A man has tested the appliances in his home to work out how much they’re costing him while on standby.
With prices already sky-high and set to get higher, one bloke purchased an electric usage meter and set about finding out just how much his inactive appliances were costing - and was shocked with the results.
Posting on Reddit, the man explained: "Present cost is based on the Octopus capped rate of 29.58p per kwh. Projected cost assumes a 70% increase in October although it looks like it will be higher than this.
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"Contrary to belief, leaving a phone charger plugged in will not end up killing penguins in the Antarctic."
But while leaving a charger plugged in while not in use might not be costing a great deal, some of his other discoveries were a little more surprising.
The Redditor explained that most ‘modern switch-mode power supplies draw a negligible amount of power’ but warned that people should be wary of their older electrical items.
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He went on: "It's worth checking your older appliances, for me the microwave was an eye opener. I'm paying £16 (soon to be £27) a year just to have the thing display '00:00' at me all the time.
"It's now switched off at the wall when not in use."
And his inaccurate microwave clock wasn’t even the worst culprit, as he found that his Sky Q TV box, even on 'eco mode', would be costing him £48.46, on October’s cost estimates and a £60.79 to run while recording.
Meanwhile his Virgin Media Wi-Fi router was currently costing £31.09, rising to £52.86 on October’s projected rates.
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"Sky TV... I didn't expect over 9 watts when it's sitting there doing absolutely nothing. Both boxes are in 'eco mode'.
"I'm considering having my broadband router and ethernet switch on a timer. A timer costs around £7 and would pay for itself in just over a month if it switched them off for 8 hours a day. I may also do this with the Sky boxes."
The man’s home experiments come after Brits were warned that energy prices are set to rise even higher than previously predicted.
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Cornwall Insight have now warned that there could be a rise of £650 for the average household in the England, Scotland and Wales.
As the cost of living crisis continues, the energy research company tweeted: "We have released new price cap figures following a wholesale price surge and Ofgem revising their cap methodology."
They predict that a 'typical household' will pay the equivalent of £3,582 per year from October with an increase to £4,266 per year from January, for three months to March 2023.
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