Things lurking in corners

[watervole]

We'be been tidying up the office today - mainly to get the dust levels down.

While clearing out an old computer, waveney found two power bricks still plugged in....

Heaven knows how long it is since the items they were powering were used. In fact, one of them wasn't actually attached to anything...

Ah, well, that's a fraction more shaved off the electricity bill.

Anyone else care to look behind their equipment and see if you can beat our score of redundant stuff still drawing power?

I might even find a small prize (chocolate sized) for the star discovery.

Comments

[frandowdsofa.livejournal.com]

I work in an office building that houses several discrete units, all of which have their own energy meters. Back in November the energy usage people took a sample week reading, then last week we had a competition amongst the units to reduce our consumption.

We turned off monitors if away from computers more than 15 minutes, the whole computer if away more than an hour, stopped boiling the kettle repeatedly, turned off the hot water boiler on the wall overnight and at weekends, switched off lights in unattended offices and left the doors open so the heat could get into the openplan areas in the middle, found a light in the kitchen that hasn't worked for years (it's hidden in the ceiling) yet comes on when you flip the other main light switch - etc etc. The energy manager says there has been "significant reduction" but we don't know the percentages yet - nor, more to the point, who has WON.

But some things have become habit, or people have taken it on themselves to be the energy police and nag everyone else.

Good thing all round.

[watervole.livejournal.com]

Sounds like an excellent idea. I do hope they tell you what the results were, I'd be very interested to know.

I need to be better at switching my computer off. That's one I shall have to work at.

[alex-holden.livejournal.com]

I noticed recently that my RAS modem was still powered up even though the phone line it was plugged into was cancelled months ago and I haven't used it for over a year.

[seph-hazard.livejournal.com]

God, I don't even want to *think* about what's lurking in the mass of wires behind this desktop. There's so many bloody things plugged into it that I've got no idea what's being used and what's not!

As I think I've said to you before, our problem isn't that we leave things on when we're not using them, but that we *use* lots of things, all the time-as I type this, I'm on the desktop, there's a laptop next to me that I'm doing something else on, the TV is on on mute as I'm trying to record something to DVD and I'm playing music on the CD player (as the CD drive on the laptop is busy and the desktop has no speakers). Oh, and the oven's on because there's a loaf of bread in it. And the dishwasher's running a cycle...

...it gets silly.

[cobrabay.livejournal.com]

I can't beat that, though I did discover that my shredder was permanently plugged last weekend (it isn't now). On a related subject, I was trying to buy a 4-way, individually-switchable power strip, ideally surge-protected, but couldn't find one. They used to be common, but seem to have disappeared. I know Maplins do them, but the Reading one has moved and is no longer convenient to get to.

[watervole.livejournal.com]

I think Maplin's web site does free delivery.

[cobrabay.livejournal.com]

Only on orders over £35. Also, I know they send some orders by courier, and if I'm not in to take delivery I have to collect from a depot in Reading which is almost as inconvenient to get to as Maplins.

[lexin.livejournal.com]

Oddly enough, I can get those power strips with individual switches and surge protection in Tesco. They're not cheap, mind.

If you're in London, there's a big Maplins on the corner of the Strand and Lancaster Place.

[cobrabay.livejournal.com]

Actually I may not be too far from there on both Thursday and Friday evenings, I should check its opening times.

[catalenamara.livejournal.com]

>>>Anyone else care to look behind their equipment and see if you can beat our score of redundant stuff still drawing power?

Rather the opposite. The computer had been in to the repair shop. So had the new external drive, which had never worked from the moment I bought it.

I brought everything back home. Voila, computer up and running, ditto printer, ditto scanner. External hard drive? Computer can't even see it...!

.....later on that same day, feeling quite stupid, I realize that with the Medusa's knot of wiring attached to the computer and all of its accessories, I never plugged in the external hard drive. I'm so happy I figured this out before I called the shop back and gave them a piece of my mind... Considering I forgot to plug it in, if I'd given them a piece of my mind, I wouldn't have had much left...!