Claire Reid
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.
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.
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"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.
"Sky TV... I didn't expect over 9 watts when it's sitting there doing absolutely nothing. Both boxes are in 'eco mode'.
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"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.
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.