So I got a nastygram from my power company yesterday. They say I use 30% more electricity than my 'effcient' neighbors and 9% more than my average neighbors. So I was curious about what power load all my various toys use. I got a kill-a-watt to see. It turns out that my vip612 in standby draws almost 80 watts, and 85 when its on. That is a crazy amount of wattage for standby. I pay just over 10c a killowatt, and at that draw it costs over 6 dollars a month in phantom power draw. Pretty crazy. Are any of the newer dvr's more effcient at standby?
Power Consumption of Dish Receivers
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I have seen posts like this in the past and yes, this is typical. I have seen posts from others stating that there was only a 1 or 2 watt difference between the unit being on and 'off'. As you just saw, the receiver is never really off, it only turns the video output off (and even that is not really totally off), everything else stays on.
Edit: I do not know if the actual wattage that you posted is typical, I was just commenting about there not being much difference between on and off.
Edit: I do not know if the actual wattage that you posted is typical, I was just commenting about there not being much difference between on and off.
Welcome to the club. See my post and how some of the "experts" here attacked me. http://www.satelliteguys.us/dish-ne...ip722-power-consumption-power-off-button.html
If our laptops were designed by the same engineers that designed these Satellite receivers, our laptops would have been dead 2.5 hours after we turned them "off"!
Hi, that looks about right for the Dish receiver. BTW - my FTA receivers draw less then 5 watts when turned off using the remote. It does take a couple of seconds for the FTA receivers to come back on, perhaps that's why the Dish receiver was designed to stay on all the time but is sure seems like a waste IMO. Getting back to your original concern (30 % more power used) I would start with the big usage items - AC can suck a lot of power, what temp do you run the house at? Electric heat can suck even more then the AC. Running the AC at a higher temp in the summer and the heat if electric at a lower temp in the winter will make far more difference then any of the small usage items like the TV, DVR, satellite receiver Ect. Hope this helps, DC
I pretty much know where my power loads are from:
Home Theater, Computer with 3 monitors, always on media server, big chest freezer, 70pint dehumidifier in a damp basement, and a house that is about is 30 to 50% bigger than my neighbors. I was one of the first houses on the block to be built in the 60s, im at 2115 sq ft, most of my neighbors are anywhere from 900 to 1300 sq ft ranches. I have a really spread out L shaped ranch. I did just get new 95% hvac and a 17 seer ac, so I used 43% less gas than my neighbors. Im just now turning on the AC and I started killing the computer at night (180watts idle) so well see how this years summer ac bills are vs last year.
Home Theater, Computer with 3 monitors, always on media server, big chest freezer, 70pint dehumidifier in a damp basement, and a house that is about is 30 to 50% bigger than my neighbors. I was one of the first houses on the block to be built in the 60s, im at 2115 sq ft, most of my neighbors are anywhere from 900 to 1300 sq ft ranches. I have a really spread out L shaped ranch. I did just get new 95% hvac and a 17 seer ac, so I used 43% less gas than my neighbors. Im just now turning on the AC and I started killing the computer at night (180watts idle) so well see how this years summer ac bills are vs last year.
Dehumidifiers are huge energy users... however, sounds like little choice.
If you have an electric hot water heater consider changing out to a heat pump hot water heater. I am saving about $600 per year compared to my old regular electric hot water heater and the installation last year was eligible for federal and state tax credits, a power company rebate, a county property tax credit, and the state forgave sales tax on the purchase.
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I'm seeing just about the same as boosted does. It seems pretty crappy for the power company to complain, if you're paying your bill, they should leave you be. There's no law about how much you can use.
Its some mandate from my state that the power co has to 'inform' consumers and 'educate' on smart power choices. Yup no choice on the dehumdifier, basement gets up to 70% or so if I don't run it. Switched to CFL's years ago before it was 'trendy' to be green.
Exactly, that is what I meant when I said that it is really not off. (When I said that it turns the video output off, I meant that the normal video from watching a channel is off).
upsss, I read that thread and I am with you 100% on that you were saying. I also am a design engineer and if they wanted to, I agree that Dish could have designed the receiver to use only a few watts while in standby, and still make it work correctly. There is no need to leave everything powered up.
When you look at it, the receiver is essentially a computer with an embedded linux derivative type os. In the enterprise world I work in we always used to have the mandate that users had to leave their workstations on to receive patches, updates, etc. Now, even our windows and linux workstations can be shut off. The capability has been out there for years to wake a system, install an update, then shut back down again. I really don't understand why the same thing couldn't be done with the receiver. You can use the timers to schedule power on, record, then power back off. I can do this now with scripts on windows or linux. Were not talking rocket science here. I understand it is always going to draw some power, but the amt it draws in todays 'be green energy is bad' world is rather absurd. My media server with 4 1TB drives in it and dual procs only draws 110 watts at full load. It idles in the 30s and its far more capable hardware than a sat receiver.
Here's the info on the heat pump hot water heater. I bought mine at Lowes and got an additional 10% off because I'm Retired Navy.
Hot Water Heater, Heat Pump Water Heater, Water Heater Electric | GE Appliances
If your hot water heater is located in your basement, the GE hybrid will actually help a little with the humidity problem... it will require being connected to a drain or, as in my installation, I purchased an electric condensate pump.
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Like $1400. Many states and localities will give you a rebate or credit... and last year the Feds offered an Energy Credit. YMMV
I maxed out the credit last year for my furnace and AC, and got a huge rebate from the power co. I'm on a gas water heater that only pulls about 6 therms a month, so I'm not too worried about that. I checked again on my receiver, it turns out the auto standby on my subwoofer isnt quite as efficient as it could be. I was idling at 85 watts with the sat receiver off, and the sub on auto standby. If I manually shut off the sub it dropped to 72 watts. Better, but still fairly significant.
I had, in a previous home, a ground coupled water source heat pump with hot water. HW was free in the summer and cheap in the winter. And WARM air came out the vents, not sorta cool like air source heat pumps. On gas here. I miss that old unit. Especially when I opened the cover inside to check for leaks and a big ole cotton mouth disputed my ownership. He/she won.
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