THE Lighting Thread (merged)

[VMA131Marine]

Hey I have changed out most if the light bulbs in my house from incandescent to fluorescent.
Maybe in the winter incandescants are more efficient?

True, flourescents convert a much higher fraction of input power to light and thus require less power to generate the same amount of light as an incandescent bulb. However, ultimately all the power input to both types of fixture ends up as heat in your house (assuming your windows are shaded). There is no "double-duty"as you put it, light is just another form of energy that gets converted to heat when it's absorbed by the walls, floor, ceiling and furnishings of your house.
The thing is, that to get 1 Watt-hr of heat from electricity at your house takes 3 to 4 Watt-hours of energy at the power plant that generates it. Most likely, that energy comes from natural gas or coal. Meanwhile, your gas furnace puts 80-90% of the heat it generates into your house. Taken as a complete system, it's much more efficient to create the heat you need by burning it at your house than by burning it at the power plant .

[skateari]

Good post VMA.. I was kinda wondering the same thing myself, thanks

[MonteQuest]

The thing is, that to get 1 Watt-hr of heat from electricity at your house takes 3 to 4 Watt-hours of energy at the power plant that generates it. Most likely, that energy comes from natural gas or coal. Meanwhile, your gas furnace puts 80-90% of the heat it generates into your house. Taken as a complete system, it's much more efficient to create the heat you need by burning it at your house than by burning it at the power plant .

This is spot on, and something everyone needs to have down. Consider for a moment how we heat water for our shower in most homes:

LNG is used to heat water/to produce steam/the water is used to turn a turbine/the turbine spins a generator/the generator produces electricity/the electricity is sent to a step-up transformer/ it is converted to high voltage/ this is transferred over power lines to a substation/then sent to a step-down transformer/and transferred to your house/where it heats a coil/ to heat your water.

Every / bar represents energy being transferred from one form to another with a loss of available energy (entropy) at each point.

If we used LNG at our home to heat water, we would have only one conversion. LNG to hot water. While this is certainly “technology,â€

[PhilBiker]

I don't think gas fired water heaters are as rare as you seem to think Monte. My current house and my previous one both had gas fired water heaters, they're the norm around here.

[MonteQuest]

I don't think gas fired water heaters are as rare as you seem to think Monte. My current house and my previous one both had gas fired water heaters, they're the norm around here.

I guess it depends on where you live. In Socal, where I just moved from, "all electric" is the the rage in the homes I was working on. But I was more focusing on the inefficiency of centralized energy production and lost over power line transmissions and energy conversions.

[gg3]

I have a gas water heater.

A few years ago I found that whilst working at my desk I could keep the house heat (gas) down to a minimum level and provide a small spot of acceptable warmth at my desk by using a reflectorized "heat lamp" rather than a portable electric heater. That is, 60 watts rather than 1,000.

[BabyPeanut]

Maybe in the winter incandescants are more efficient?

Do your lightbulbs just heat the ceiling? I think a space heater would do better if the heat came out at the floor level.

I think going after energy savings in this way is a much lower priority than a lot of other things you could be doing.

[EnviroEngr]

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LED Article in Plant Services

[bruin]

How much does it cost to leave a 100W light bulb on all month long?

From there one could figure in the real hours per month it is on or a lesser wattage bulb.

We have a ton of lights on in the house all day long and I'm trying to convice the family members to shut them off.

[Madpaddy]

100w x 24 x 30 / 1000 = 72 kwh per month x approx 12c per kwh = $8.64 per bulb per month.

Switching to a cfl (compact fluorescent) should cut this to $1.80 per month and the bulb will also have a longer lifespan.

[Andy]

In one day, that one 100W bulb will burn 2.4 KWHrs, hence burning 72 KWhrs per 30 day month. Assuming electricity at 8c per KWHr, that is nearly $6 per month for one lousy bulb. If you have 10 bulbs running like that, that is nearly $60.

[Kingcoal]

Why not just charge your familly for the electricity? I get sick and tired of turning lights off myself.

[aahala]

In the last six months, I replaced all my old light bulbs to CFLs.

Midway in the process, I discovered two major US home improvement chains in my area selling 60-w CFLs <$2. Homedepot, 6 for $10 has been continiously and Lowes 3 for $6 more or less off and on during this period.

[BabyPeanut]

Why not just charge your familly for the electricity? I get sick and tired of turning lights off myself.

Install coin-op switches.

[bruin]

I've thought of those motion senser deals where it turns off without any activity after awhile.

Thanks for the math!

[MikeB]

We can testify to the saving of switching to CFLs. We started replacing them over the summer. Every time we'd get a paycheck we'd replace a few bulbs. Last January of 2004 we used 455 KWHrs. That dropped to 243 last month, January of 2005. There have been no other changes in our usage. A phenomenal change.

[pip]

How much electricity do the long tube flourescents type lights use? Are they as efficient as these CFL's?

[bruin]

All that maters is how many watts it is rated at. So if your flourescents burn 100W it will cost the same as a 100W incand. bulb.

However, you can get away with less wattage on flourescents.

[lotrfan55345]

Using CFL, its like 1w=90 lumens. Incandescent is 1w = 10lumens

[Madpaddy]

8c per kwh. Fuck me it's about 14c throughout Europe per kwh. You guys are in for some huge culture shocks very very soon !!!!!