Easy Eco The Vampire Slayer

Energy vampires or phantom loads are another name for the wasted energy used by electronics and appliances when they’re plugged in and not being used.

The average household spends $100-$200 a year on wasted energy. All those phantom loads are pumping out air pollution like mercury and wasting 100 billion kilowatt hours of electricity.


So what can you do to slay the vampire? Well that’s today’s Easy Eco Idea.

It’s as simple as unplugging electronics and appliances when not using them. Around here we unplug just about everything; the coffee pot, toasted oven, and cell phone chargers. If I can reach it, I unplug it.

For harder to reach jobs or places that need lots of plugs we use power strips. They’re great for t.v.’s and dvd players, computers, monitors and printers. That way instead of having to unplug a lot of different cords you can just switch the power strip to “off”.

That would be Todd’s power strip. Around here he’s also known as Uber Geek and he’s darn proud of it. Every time he turns off his computer(s) he flips the power strip to "off". I like to think of him as my geek in shining green armor.

The only hard thing about this idea is getting into the habit of doing it. And if you have kids, they’ll probably catch on faster and end up reminding you to do it.