Leaving your Keurig machine plugged in and turned on can be energy-inefficient if you don’t use the brewer often, but is recommended for frequent coffee drinkers. Ultimately, the answer as to whether you should leave your Keurig on all the time depends on how many times you brew coffee per day.
Are you supposed to unplug your coffee maker?
You should unplug your coffee machine whenever you’re not using it to save on energy. According to research data, American homeowners incur up to $200 per year in additional electricity bills due to appliances left plugged in while not in use. Apart from saving energy, you’ll also be extending the lifespan of your brewer by unplugging it when it’s lying idle.
Another key reason why you shouldn’t leave your coffee maker plugged in when you aren’t using it is to reduce the risk of an electrical fire. Electrical malfunctions caused by appliances left plugged in are a common cause of residential fires in the US.
Can a Keurig Be Left on All Day
If you’re an avid coffee drinker, or your household has many people that drink coffee at different times of the day, it can be frustrating having to turn off your Keurig machine on and off multiple times over the course of the day. As such, many people simply prefer to leave their Keurig brewers on.
However, for your Keurig coffee maker to stay on all day, you have to turn off the ‘auto-off’ feature, which automatically turns off the brewer if it stays unused for 2 hours. The procedure for disabling the auto-off feature on your Keurig depends on the Keurig model you have, as detailed below.
- Keurig B-77- double-press the menu button to access the ‘AUTO-OFF’ menu. Then, press on the blue ‘left’ button until you get to ‘OFF’.
- Keurig K-Select- with your Keurig turned off but plugged in, press and hold down on the ‘strong’ and ’10-oz. Large Mug’ buttons until the green ‘Auto Off’ light is disabled.
- Keurig K-Café- with your Keurig turned off but plugged in, press and hold down on the ‘strong’ and ’10-oz.’ buttons until the green ‘Auto Off’ light is disabled.
- Keurig K-Classic- simply press the ‘auto off’ button to disable the green ‘auto off’ light.
Should you turn off your Keurig when not in use?
If you only brew coffee once or twice per day, it’s better to turn off your Keurig when it’s not in use, as you’ll be saving on energy. When you leave your Keurig brewer on all day long, the clock and other electrical elements keep running, slowly increasing energy usage. What’s more, the rate of wear and tear on the heating components of the Keurig increases, reducing the lifespan of your machine.
However, if you brew multiple cups of coffee at different times during the day, it’s more energy efficient to leave the Keurig on than turn it on and off every time you need to brew a cup. That’s because Keurig coffee makers use up more energy in the start-up phase.
For instance, a Keurig that’s turned on once and then left powered on for 4 hours uses about 5440 watts of power. By comparison, a Keurig that’s turned on and off to brew 8 cups of coffee over the course of 4 hours consumes about 10,400 watts of power.
Note: Your Keurig uses the most energy for the first three minutes after you turn it on (1500 watts), as it heats up the water in the water reservoir.
When the Keurig is left on, most power is used in keeping the water in the internal tank warm (200-400 watts). The lower power usage is due to the fact that electric heating is only activated if the water in the internal tank drops below a certain temperature.
Note: The water inside the internal tank of your Keurig is usually kept warm so long as the machine is powered on to make future brews faster. Meanwhile, Keurig brewers left on only use as much energy as a 60-watt bulb when lying idle and not heating up the water in the internal tank.
Finally, you may be wondering whether your Keurig should be turned off due to the risk of an electrical fire. While it is possible that a Keurig may malfunction and catch fire due to the presence of heating elements, it’s very unlikely due to the effort that Keurig manufacturers have put into making their coffee machines safer over the years.
That being said, electrical appliances like Keurig brewers are more likely to cause electrical fires if the power cord, wall outlet, and the building’s electrical wiring are faulty. Thus, leaving your Keurig turned on doesn’t pose much of a fire hazard if there are no such faults.
References
- US Fire Administration: Data, Publications, and Library
- US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC): Home Electrical Safety Checklist
