The New Hotness

Every gadget comes with its own battery charger wall wart, every single one of which dissipates a watt or two even when it’s not charging. Add ’em up, multiply by $2 per watt per year (check your electric bill; that’s closer than you think!), and realize that you could afford some nice new tools just by unplugging the things between charges.

But that’s too much trouble and, really, AC outlets aren’t meant for that many mate/unmate cycles. I had one contact fall loose inside a power strip a while ago and the carnage was spectacular.

What to do?

Find an otherwise unoccupied flat spot (or build a shelf near an outlet), buy two or three Power Squid adapters (you don’t need surge suppression for this assignment, so get ’em on sale cheap), plug all your chargers into the Squids, and turn everything off with a single switch when you’re not charging anything.

Bonus: You certainly have some low duty cycle power tools that always have dead batteries when you need them. Plug ’em into the Squid you use most often for other batteries. That way, they’ll get a boost whenever you charge something else, which should keep ’em up to speed.

I set this tangle up before Power Squids existed, so I just plugged a bunch of Y-splitters into an ordinary power strip. It makes for a fearsome tangle of cords, but at least it’s out of the way atop the never-sufficiently-to-be-damned radon air exchanger in the basement.