Saving energy in the future?

It's really hard to see a change in your electricity bill by using the bulbs because lighting accounts for a pretty small percentage of your electricity consumption (assuming that you have electric appliances etc). According to XCel Energy lighting accounts for 6% of a typical house holds energy consumption. Heating/Cooling, on the other hand accounts for about 50%. Water heating about 18%. Flourescent bulbs will help mind you, and over the long haul you'll save money AND reduce GHG production. Most of the bulbs in our house are compact flourecents and for the most part I've been really happy with them. However, if you really want to lower your bills you need to tackle the big things like AC, washer/dryer, refridgerator, etc. Another sneaky one is the blower on your furnace. The more you heat your house the more that blower runs, so you get a double whammy -- higher gas bill and higher electricity bill. The other big area (actually, apart for AC probably the biggest) is the heat producers like ovens and toaster. These things are energy pigs. We have a small water heating pitcher that I use for making tea. That thing uses 1.5 kWs! Toasters are about the same.

 

The point I should have made in the last post was that normal flucuations in those big pieces of the energy pie make it really hard to tell what you're saving on the lighting part.

 

Yes, I did. I converted everything a couple of years ago, late in the season when I had the A/C and heat off. The following month was about $5 per month cheaper, and this is with me paying wholesale for power as I'm supplied by an electric co-op. My hot water heater timer was good for another $8 per month.

Before I did the CF conversion, I added up the number of lights I had in the house for all of the fixtures. I totalled 48 bulbs, plus 3 more for the oven, fridge, and mechanic's light. All bulbs were of the 60 watt variety. Now, I highly doubt that this is a valid measure by far, but I multiplied the wattage of the bulbs, by the number of fixtures. 48 times 60 came out to a POTENTIAL demand of 2,880 wh. Replacing the 48 replaceable bulbs with CFs dropped the potential demand to 572 wh. Now, I obviously don't run around with every light on in the house, but it does at least illustrate how much of a drop in consumption a CF is good for in comparison to the incandescent.

I'm still not happy with this, as my electric bill last month was still over $100, depsite not having the HVAC on all month. I've since started experimenting with some of the LED lights that are available. The ones I've purchased so far are inadequate for illuminating an entire room, but their wattage is like .6 and .8 watts respectively for the bulbs that I've purchased so far. My first batch was four of the .6 watt 9 LED bulbs. These were unfortunately meant to be used in recessed can lighting. They have good intensity, but the light is targeted to a narrow field. I've since relocated them to places were they can still be useful, but don't require bright lighting.

The second batch was four .8 watt 9 LED bulbs, which looked a bit more like a conventional bulb. These are still too dim for a large room, but work adequately in my smallest bathroom. I've since replace 91 wh worth of CF's with a total of 5.6 wh of LEDs. I've since ordered a batch of four 18 count LED lights, which again are diffused like a regular bulb. These are also of the .6 watt variety. If these will not light up my main living room adequately, they'll still be useful in another one of my tiny rooms where all I need is enough light to not walk into or trip over things. One in place, I will have replaced 130 wh of CFs with 8 wh of LEDs. My potential demand will be down to 450wh instead of 572wh.

I'm drooling heavily over that news piece with the coated LEDs. If they solve the light intensity issue, I'll be all over them in less than a heartbeat. I'll be in hog heaven to have the lighting part of my electric bill to be cut back to approximately 1% of when I bought the place.

Man, did I ever go nuts with this post.

 

HA! You folks are all missing the real potential to save on lighting cost in the long term: Genetic engineering: Implant people with cats' eye genes. Then we'll be able to see in the dark and we won't need lights at all.

 

we save a few bucks a month with the fluorescent lightbulbs. but since they last 9 years (or so says the warranty on the box) they easily pay for themselves many times over.

and daniel, you know that cats can't see in complete darkness, right?

 

We moved into this house 4 years ago and bought 7 year flourescent bulbs for all our lights except the dimmable fixtures. Suffice to say, they are slowly burning out, but getting an 8 pack of replacements at Costco is only about $9. They have really come down in price in 4 years.

 

hmm, thanks, good to know about that. we've got the receipt and they are warranted for 9 years. i'll make sure to keep an eye out for bulbs that are burning out.

 

I never saved my receipts :angry: , but I believe the bulbs said something to the effect of, they'll last 7 years based on 2 hours a day usage. Well, my kitchen lights(the first ones to start going) are on almost from wake up to bed time...I guess I could have said we used them only a couple of hours

 

Sure. But it's never completely dark.