Probably not bad...they can just cut off their nectar supply after hours when the Zoo is closed.
Hopper Energy Usage
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Probably not bad...they can just cut off their nectar supply after hours when the Zoo is closed.
Or you could move out of California.
Tell my wife that.
We spent 10 years traveling full time in our motor home. She insisted on putting down roots in North San Diego county again, where we had spent 40 years already.
Well, two can live as cheaply as one.
But only for half as long.
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But only for half as long.
Sent from my iPhone using the SatelliteGuys app!
And I'd argue higher rate of electricity consumption, particularly something like a cable or sat TV box being shut off and on most of the day and night.
IMHO, I think the 125 watts cited by the OP was Dish assuming maximum load: 16 tuners in use, feeding 6 other TV's, sending out Remote Viewing stream, etc. But that is a presumption.
Yet, another example of False Economy (more along the shut on and off throughout the day and month and its power sucking boot up, rather than the steady light on all the time), or at least "penny wise and pound foolish."
First, a single house-hold lamp, not necessarily a "flood lamp," using an old tech incandescent bulb of 125 watts being on 24/7 aint gonna make a real difference in monthly or annual electric costs to the consumer, although it sure makes us FEEL better. In fact, I have one light in the house on 24/7 for elderly mom to navigate by nightfall and in the middle of the night when I am a sleeping, and I assure you, as stated above by other posters of cents per month, at best, it makes virtually no difference in the cost to me.
On the other hand, if one is really serious about saving REAL money on the electrical bill to watch TV, price out and try these options:
1) Don't have any TV's on the house EVER because they can consume at least as much, but often MORE than a cable or sat box or more than with the OP cited as the cost of powering his Dish box, presuming the 125 watts claim is accurate. Instead, watch all content on a tablet or phone. Almost all cable and sat services allow viewing of the cable or sat box on a mobile device or at least allow access and viewing for the programmers web site with your pay TV authentication--factor in constant drain or recharge on the mobile device and the effect of killing those pricey and not so long lived LI-ion batteries far sooner than "normal" use and having to replace that tablet and/or phone sooner than normal.
2) Go further with #1 and reduce electricity even more by NOT having any cable or sat box. Using your mobile devices ONLY, you can view any on line content you wish without that "flood lamp" in your home by using Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, YouTube. and more. Heck, look at the money you will save by NOT ever having to buy any TV's at all! It would also look "cool" to snobs that you don't have any TV's, and, therefore, you must READ a lot.
But those suggestion above are just PEANUTS. If you are really looking to save consumption and cost of electricity, then here are the monsters who cost you from tens and hundreds of dollars per month and THOUSANDS upon thousands per year:
1) The Kitchen: no coffee makers or other heating elements EVEEEERRRR! (that was Fay Dunaway as Joan Crawford) Those modern coffee makers can draw tremendous amounts of current, either drip or one-cup maker, and it can truly add up to being costly, especially if you leave the Keurig on or the warming plate on to keep your pot of coffee warm for the second cup--if you microwave your 2nd cup of cold coffee, that costs you, too--check the figures and let us know. In fact you don't want ANYTHING with a heating element ever used in your home such as toasters, electric stoves and ovens. etc. and even things with heating elements OUTSIDE the kitchen can be more costly. Heating elements can be worse than almost any light bulb at a consistent glow. So, hand pound those coffee beans yourself and HEAT your water with your Natural Gas stove and pour. I suppose a wood fire stove would be less costly, as well, but may have "hidden costs."
