I leave everything on standby. TIme is too short to look for plugs for everything. Majority of electricity bill is a “subscription” or “delivery” or whatever they call it anyway, so even if I sit in dark silence 24/7 , I would still need to pay majority of my bill…

Personally I believe it’s better to make sure at the purchase time, how energy efficient is the device.

What I do is have the remote control plug killer switches. So for Sky and PS3 they go stright. The TV and Sound system go through the killer switch. Same for the lights one remote and all lights tv and everything on in three buttons.
Add in using the wireless Electricity meter you can see what getting used and how much.

Standby has a bit of an effect but nothing compare to the differences between normal and enery efficent light bulbs.

Remote Plug Switch about €30 from B & Q
Electricity Meter about €40 from Maplin.

Everything in our house is turned off by the switch on the wall when not in use apart from microwave,alarm clock, phone, mobile charger, router, fridge and freezer.

Turn everything off at the switch except for the sky box.

It really depends on the device. If the TV is new then it will use very little power whilst on standby. If it’s oldish (say 3 years +) then it should probably be switched off.

This is true of most devices.

Life way too short to be going around unplugged everything ……….. I will save the planet after Christmas ..honest

Women in my household favour strict regime of constant unplugging appliances to save electricity and at the same time doing two things

Leaving the gas heating running through the day with nobody in the house

Switching on the tumble dryer whenever they need clothes dried rather then put them on hot radiator.

This sums up a lot of women’s attitude to saving electricity….

Similar to the way the country saves money on its spending…

Cheers all

Just looking at the results . As it stands asbo write this. A 25% B 22 % C 50% D 1% …..anyone else see something wrong here lol

Ten years ago EVERYTHING was on standby. But now I make an effort to turn things off before I go to bed. EXCEPT the Sky box as mentioned. Takes a lifetime to reload.

Saves about €2.50 per month!

Used to be just leave everything on. Kinda half way between there and getting meself into the habit of turning everything off now. Think leaving even just your television on standby still uses 20/30% of the electricity as when its on.

Everything gets switched off at night in our house but left on standby between uses during the day.

Can’t stand people who unplug everything, fair enough if you want to switch the tv off but no need to unplug as well!!

Like others the sky box is on standby, I try to set most of my recordings for cheap night rate electricity, in the vain hope of it using most of its power then. I have the TV / dvd player / stereo etc in 1 extension cord plugged into a socket that I can switch off, and that gets turned off when not in use, no standy red lights in my house. Same in the kitchen, toaster /kettle/ microwave all switched off at socket when not in use.

I think there is a lot of misinformation about, concerning night rate electricity. Unless, as @paudy points out, you have paid (dearly) for a night rate meter installation, you will pay the same rate for your electricity 24/7. If you check your bill, it will only have one rate shown…
Running your dishwasher etc later in the evening put less pressure on the National Grid than peak times, but saves no money.
Only hotels, nursing homes etc can offset the cost of a night rate meter due to their massive laundry, heating costs.
(worked for ESB once upon a time, but open to correction)

Hmmmm I tend to turn things off fully and pull the plug except for the necessary items, not so much for the ESB saving but I figure it’s less likely to go on fire if it’s unplugged.

I think it depends on the item and on how convenient it is to turn it off completely/ power up each time. Somethings are very easy to switch on and off fully, and others are a little mo time consuming and annoying.

I have most stuff unplugged or switched off at the wall socket. Only exception is my pc as its on 24/7 unless I’m out of country and security lights are on from darkness till I wake up. The pc eats power as its got a 1200w power supply

Switch everything off at the wall. More for fire paranoia than energy saving though…

Only thing that stays on is the fridge. I bought some remote control plugs in Homebase, and they can be turned on/off socket by socket using the one remote, or there is an “all off” button that’s great when going out, or to bed. As for the UPC box, I switch it off always! Takes less than 2 min to start up again, so that’s grand. I only boil enough water to use, have all energy saving bulbs, that I switch off when i’m not using. My bill is around €40 pm summer, €60 winter (for 3 people) just by doing these few things. (used to be around €80-150pm) so there are big savings to be made with a few small changes to your habits.

The whole economy is on standby

But FG have come to switch it off!

Satellite TV is turned off, but not unplugged. Fridge and router are always on. Then there are the appliances with built-in clocks…like my microwave, alarm clock, iHome, security system and the like. I guess they are in a form of stand-by, but I don’t want to have to reset the clock on four or five appliances everyday which would happen if I unplug them. I use only LED or fluorescent bulbs, and never leave lights on. TVs are LCD.

I can power off my tv without using the wall switch.
Usually I’ll put my tv and ps3 on standby if I know i’ll be back within an hour.

We don’t have switches on the sockets,which is a pain,so I only unplug appliances that aren’t used all the time (juicer,blender etc…) microwave is never unplugged as it is the only clock in the house. If we go away for a night or more then everything is unplugged but only because I’m paranoid about a fire starting. As for Xmas tree lights,they are unplugged even if we leave the house briefly and especially at bedtime! Also,I don’t leave heating on all day but I like to be warm,if we army in the house the heating is definitely switched off as that is one way of just throwing money away

Up to 10 % can be saved by unplugging devices. Pre 2010 devices use between 1 to 10 watt while on standby. After 2010 devices use .5 to 2 watt while on standby. Having a cold blooded wife increases costs by 250% no matter what and at best she remains in constant standby mode.

We invested in replacing all our downlighters with warm white led lighting. 3watts per downlight compared to 50watts. Additionally any incandescent bulbs are cfls. Generally the sat box and broadband are left on. We unplug most if we are away for a long time, but my point is that over the long term we saved a lot more money by being pro active on the heavy items that we use everyday compared to the electronics around the house. Some will argue its a big cost at the start and they will be correct, but it has better return of investment.