Watchdog in Action:
Every Home Office has or needs a printer or scanner / printer in one model. Once again this will be one of your highest energy users depending on the model. A Home Office laser printer will consume about 33% of its total electricity consumption when in the standby mode. Compared to a quality ink jet printer, a laser printer has the higher purchase price and the Highest electric bill. If your Home Office can function (most home offices should) with the slower printing speed of an ink jet printer, this purchase and use will save energy. Today's most common Ink Jet Printer is also a Scanner. These all-in-one models are smaller, fast enough, and provide excellent printing quality.

- When buying a printer make sure that an energy saving sleep mode feature is included.

- Printers that have energy saving features will power down into the sleep mode after a set amount of non-used time.

- Also to help the environment, the printer should have the ability to print on both sides of paper and on used scrap paper.

- Sleep Modes save SOME energy.

- Shutting off any office equipment that will not be used within the next hour is a better way to save energy. Shutting off saves MORE energy.

- Saving ALL the energy is done by using a Power Strip that protects your equipment against power surges. (Power Surges, aka spikes or drops in voltage are more common from your utility company than lightning strikes which will fry everything no matter what Power Strip you have when there is a "direct" strike) This allows you to turn off the printer all together.

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You can mount your Power Strip on the side or back of the printer's table so it is within easy reach. This will allow you when leaving for lunch, a meeting, break-time, to go home, or when you know you don't need the printer anymore at this time: to shut off your printer and then turn off the switch on the Power Strip stopping all electrical consumption.

That is easy and you are now saving 100% on the electric bill, because the appliance can no longer draw any electricity through the plug to maintain a standby mode.

Now the best energy management of any Printer or Scanner / Printer , is to leave all printing jobs until the end of the morning or afternoon. Turning your printer on only once or twice for the day, do all your printing at that time, shut off and then shut down with the power strip switch.