They are also very worried about the cordless phone and DAB radio we brought with us. Both have those larger box-type plugs that get warm when plugged in.
The "wall wart" power supplies contain a transformer, so they are intended to get slightly warm during normal use. Personally -- and in common with a good many other technical friends -- I don't like these units for other reasons, but so long as they are designed and protected properly, they are O.K. in this respect.
Unfortunately, there have been some cases of badly designed units finding their way onto the market in both the U.K. and the U.S., totally devoid of any fusing or over-temperature protection. I stripped one apart a few months ago which was like that. You can guess where it was made.
there was a scientist on the show who said even though your aren't using any electrical appliances it is still using 40% energy.
I'd like to know how he arrived at a 40% figure. It will depend entirely upon the type and design of the appliance concerned.
As PR noted, anything which has a
real on/off switch (you know, the "old fashioned" type which actually has an "on" and an "off" position) will use
zero energy when switched off. That includes closet lights with a pull-chain, electric drills with a trigger switch, a heater where you physically move a rotary, toggle, or rocker switch to on or off, etc.
When it comes to stuff which has a standby mode, the ratio of in-use to standby power depends upon what it is. In standby mode, the unit is still consuming a small amount of power to run the control circuitry and the receiver which detects the signal from your remote control (plus whatever else it needs in standby mode, such as the clock on a VCR).
If that control circuitry which is on all the time consumes, say, 8 watts, and the appliance draws a total of 20 watts when it's in use, then yes, it's using 40% in standby mode. But if you had the same 8-watt control circuitry switching a 1000-watt heater on and off remotely, that's a different story altogether.
It's true to say that in the case of things like a TV set that proportion is now higher than it once was, not because the amount of power consumed on standby is that much higher but because the total power that the set consumes when operating has dropped over the years. An average 26-inch color TV today uses considerably less power than the equivalent 26-inch color TV of 30 years ago, for example, although the standby power may well be about the same.
My mum always switches things off and unplugs at the mains...I think she is paranoid that, if the house it hit by lightning, the current will travel down the wiring and blow the telly up.
There is a certain level of protection from lightning afforded by unplugging equipment when it's not in use, although generally to indirect strikes where induced voltages travel down power and telephone lines. If you're unlucky enough to suffer a direct strike on the house though, things are going to get toasted no matter what!
In the early days of television there was considerable persuasion from some quarters to switch off the set when unattended, and it's true that in a tiny minority of failures a fire did result, so it's advice which wasn't without merit. Once switched off at the set though (and "off at the set" in those days really did mean "off," not standby) the extra push to unplug at the wall every night was really going a little overboard.
Like "no sockets in the bathroom" though, this is something which has been ingrained in the British psyche for a long time, often reinforced by overcautious safety messages, like this one:
Public Information Film - Bedtime Routine, 1979 (Real format, ~1.6MB)
