Conscientious Cook: Do You Unplug Appliances at Night?

So many of our appliances these days come with a little computer display of some sort. Super handy when we need them, but these displays also draw a small amount of power in order to stay on and keep the appliance ready to go. It's not much, but it can add up over time. Do you think it's worth unplugging these appliances at night?

My husband and I argue about this one sometimes. He insists that unplugging appliances at night saves money and a noticeable amount of energy. I'm of the opinion that the appliance drawing the most power - the refrigerator - is the one appliance we can't turn off. The other appliances are drawing such an insignificant amount of power when they're at rest on the counter, why bother?

But then I sometimes tip the other way and think that maybe the "insignificant" amount of energy we save by unplugging the microwave (and its glowing clock) at night might add up over time. It's the principle of the thing - if we can save a little energy, no matter how small, shouldn't we do it?

One compromise we've tried is putting all our small appliances on the same power strip. This way we can just flick off the power strip when we leave the kitchen for the night instead of unplugging each individual appliance. The fridge and stove (another glowing clock source) stay plugged in - the former because we need it plugged in and the latter because it's plug is in an inconvenient location.

The microwave continues to frustrate us. Resetting that darn blinking clock every morning is almost inconvenient enough to offset the satisfaction gained from unplugging the appliance for 8 hours.

What are your "green" habits and compromises when it comes to kitchen appliances?

(Image: Flickr member trekkyandy licensed under Creative Commons)

Comments (28)

I don't unplug my microwave, but I do unplug my toaster oven all the time. No clock issue to deal with.

Well, it can't hurt, right? I only plug in my small appliances (toaster, espresso machine, KitchenAid) when I'm using them. And I'm constantly unplugging them b/c my husband thinks it's silly to unplug them. But I don't unplug my stove or microwave, since they're built in and harder to get to.

i dont know if anyone else thinks this... but loading up a regular powerstrip with lots of things is not a good idea. esp if you plan on running more than one thing at a time. i did that one time in our old rental house because i only had two plugs in the whole kitchen. i was using a fryer and a hand blender and the plug in the wall caught on fire.
for me that isnt a problem now...i have somewhere around 20 plugs in my new kitchen!

The only appliance we have plugged in all the time is the coffeemaker and because it is on a timer to go off every morning, no we do not unplug it.

I unplug all my small appliances except for my coffee make because resetting that clock is a pain and it's also on a timer to make early starts not so terrible.

I don't do this, but I think a great solution would be to put one or two outlets on switches. (We have this in another room for our lamps.) That way, you can just cut the power to the outlets without having to plug and unplug appliances every time you want to use them.

My small appliances (blender, toaster, etc.) are always unplugged unless I'm using them but for a different reason. I have a cat. A friend of mine has a cat who once turned on the toaster, set his tail ablaze and burned down a good chunk of the kitchen.

However, I wish that US appliance manufacturers would take a lesson from my Japanese-made Zojirushi rice cooker: it comes with a tiny watch battery that keeps the time set even when the unit is unplugged. So no need to worry about resetting it every time.

i plug in the appliances in the kitchen as they're needed. they stay unplugged and stowed otherwise. the microwave is hardwired so i can't unplug it.

I would love it if the US adopted some sort of receptacle such as the Type I Australian switched power point pictured here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Australian_dual_switched_power_point.jpg

That would allow us all to not have to constantly be unplugging things, just turn the switches off. :)

I don't use the clock on the microwave and unplug it nightly. Same for the electric kettle, stereo speakers, stand mixer and food processor. The fridge and the stove stay on. However little energy it uses, why waste it? It really is not difficult to plug/unplug things.

I don't have any digital displays on mine but one solution is to use GFI outlets and pop those off whenever you're not using it night or day. If you want to figure out how much those blinky displays are costing you there is a device call a kill a watt that you can plug into and it will measure it for you.

My toaster oven has no digital display, and it's our microwave so it stays plugged in. The only other thing I don't unplug is my senseo and there's no digital display on that. I had been unplugging it, but I'd forget and then stumble about for a bit and get irritated after a few minutes when I remember (same thing happened with the toaster oven). My boyfriend always unplugs his espresso machine and burr grinder after he uses them though. My mixer is the only other thing that has a permanent home on the counter and it gets unplugged after being used. Everything else is put away after being used.

I'm with your hubby on this, I really hate wasting all that power (even if it is a "tiny" amount. It's relative.)

We leave the microwave in but unplug the toaster oven (mostly because its "off" and "stay on" feature are too close to each other and I'm paranoid we're going to burn our apt building down). I would like to unplug the microwave but I know my partner would hate the resetting the clock issue.

We do switch off the cable box because that thing draws WAY more power than anything. The difference between "on" and "off - but still plugged in" is almost zilch! People don't realize that. So we have it in an outlet connected to a switch we can flip on/off.

