I wish I could take credit for the title of this post, because it so fits the season. I found this article about the appliances sucking our energy dollars out of our pockets at Yahoo! Green and wanted to share.  After reading the article to DH this morning, he had to poke fun at me because I used to give him a difficult time when he would go around the house unplugging things before we would go out of town (and prior to approaching storms).

What’s wasting energy in your home right now

By Lori Bongiorno Posted Thu Oct 9, 2008 9:34am PDT

“Virtually all of your electronics are sucking up energy even if they’re turned off or not being used. Some of the biggest culprits include your TV, computer, and printer. Even your electric toothbrush is drawing energy when it’s plugged in and sitting idle.

On its own, the “vampire power” used by one device might seem miniscule, but collectively it amounts to more than $4 billion a year of wasted energy here in the United States. What’s more, the Department of Energy says that about 75 percent of the electricity used to power home electronics is consumed while the products are turned off.

The easiest (and most obvious) thing you can do is get up right now and unplug whatever you’re not using. Candidates include:

• Your hand-held vacuum in its charging station
• Power drills
• Automatic coffee makers
• The VCR you haven’t used in nearly a decade
• The TV that’s collecting dust in the guest room
• The empty refrigerator in the garage


{snip}

Check out the remainder of this article HERE and the related How to Reduce Vampire Power article at Huddler’s Green Home Blog…where you will find a great Dracula graphic displaying a phantom load chart.

These next couple of days our family will be going through our household to unplug and to add appliances to surge protectors to reduce our overall phantom load usage.The surge protectors will not only reduce wear and tear on the cords, but make it easier to “unplug” by just  flipping a switch.

So, are you up for the challenge?  What lengths do you go go to, or would you go, to reduce the vampire sucking going on at your house?

Stay tuned for the soon to be released America Unplugged Challenge!