[OT] "How Green Is Your House" and TV watching

adding OT to the beginning of a post does not make it ok to post in the wrong group ?????

It certainly sounds like it! It'd mean you could never watch a movie in one sitting, even if it was the only thing you watched that day! Absurd.

She sounds like the sort of TV-hater that they have in home makeover programmes, where the TV is always banished to a corner of the room (often behind a folding screen) or they make a cabinet with doors so that you can "close it away out of sight". Why should it be out of sight!

A TV uses a relatively small amount of power. Did she mention making sure that you only boil enough water needed for, say, one cup of tea - instead of the half kettle most people boil and reboil? How about using a lower temp setting on your washing machine?

Guess - it's a woman.

A micro system will use less power than more or less anything in the house. This is a pathetic attempt at managing someone's lifestyle under the banner of "the environment". Part of the same logic that calls 4x4s that have better fuel consumption than many luxury cars bad for the environment. The government and media is choc full of ill informed dick heads like this.

I'll have you know my BMW is environmentally friendly, for every gallon of fuel I put in, it only pollutes 19 miles of atmosphere.

Somebody needs a lesson in Boyle's law.

I agree with you. Much greater savings could be made by reducing the power of a load which is always on, e.g. in its life, a typical microwave oven uses more power to run the clock than to cook the food, because it might be cooking for 5 minutes a day at 1kW, but it's running the clock for 1440 minutes a day at perhaps 5 Watts, because of the inefficient power supply for the clock. The same kind of thing applies to TVs, many of which use

It is sending out the wrong message if she makes it seem like energy saving has to be unpleasant. There are plenty of ways of saving energy that people wouldn't even notice, like putting power switches in the primary circuit of the power transformer in a radio, instead of putting the switch in the secondary as is more usual.

Chris

I saw some of the programme. The bits I saw were bullshit. Can't recall all the issues now, but her comment that a TV on standby uses 80% of the full-on power was one of the bits of bullshit which I do recall her saying.

Just remember the programme is meant to be entertainment, and sadly not educational.

My FORD Expedition only pollutes 15 miles of atmosphere per gallon!

If you watched a TV taking 60W for one hour per day, and left it on standby taking 10W the rest of the time, then almost 80% of the energy used by the television would be when it was on standby.

Alex

Funny, it thought it *did*. :)

It's not a big deal anyway - it's not like we're still using 800 bit modems, or 50mb HD's.

Yes. She seems to have a big down on enjoying oneself.

She's a typical lentilista. And if she's ridden that bike any distance, I'm Lynford Christie. Perhaps she should eat fewer pies and mind her own business?

The concept of overall system costs doesn't seem to have crossed her blubbery little mind, either. A system that costs (say) £5000 and saves £50/year (the rainwater recovery system she wittered on about in an earlier programme struck me as a good example) simply isn't worth installing.

There is also considerable doubt whether switching computers off and on all the time is a good idea, either. If it shortens the life of the computer and it needs replacing, you've way exceeded any saving you may have made.

Much recycling is pointless, too. The energy costs of recycling many materials way exceeds the cost of replacing from new. Many councils actually put the contents of recycling bins into landfill anyway. Milton Keynes recycling centre loses tens of millions a year, evidence that the materials it recovers are unwanted.

It might be worthwhile for you that she has paid to collect her rainwater though, since much of the cost of providing water to consumers is probably paid through the tax system rather than through water meters.

Depends - most computers are chucked out when they still work, because they become obsolete. There is room to wear them out a bit faster and they could still be chucked out because they are too slow rather than because they fail. I am doubtful about the benefits of leaving things on all the time anyway. I think it depends on the appliance, and the length of time the thing will be idle. I think that in almost all cases, if something won't be used for a whole night or a whole day then it is worth switching it off. The cost of electric power is only partly paid on the electricity bill, if you have visited some power stations, you get to appreciate this. Certainly switching things off is way cheaper per Watt than installing solar panels, and is therefore more deserving of subsidies.

But aluminium is always worth recycling. They build aluminium smelters close to power stations rather than close to bauxite mines, because the cost of transporting the ore is less than the cost of transporting the electric power - that shows how much power is used.

Chris

I get 53 mpg (US gallons) or 64mpg (UK gallons) from my diesel car that only cost me £2500 (about $3000). It runs on biodiesel made from old cooking fat. I will think of you with a smile every time the fuel price goes up! I can drive 4 times as far as you! 4 times!!!! Chris

A ton of money could be saved by manufacturing items which utilize quality materials and can be serviced readily. Too much money and resources are spent filling landfills with appliances and goods which wear out prematurely and cannot be repaired.

As long as purchase prices are low, repair knowledge amongst the general public is low, and expert labour is expensive, many repairable items probably won't be repaired anyway. A lot of people take a failure as an excuse to go out and treat themselves to something newer and shinier. :-/

Personally, I've repaired a broken PSU in a VCR (cost me about 3.50GBP and an hour of my time) and got my parents' TV working again (required a new internal fuse - 10 for 1.98GBP in Maplin, and about 20mins of my time).

Best Regards, Alex.

It isn't just the apparent relative costs. We live in a culture where enquiry into how things work is actively discouraged along with their repair. This operates at many levels. Peer pressure on frowns on kids that have had things fixed by their dads (can't the mean ol' skinflint buy you a new one then). Schools no longer teach proper engineering skills. The government piles on steadily more restrictions on what non-tradespeople are allowed to do. Insurance companies try to weasel out of payments if something ( not even related to the claim) is not of standard manufacture.

Agreed.