From an article in The New York Times:
Households across the land are infested with vampires. That’s what energy experts call those gizmos with two sharp teeth that dig into a wall socket and suck juice all night long. All day long, too, and all year long.
Most people assume that when they turn off the television set it stops drawing power.
But that’s not how most TV’s (and VCR’s and other electronic devices) work. They remain ever in standby mode, silently sipping energy to the tune of 1,000 kilowatt hours a year per household, awaiting the signal to roar into action.
“As a country we pay $1 billion a year to power our TV’s and VCR’s while they’re turned off….”
This is one of the reasons NewMexiKen unplugs many devices when I’m away (for more than a day or two). The other reason is I once had my house hit by lightning and it was a real hassle fixing and replacing so much gear. If I’m not here, why not eliminate that possibility? It’s easy if you have surge protectors. Just click them off.