Rocco the Green Guru joins The Steve Show every Thursday morning at 8am. This week he told us how to watch out for vampire power.

Listen to Rocco’s segment here:

Unplug your appliances when you’re away on Summer vacation. Residential households in the U.S. spend more than 5 billion dollars annually on standby power alone. That is 5% of all the electricity consumed across the country.

One of the biggest energy drains in your house is devices and appliances that consume electricity even when they’re not in use.

Your television, computer, DVR, appliances — everything — literally sucks electricity twenty-four hours a day. Known in the utility world as “vampire power,” it can account for more than 10% of a device’s energy consumption.

Another way to combat these invisible energy suckers is to plug your devices into a smart power strip, which looks like a regular power cord but generally has two or three slots that automatically detect if a device is turned off, then cuts the power flow. Using them throughout your home can save you as much as $240 per year. And the strips only cost about $15.00 each.

If you have any questions, email Rocco – Rocco@929dave.fm