can provide you with specific information how much green you will save by going green! Let us show you how the savings can be as over $10,000 over the life of the products!

Contact your local Eco-Consultant today to schedule a $99 Green Home Makeover, $250 Green Office Makeover or to hold a GO GREEN Workshop in your home for free. Email sales@greenirene.com if you would like a complementary calculator emailed to you by your local Eco-Consultant. Please specify your city and state.

Rosamaria Caballero Stafford
Co-Founder and the Original Green Irene