But, still in the kitchen, those power hungry multi-cycle Dish-washing machines are also a needless use of electricity, and they have HEATING ELEMENTS to DRY those drippy wet dishes. So, hand wash your dishes or at least spit wash to save WATER. And while you're at it, get yourself an Ice box (Ice costs money, too, but its gotta be less, no?), because your power sucking refrigerator and freezer go though their off and on cycles all day, and if your home is not cooled by a costly HAVC system (more on that later) in the summer, or you have heat getting in from lousy quality home siding or something like sunlight warming your Fridge, then expect to be sucked of even more of your $$ every month and (don't look at the annual cost if you think a 125 watt bulb motivates you to war) just because we like our milk cold. In addition, microwave food can be not only more costly for its convenience, but the Microwave Oven itself is a non-stop electricity cost cow, either low powered or high-powered, and there is that LIGHT that shines every time it is opened (just like the hog, the refrigerator) and every time we use it to cook, so we draw a lot of electricity and pay more $$$ than a 125 watt incandescent bulb to produce both microwaves and lighting it with that dang internal light bulb that we can't even unscrew to save 3 cents per month. There are probably other high consumption and costly kitchen "aids" I've not mentioned, but others can feel free to add to the list.
2). Only the wealthy could possibly afford those mega power eating Washing and Drying machines. Aside from its wasteful use of water, the electricity consumed is heart attack inducing, especially an electric dryer because it has . . . a HEATING ELEMENT, and that heating element is ON for almost an hour (or more) per load, and we love to wash and dry multiple loads--Gadzooks!!! We're talking eating out for lunch money per month here, certainly annually enough to buy a nice Christmas present. But don't panic! Simply HAND WASH all your clothes and you will save not only WATER, but TONS of electricity--being both green in lack of electricity consumption and the money you save--not purchased on the dreaded 2nd, 3rd, or 4th Tier Rates of your electric Co. And you can use the same soapy water gunk in your sink or tub for MULTIPLE loads of wash. Think of all the time wasted and aching your back, but more green in the pocket. But at least you can get almost every stain out of clothing the first time because you can focus on it exclusively, unlike the dumb washing machine--and you can save on laundry detergent when cheaper hand-DISH washing detergent can do the job when using your elbow grease to make up for less chemical cleaning power from a laundry detergent--but I digress from electricity savings and costs.
3) Now, we come to the MOTHER LODE of outrageous, poverty inducing expense, but also the MOTHER LODE of SAVINGS, cash in the pocket reduction of electricity monthly bills (one mentioned for a moment above): don't ever, ever, get one of those HAVC cooling and heating systems because you will be sucked dry of every cent you have left, even the coins behind the cushions, if you dare to think you have a right to be even moderately comfortable in terms of summer heat and fall and winter cold. This grand daddy of all electricity expenses means that if you cut it out entirely, you can eat out most nights of the week and save anywhere from a few thousand to even over FIVE GRAND per annual cost (if you have an electric heater, well, then, I think, you have gleaned so far that you should consider leaving this cruel world for the promised land). Woo-hoo! Savings of hundreds, even over FIVE-hundred in some months depending upon weather and efficiency of the HAVC, but still REAL MONEY that makes suffering without it--well, WORTH IT! Or you could buy the latest HAVC system with much higher efficiency that will save both electricity and its cost to you. Oh, but that's like THOUSANDS of dollars--or even tens of thousands of dollars, so, uh, lets's forget that suggestion and just live with the heat and cold--and you don't have to be fully dressed in the summer and you can wear layers in the house for the colder months, but heat to just keep the pipes from bursting, which still costs money, so let's move to a part of the country with no harsh winters and SAVE big time. Changing out the HAVC would have resulted with still hundreds per month electricity bills and would have still been an objectionable cost. Kind of like that $10,000 mink coat having been reduced a whole mouth-full 30% to only a mere total price of $7,000 ("NOW THAT'S A BARGAIN!"); still obscenely out of our reach of our budget (percentages can be a useless measure).
By this time, you have regained consciousness from revelations of such electricity costs for things that you don't really need and may be even better for not having. By eliminating even just half of the suggestion above, you might just still have enough money to power a 125 watt incandescent bulb--or a Dish box--and not have to live a life of crime. On the other hand, implement all of the suggestions above and rest easy knowing that you have more than enough to power that 125 watt device for its less than $1 per month cost--but that works out to at least $1 or $2 per year--well, I concede that consumption at the top tier and on top of additional separate penalty costs imposed by your local Electric co. due to your high consumption of electricity, it could be closer to $4 or more per YEAR. That's like a 300% increase in our costs (why percentages mean absolutely nothing without real numbers) , but at least that is far less than the $12 or more per year for running that big screen TV that we hope you have sold off by now saving you enough to pay off your student loans.