P.s. @thenapolitan I agree! They have them in the UK as well. I think the US would consume FAR less energy if we did that!

You can buy power-strip/surge protectors that have individual switches for each outlet but they are hard to find.

We rarely use the microwave, so it's only plugged in when it's going to be used. Considering how easy it is to just pull the plug, I think it'd be silly to leave something plugged in at all times when it only gets used for five minutes a day, or sometimes not at all. Same goes for the toaster, blender, and food processor, of course.

We keep all small appliances unplugged including our cell phone chargers and computers.

To each their own, but we any appliance that we use on a daily (or near-daily) basis stays plugged in. For me the additional current draw is "cost of doing business". I'd rather focus on "structural" changes, such as changing out light bulbs or buying more energy-efficient appliances in the first place.

I also agree with @vertigoxcured - unless you understand how your house is wired, pulling too much current through one receptacle may cause some objects to "lose their smoke". As with toast, once the smoke comes out of your power strip, outlet, or home, it will not be very useful anymore.

We dont unplug the fridge, stove or microwave, but small appliances are always unplugged. After a house fire that started with a faulty toaster oven, we're a bit paranoid about it.

i keep my small appliances unplugged most of the time. i live alone, so i'm the only one incovenienced to plug them back in when i need to use them. the coffee maker is only on for an hour or so in the morning. there's a timer mechanism on my toaster that doesn't actually need outside power to run, so that stays unplugged and i don't need to use the microwave as a timer when cooking like i used to. i have an analog clock on the wall so i don't worry about resetting the microwave clock at all.
my tv dvr are always plugged in because i record a lot of shows during the week and catch up on the weekends. and while my computer stays plugged in and on constantly because i'm a music fanatic and can't stand to wait while it boots, the monitor is on an energy saver timer. i think it's all a pretty good compromise.

Is this topic haunted? As I was reading these comments my TV went off!

These are called phantom electrical loads, speaking of haunted. There are plenty of resources on the internet to give you an idea of the magnitude of these for different types of appliances. Some are truly trivial.

As a rule of thumb, these phantom loads produce heat. Feel the transformer [wall wart] for your cell phone - warm? The little digital display on your microwave - probably not warm? The warmer, the more phantom electrical draw.

Safety can be a consideration [hope the cat with the burned tail, above, recovered.] I had an old appliance suddenly turn itself on and run until it smoked and would have probably eventually caught fire. As such, unplugging these things for times when you are absent, vacations... is probably a good idea from a safety perspective.

Energy-efficient fridges can be surprisingly inexpensive to run, for what it's worth.

I unplug the things I don't use on the spur of the moment - the toaster is plugged in, the food processor is not. The stove and the microwave are built-in (and Energy Star compliant).

Much like the cat fire story, I have been unplugging my toaster for years when not in use because a friend of mine had a serious kitchen fire when her dad put a basket of laundry on the kitchen counter. The side of the basket pushed down the switch and the laundry spilling over the side ignited in the toaster. From that habit it was not hard to think, why don't we just unplug everything? We often go days without using the toaster or can opener (my wife insists on an electric one), so it seems worthwhile (and safe) to keep them unplugged. Our microwave is built-in, so that and the stove and fridge stay plugged. And all other appliances (i.e. food processor, stand mixer) are stored in cabinets due to infrequent use/counter space issues, so they are never plugged in when not in use.

Why aren't switched power outlets standard in US like they are in so many other places?

I agree that changing our system to switched outlets will be good -- may it come soon. Does anyone know if it can be done individually, as in by a household? I plug in my toaster oven only when using it, and, having read these posts, will start to do the same with my microwave.

I find microwaves completely irrelevant. I have lived without one for two years and there is absolutely no reason to use it. everything that you think you may need to use it for you can do it for the same amount of time and tastes better. my advice toss it!

I usually unplug all my electronics except my electric water kettle. Which i'm pretty sure doesn't suck up any energy unless i flip the switch.

I have 3 plugs in the kitchen but one is for the washing machine and the second is for the fridge. The rest of the appliances use the remaining plug, one at a time so I keep unplugging them when i'm done. During winter we need a dehumidifier on ALL the time or my kitchen walls will start dripping a LOT. It is hard to fix the humidity issue since it's a very old appartment so we chose to use the dehumidifier most of the time. Other than that... the guy's pc is hard to turn off since he's always downloading something and doesn't want to turn it off at all but my efforts to turn it off have started to succeed.

My hubby and I argue about the same thing! In the end, I confess that I only un-plug those items that are easy ~ the ones that are easy to reach and that have plugs that don't fit so snugly that it takes a lot of effort to remove.

Hopefully over time even this little bit helps.