I just don’t understand why “vampire loads” got all the attention from anti-coal environmentalists last decade. They are so insignificant compared to things like refrigerators and water heaters. A quarter watt “vampire load” costs you something like $0.37 a year (running 24/7/365 at $0.17/kWh). Meanwhile, an electric water heater is likely to be around $300 to $600 per year depending on how big and how hot you set it. And if you just put a timer on it (or control it with a switch) so it only runs once a day, you can cut that down by a few hundred bucks.
Seems like that’s where the environmentalists should be putting in their effort!