If we are serious about making real differences that count on our electricity usage and its costs to us, then we need to focus on the DOLLARS and then work our way down to the pennies. But if it makes us feel better that we are saving 30, 50 or more CENTS per month, while looking the other way at the obvious stuff that is costing us exponentially more, then I guess it makes us feel better about our extravagant lifestyles of electricity consumption and cost of the "Rich and Famous".
Yet, another example of False Economy (more along the shut on and off throughout the day and month and its power sucking boot up, rather than the steady light on all the time), or at least "penny wise and pound foolish."
First, a single house-hold lamp, not necessarily a "flood lamp," using an old tech incandescent bulb of 125 watts being on 24/7 aint gonna make a real difference in monthly or annual electric costs to the consumer, although it sure makes us FEEL better. In fact, I have one light in the house on 24/7 for elderly mom to navigate by nightfall and in the middle of the night when I am a sleeping, and I assure you, as stated above by other posters of cents per month, at best, it makes virtually no difference in the cost to me.
On the other hand, if one is really serious about saving REAL money on the electrical bill to watch TV, price out and try these options:
1) Don't have any TV's on the house EVER because they can consume at least as much, but often MORE than a cable or sat box or more than with the OP cited as the cost of powering his Dish box, presuming the 125 watts claim is accurate. Instead, watch all content on a tablet or phone. Almost all cable and sat services allow viewing of the cable or sat box on a mobile device or at least allow access and viewing for the programmers web site with your pay TV authentication--factor in constant drain or recharge on the mobile device and the effect of killing those pricey and not so long lived LI-ion batteries far sooner than "normal" use and having to replace that tablet and/or phone sooner than normal.
2) Go further with #1 and reduce electricity even more by NOT having any cable or sat box. Using your mobile devices ONLY, you can view any on line content you wish without that "flood lamp" in your home by using Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, YouTube. and more. Heck, look at the money you will save by NOT ever having to buy any TV's at all! It would also look "cool" to snobs that you don't have any TV's, and, therefore, you must READ a lot.
But those suggestion above are just PEANUTS. If you are really looking to save consumption and cost of electricity, then here are the monsters who cost you from tens and hundreds of dollars per month and THOUSANDS upon thousands per year:
1) The Kitchen: no coffee makers or other heating elements EVEEEERRRR! (that was Fay Dunaway as Joan Crawford) Those modern coffee makers can draw tremendous amounts of current, either drip or one-cup maker, and it can truly add up to being costly, especially if you leave the Keurig on or the warming plate on to keep your pot of coffee warm for the second cup--if you microwave your 2nd cup of cold coffee, that costs you, too--check the figures and let us know. In fact you don't want ANYTHING with a heating element ever used in your home such as toasters, electric stoves and ovens. etc. and even things with heating elements OUTSIDE the kitchen can be more costly. Heating elements can be worse than almost any light bulb at a consistent glow. So, hand pound those coffee beans yourself and HEAT your water with your Natural Gas stove and pour. I suppose a wood fire stove would be less costly, as well, but may have "hidden costs."
But, still in the kitchen, those power hungry multi-cycle Dish-washing machines are also a needless use of electricity, and they have HEATING ELEMENTS to DRY those drippy wet dishes. So, hand wash your dishes or at least spit wash to save WATER. And while you're at it, get yourself an Ice box (Ice costs money, too, but its gotta be less, no?), because your power sucking refrigerator and freezer go though their off and on cycles all day, and if your home is not cooled by a costly HAVC system (more on that later) in the summer, or you have heat getting in from lousy quality home siding or something like sunlight warming your Fridge, then expect to be sucked of even more of your $$ every month and (don't look at the annual cost if you think a 125 watt bulb motivates you to war) just because we like our milk cold. In addition, microwave food can be not only more costly for its convenience, but the Microwave Oven itself is a non-stop electricity cost cow, either low powered or high-powered, and there is that LIGHT that shines every time it is opened (just like the hog, the refrigerator) and every time we use it to cook, so we draw a lot of electricity and pay more $$$ than a 125 watt incandescent bulb to produce both microwaves and lighting it with that dang internal light bulb that we can't even unscrew to save 3 cents per month. There are probably other high consumption and costly kitchen "aids" I've not mentioned, but others can feel free to add to the list.
