Energy use of home office equipment

If you have set up a home office, you might be wondering why your electricity bill has increased. Take a good look at what office equipment you have.

A typical home office might have the following:

• Desktop computer comprising CPU and monitor, plus keyboard and mouse, maybe speakers
• Laptop(s)
• Printer
• Fax machine
• Telephone(s)

Computers
Back in the old days of mainframes, it was better to leave the central processing unit on all the time, as the thermal cycling at start-up was a common cause of disk failure. That's no longer hte case, and it's not necessary to leave your CPU on constantly. Switching it off when it's not in use, particularly overnight, saves electricity and also protects your equipment from electrical surges.

Likewise, monitors should be switched off when not in use. Screen savers do save screens, but not electricity. Flying windows use up about as much power as word processing.

If you use a CPU as a server, you will need to leave it on while any of your satellite units (laptops etc) are operating. But maybe it's a good night-time routine to shut down all the laptops, turn off the server monitor, and put the CPU to bed.

Printers and Fax machines
Laser printers use about a third of their power supply when on standby. So for a printer capabale of printing 8 pages per minute, you could save about 100 watts an hour.

The fax machine may need to tay on to receive, so if you hav a combination printer/fax/copier, you may not want to switch it off. If you receive faxes electronically, you'll also need to leave the CPU on, though the monitor can still go off.

Telephones
Cordless phones use electricity all the time. About 60% of a cordless phone's energy usage is while it's in standby mode. A corded phone uses just a trickle, and that comes from the phone line. If you want the convenience of a cordless phone, consider having jus tone, and using corded phones in other areas.