Do you unplug your appliances (minor appliances as opposed to major appliances) when you're done using them?

Yes. Always. I include my heating pad and all the small kitchen stuff; coffee bean grinder, food processor and toaster.

Always, I’m paranoid about fires.

Yes! I consistently find the toaster left plugged in from the morning and I immediately unplug it, along with other similar things. My dad outright refuses to believe that things that are plugged in still use a small amount of electricity (despite the fact that I have told him on multiple occasions that it’s scientifically proven and that it’s not really debatable) and he doesn’t think that it’s a serious fire hazard, so I am constantly unplugging things.

He also leaves lights on in rooms with nobody in them, so I also frequently turn lights off that he has left on in empty rooms just because he doesn’t “like to walk into a dark room/house.”

Sigh…dads these days.

^^Does he pay the electric bills?

The only thing I unplug after I use is my iron, even though it turns itself off. Yeah, the whole vampire power thing. I get it. I just don’t do anything about it, just about everything is plugged. All over the house. Yup. Don’t unplug a damn thing when I’m done with it.

O.K. I just unplugged my toaster and the toaster oven but that’s as far as I’m taking it. I can’t unplug my coffee maker. I’m no good until I have my coffee and if I unplug it I’ll spend 10 minutes tomorrow morning trying to figure out why it isn’t working. Just kidding, it would only take me 5 minutes.

@gailcalled Yes, of course.

@Fly: Has he made the correlation between the appliances plugged in when not in use and the lights left on in empty rooms and the size of his utility bill?

@gailcalled Unfortunately, no, partially because he thinks it’s all “baloney” and partially because I have been doing this long before he noticed that I had been doing it.
Ironically, he about flips out when I leave the ceiling fan on in my room because it instantly gets hot in my room when I turn it off, though he leaves lights and his TV on even when he isn’t using them. But I have also been doing this far before he noticed it, so he couldn’t have seen a difference in the bill from that, either.

I have a fire chief friend. He’s made me paranoid about fire hazards. I unplug all small appliances after each use.

As a property manager, one of the worst blazing fires was caused by a cheapo (glade or likewise) candle. The sprinklers & the fire department put it out quickly.

But, the worst damage to an apartment was caused by a hair dryer that was left plugged in prior to the tenant leaving for a weekend trip. Prior to actually burning, the dryer which had been propped on the vanity, slipped into the sink, and turned on. The dryer over heated. The plastic began melting. The melted plastic then blew all over the entire apartment. Fire damage was minimal since it was contained in the sink. However, the plastic damage ruined ll fixtures, appliances, cabinets, carpet -etc. It looked like a thousand spiders wove black silk webs down from the ceilings and onto every surface.

You betcha! I even unplug my clocks whenever I don’t need to know the time. ;-p

I used to unplug the clothes dryer because when I was remodeling at a house that burned pretty badly, it caught fire from just being plugged in.Which was why we got that job It wasn’t being used at the time but it went up anyway. I have gotten away from that as it is such a pain to do that every time.

Such appliances as are kept in closets and the like get unplugged. The countertop appliances, like the blender and toaster, stay plugged in.

Yes, always. It’s become a habit.

@Nullo thank you. Rational rules.

Where does all this unplugging end? Should I unplug my dryer and my washer and my microwave and my shredder and my computer and my router and my TV and my printer and my cable box and all my floor lamps and the lamp on my nightstand, all, every night, before I go to bed?

@lillycoyote We unplug our shredder when not in use!

@Plucky But do you unplug all the other stuff I mentioned?

Anything with a heating element gets unplugged.

^Yep. That’s our rule, too @elbanditoroso.

Yes, every appliance, except clocks, clock radios, lamps, cable box, TV, DVD player, and for some reason, the toaster oven and microwave. We usually don’t unplug the toater oven and microwave except when we go on trips. The computers are turned off but not unplugged.

Unplugging the toaster oven is easy; in my house the plug for the M/W is hard to reach. Why not compromise.

@gailcalled Yes, unplugging it is easy, but somehow we don’t remember to do it. Perhaps we should…

Unplugging appliances is very safe and a good habit, it is firstly safe to do so and also protects the appliance from getting damaged from voltage fluctuations or short-circuits.
Sachin Kapre

I am not in the habit of unplugging the smaller appliances. Maybe this is a practice I hold consider trying.
The only thing I really unplug is the iron.

@lillycoyote No, not entirely. But, I do believe that unplugging the small appliances makes a difference. The microwave is built in so we don’t unplug it. When we lived in a small apartment, we had a small microwave that was easy to unplug…so we did. When both of us are away for a week our more, we unplug the lamps.

I understand unplugging heating appliances for fire safety reasons.
(is there a threshold for you? Is a coffee-maker okay but not the toaster oven?)

But is there a noticeable difference on a power bill when unplugging things like a coffee grinder? Does the idle power cord on everything consume measurable power?
Do the blinky lights on gadgets suck up that much power?
– does it actually make much of a difference?

“Stand-by” on remote-controlled machinery is another story. The machine is on alert to spring into action and that has to take at least a little juice.

…and those wall-wart power supply modules for nearly every gadget.
I need a power strip with a switch on every socket to turn all of those off when not in use.
Some of them clearly are less parasitic than they used to be, they don’t, or only barely, make noticeable heat when the device is off/unplugged from them &/or when the gadget is done charging. The old wall-warts were cooking night and day.

I’ll unplug the hair dryer, iron, toaster when not in use. My reasoning for unplugging those is that I am a bit paranoid about fires, since I lived in a building that burned in a fire. All else stays plugged in.