2). Only the wealthy could possibly afford those mega power eating Washing and Drying machines. Aside from its wasteful use of water, the electricity consumed is heart attack inducing, especially an electric dryer because it has . . . a HEATING ELEMENT, and that heating element is ON for almost an hour (or more) per load, and we love to wash and dry multiple loads--Gadzooks!!! We're talking eating out for lunch money per month here, certainly annually enough to buy a nice Christmas present. But don't panic! Simply HAND WASH all your clothes and you will save not only WATER, but TONS of electricity--being both green in lack of electricity consumption and the money you save--not purchased on the dreaded 2nd, 3rd, or 4th Tier Rates of your electric Co. And you can use the same soapy water gunk in your sink or tub for MULTIPLE loads of wash. Think of all the time wasted and aching your back, but more green in the pocket. But at least you can get almost every stain out of clothing the first time because you can focus on it exclusively, unlike the dumb washing machine--and you can save on laundry detergent when cheaper hand-DISH washing detergent can do the job when using your elbow grease to make up for less chemical cleaning power from a laundry detergent--but I digress from electricity savings and costs.
3) Now, we come to the MOTHER LODE of outrageous, poverty inducing expense, but also the MOTHER LODE of SAVINGS, cash in the pocket reduction of electricity monthly bills (one mentioned for a moment above): don't ever, ever, get one of those HAVC cooling and heating systems because you will be sucked dry of every cent you have left, even the coins behind the cushions, if you dare to think you have a right to be even moderately comfortable in terms of summer heat and fall and winter cold. This grand daddy of all electricity expenses means that if you cut it out entirely, you can eat out most nights of the week and save anywhere from a few thousand to even over FIVE GRAND per annual cost (if you have an electric heater, well, then, I think, you have gleaned so far that you should consider leaving this cruel world for the promised land). Woo-hoo! Savings of hundreds, even over FIVE-hundred in some months depending upon weather and efficiency of the HAVC, but still REAL MONEY that makes suffering without it--well, WORTH IT! Or you could buy the latest HAVC system with much higher efficiency that will save both electricity and its cost to you. Oh, but that's like THOUSANDS of dollars--or even tens of thousands of dollars, so, uh, lets's forget that suggestion and just live with the heat and cold--and you don't have to be fully dressed in the summer and you can wear layers in the house for the colder months, but heat to just keep the pipes from bursting, which still costs money, so let's move to a part of the country with no harsh winters and SAVE big time. Changing out the HAVC would have resulted with still hundreds per month electricity bills and would have still been an objectionable cost. Kind of like that $10,000 mink coat having been reduced a whole mouth-full 30% to only a mere total price of $7,000 ("NOW THAT'S A BARGAIN!"); still obscenely out of our reach of our budget (percentages can be a useless measure).
By this time, you have regained consciousness from revelations of such electricity costs for things that you don't really need and may be even better for not having. By eliminating even just half of the suggestion above, you might just still have enough money to power a 125 watt incandescent bulb--or a Dish box--and not have to live a life of crime. On the other hand, implement all of the suggestions above and rest easy knowing that you have more than enough to power that 125 watt device for its less than $1 per month cost--but that works out to at least $1 or $2 per year--well, I concede that consumption at the top tier and on top of additional separate penalty costs imposed by your local Electric co. due to your high consumption of electricity, it could be closer to $4 or more per YEAR. That's like a 300% increase in our costs (why percentages mean absolutely nothing without real numbers) , but at least that is far less than the $12 or more per year for running that big screen TV that we hope you have sold off by now saving you enough to pay off your student loans.
