Contributor
John, are you sure this isn't just coincidence and not cause/effect. For example, if they have been seeing the 'global cooling' in Australia that we are here in Minnesota you can be sure the energy usage is way up but its not due to the type of lightbulbs. ROFLOriginally Posted by John Coloccia
Contributor
If I remember correctly, it was a report by their own government. Most of the inefficiency of a standard bulb is given off as heat. For CFLs, there are other inefficiencies. It's generally darker in the winter than the summer. In the end, the heat given off by an incandescent, even when you consider summer cooling costs, is an overall winner, and when you combine that with the inefficiencies in a CFL that DON'T help heat your home, CFLs become big losers overall. Honestly, I was a little surprised too, but the more I think about it, the more it makes sense. If you're going to have any inefficiency, it makes sense to make it inefficient in a way that's beneficial, at least.
So while your electric bill may go down a little, ultimately your oil bill goes up more. That's how it's working in Australia at any rate.
Contributor
It costs about twice as much per BTU to heat with electricity than it does to heat with natural gas. Therefore it is cheaper for me to heat with my furnace than with light bulbs. In areas of the world where they heat with propane or fuel oil it could be slightly cheaper to heat with electricity.
Contributor
But its cheapest of all to heat your house with energy you would otherwise throw away.
Last edited by John Coloccia; 01-05-2014 at 10:32 AM.
Guest
I will also note a great number of people I've spoken to seem to leave the CFL bulbs on nearly all the time because it takes a while for them to warm up (especially in a cold garage or basement), and "because they don't cost much to run."
I've tried to explain to people that a 100-watt bulb around here (at our rates) costs about $10/month to run continuously, so a 23-watt fluorescent bulb would cost about $2.30. The thing is, if people only turned the 100-watt bulb on here and there and ran it maybe 24 hours/month, it was only costing about $.33/month.
So I think there are some fundamental misconceptions about how much money they save by switching to CFL, and I think some people are blowing any savings out of the water because of the warm-up time.
In cases of closets and hallways and stairways and garages where bulbs would be turned on only briefly, LED is probably a better way to go, because people will use them more like a conventional (incandescent) bulb.
But I absolutely agree from my casual observations that some people may actually increase energy usage by switching to CFL bulbs.
[OP]
Member
One of the links posted earlier said that New Zealand had ended its incandescent ban because of similar results.
Matt made an interesting observation I think as well, he said he increased bulb output ratings when switching to cfl, (I'm paraphrasing as I can't back out of this page to find the actual quote, sorry if I butcher his actual words). I have a couple cfl bulbs in various places still, and they are both 100 watt bulbs, in places that a 60 watt incandescent would work. Perhaps it not fair to assume the savings of equal wattage bulbs because there may be a need to put a bigger cfl in to equal the existing incandescent. These are two anecdotal incidents, but they raise the question.
[OP]
Member
Hi Jeff, interesting stuff. We are actually stealing the farming practices that you North Dakotans originated. We don't have to no till farm, but it makes sense from most every other angle. Saves water, money and erosion. We do get water out of the Ogallala aquifer. We do have new well moratoriums, pumping restrictions, etc to deal with though. The recent long drought caused the levels to fall, but it has stopped that mostly. Lots of water down there, and as long as it snows on the front range to make runoff and storms here, we get the recharge and all is ok. If it doesn't, then we have problems.Steve, thanks for explaining that. I grew up on dry-land farming/ranching in south central ND. Most of the land is rolling hills, unsuitable for a center pivot system, although there were some nearby. Plus we had enough rocks to contend with. That was before no-till farming. Any tillage and frost replenished the rocks even if you picked them. Later we had two generations of rock pickers. Today my brother uses a roller; you push them back in the soil instead of trying to pick'em.
In the bigger picture I'm not sure what the aquifer situation and permitting is there. We never had to wory about it.
My guess is you draw from the Ogallala aquifer. That outlook is alarming if not scary. ...back to light bulbs
[OP]
Member
Leo, I love that business idea, if you get if figured out, I'll be your first customer!
Contributor
I have both Philips and GE CFLs in my house. The GE CFLs come on at probably 85% brightness from the get go. The Philips are dim at turn on and take forever to get bright. I just bought a new batch of GE CFLs at Sam's Club and they still come on just as fast as the older GE CFLs I have. I'm actually going to Sam's Club today to get another batch of GE CFLs to put in a fixture and replace the remaining two Philips CFLs.
I have two GE CFLs in the fixture at the entrance from my garage. This is probably the worst place to use CFLs due to being turned on and off a lot, but I believe the current GE CFLs have been there since 2007 or so.
Member
I have a CFL in my porch entrance. It's connected to the automatic flood lamps. When they go on so does the porch lamp. During the cold snap we just had it wouldn't come up to brightness. Just stayed at about 25 watt brightness. To cold for it I guess.
Contributor
Higher efficiency incandescent bulbs? Who would have thought...what are they talking about?
Contributor
GE has a line of more efficient incandescent bulbs that use halogen capsules instead of a tungsten filament. You can't see the halogen capsule since they are frosted. I saw them at Walmart this weekend and they cost about $1.20 a bulb. More expensive than the old style incandescent bulbs, but cheaper than CFL or LED technology.
Member
Kinda like how lead paint bans are for paint companies.
The lead white paint on my 105 year old soffits? Still going strong, never been recoated.
The silica/quartz white paint on my siding? Not so much. Just had it all redone after about 10 years. Admittedly the last time was done improperly by previous owners, this time it was done right (with an oil/mineral spirits pre-treat after scraping the old stuff off, oil primer, and then the paint), but even at that what's it good for? 15? 20 tops?
Last edited by Neal Clayton; 01-07-2014 at 1:56 PM.
Member
We moved into a new house in July, There are 41 cfl bulbs in ceiling mounted light fixtures and another 8 in wall mounted fixtures. Besides taking one to two minutes to warm up enough to put out more than dim light, four of them have already burned out, two of them recessed floods in can lights that cost $6 apiece. I've never gotten anything near the claimed 8000 hours service out of them.
Dennis
If you have CFL's that are slow to come on, I have had some, you need to get a different bulb. Don't assume all CFL's are bad because of some bad actors. But, let's face it, LED's are here to stay and will be as common shortly as incandescent bulbs used to be. They come on almost instantly, are dimmable, last virtually forever and are available in different temperatures, most common seems to be 2700 degrees, about the same as the old favorite incandescent bulb. And costs are dropping fast.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
