Which household appliances are the worst to leave on standby in terms of wasting energy and increasing your energy bills?

With the recent changes to the Energy Price cap and with no sign of things changing anytime soon, every little helps.

In reality, the savings you can make by turning appliances off at the plug are likely not going to provide the impact you are looking for, yet in combination with other steps, like lowering the flow temperature of your boiler, they can make a sizeable dent in your annual energy bills.

Worst Devices to Leave on Standby Mode

In the infographic below you can see the worst devices to leave on standby in the average UK household.

How Can You Turn Your Appliances Off Standby?

If you want to avoid wasting energy on having your appliances on standby you will need to turn then off.

You can easily achieve this by pulling the plug out at the socket or turning the switch to the off position.

If you have a media station e.g. a TV, games console, modem and satellite box all in the same location you may find it easier to have them all connected to the same plug, so you can switch them all off at the same time.

Where is this data from?

The data used in the image above is taken from Centrica UK, one of the UK’s largest energy companies and the parent company of industry titian British Gas.

To determine the figures British Gas used average costs of wattage from different manufacturers’ average models when left on standby. 

Therefore, it’s worth noting that the above data is based on a gross UK average and so please bear that in mind as your household may very well use more energy by leaving appliances on standby or indeed less.