If we are serious about making real differences that count on our electricity usage and its costs to us, then we need to focus on the DOLLARS and then work our way down to the pennies. But if it makes us feel better that we are saving 30, 50 or more CENTS per month, while looking the other way at the obvious stuff that is costing us exponentially more, then I guess it makes us feel better about our extravagant lifestyles of electricity consumption and cost of the "Rich and Famous".
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Following this thread this far, I feel a bit hesitant to admit that I too care about the energy cost of the satellite receivers, and I've been turning them off and on on a daily basis. I live in Northern California where the base electricity rate is $0.20/kwh and one could easily go to the tier of $0.44/kwh or even higher. The water rate and the gas rate are even more outrageous. You might find it hard understanding why people here would mind this "little" energy cost while at the same time paying $6,000/mo for rent/mortgage-plus-property-tax. Well I'd say the living cost easily adds up and I just need to mind every piece of it.
Coming back to OP's original question. From Monday to Friday I shut off all devices at midnight, and turn them back on 30 min before anyone arrives at home in the evening. This procedure is automated through smart plugs following a predefined schedule. Of course I cannot record or watch TV while the devices are shut off but that's fine by me. This suits my watching habits and I understand it might not be fit for others.
Coming back to OP's original question. From Monday to Friday I shut off all devices at midnight, and turn them back on 30 min before anyone arrives at home in the evening. This procedure is automated through smart plugs following a predefined schedule. Of course I cannot record or watch TV while the devices are shut off but that's fine by me. This suits my watching habits and I understand it might not be fit for others.
If you’re paying $6000/Mo on rent or even mortgage, the minuscule electricity from a luxury item(satellite tv) should be of no consideration.
That's true for one of my colleagues who pays $9000/mo on housing. She literally laughed at me for shelling out $50/mo to Dish while she was paying YoutubeTV for only $11/mo by sharing with 2 other people.
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After reading this thread I'm thankful for our low electric rates here.
I would think that I would be laughing right back at anyone that doles out $9000 a month for housing compared to you paying $50.00 for satellite tv. Talk about being" house poor. "
California’s GOT to be riding for a fall. Way too expensive, way too generous social programs, and the big one looming.
I’ll bet their economy takes a major hit before any super quake. And they’ll expect a major bail out from more responsible states.
Well, I’ll stop there before becoming Pit material. May Bob Rest In Peace.
In a nutshell, what I’m trying to say is, that electric cost is ridiculous. How much is due to aggressive environmental regulations?
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I’ll bet their economy takes a major hit before any super quake. And they’ll expect a major bail out from more responsible states.
Well, I’ll stop there before becoming Pit material. May Bob Rest In Peace.
In a nutshell, what I’m trying to say is, that electric cost is ridiculous. How much is due to aggressive environmental regulations?
Sent from my iPhone using the SatelliteGuys app!
I have my TV,Hopper and sound system plugged into a power conditioner and checked the watts used used by the Hopper in the standby and on modes and saw no change in the watt meter.
I did not check total watts on the Hopper by unplugging it to see how many watts it dropped off of the meter.
No power saving by turning it off, unplug to save. I do not unplug.
I did not check total watts on the Hopper by unplugging it to see how many watts it dropped off of the meter.
No power saving by turning it off, unplug to save. I do not unplug.
I am concerned about the energy usage of the hopper/joey for a different reason. I'm on an offgrid solar system. My inverter has a capacity of 4,400 watts. If the well pump or well pump booster turns on while I'm watching tv, it overloads the inverter and shuts the hopper and joey off. It takes about five minutes for it to turn back on. I'm thinking of getting a solar powered generator to plug the hopper into so it will be separate from the main solar power of the house. Does anybody know if this is a good idea?
I'd be more inclined to put the well pump on a separate system or build a larger solar system. You are obviously under powered for your household.
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That would help with the Hopper reboot but does nothing about the electric system overload.
The Dish / TV would run off of the UPS battery during the inductive startup surge of the well pump which is most likely the cause of the voltage drop which shuts down the Hopper.
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