Regular bulbs (almost) as good as CFLs

[Ryan P]

I'll have to take a look at those. Thanks!

Darn it! I fell into the trap of blaming everything else BUT myself! lol

[Don Klipstein]

Dimmers based on resistors are nowadays only slightly more common than hairy eggs.

The real energy efficiency problem with dimming incandescents is that they produce light less efficiently when dimmed. Typically, an incandescent consuming half its rated wattage produces about 20% of full light output.

If you are usually dimming them, you will probably save by using fewer bulbs or lower wattage ones - especially fewer, as long as the illumination pattern is satisfactory. (Higher wattage incandescents tend to be slightly to somewhat more efficient than lower wattage ones.)

- Don Klipstein ( [e-mail])

[Don Klipstein]

Or non-standard halogens that use less energy, including ones that resemble and are interchangeable with "A19" incandescents with E26/E27 bases. Such as Philips Halogena Energy Saver. A 70 watt one produces nearly as much light as a "standard" 100W incandescent. A 40 watt one produces close to as much light as a "standard" 60 watt incandescent.

- Don Klipstein ( [e-mail])

[Don Klipstein]

My experience is that lights with the daylight-like color of "full spectrum" (whether they are or not) look stark and dreary at typical home illumination levels. Also, less light (by photometric units) is produced for a given amount of electricity when color rendering index gets past the maximum of the common triphosphor technology (mid 80's).

One more thing - there is no industry-accepted definition of "full spectrum".

- Don Klipstein ( [e-mail])

[Hipupchuck]

There is no way to make resistive heat filaments more efficient. A short circuit is a short circuit.

[RicodJour]

C'mon over to my neck of the woods and I'll serve you up some hairy eggs, then. There are plenty of older houses around here with old wiring, old fixtures, and old dimmers. I run into old knob and tube stuff on occasion. When I tell the owner how old the wiring is, they tend to freak out a bit.

R

[RicodJour]

Well, your experience is not my experience, and there seem to be quite a number of people that like/love the things. I'm kind of surprised that you feel the full spectrum light is harsh. I find it easier on the eyes. I'm also not sure what you mean by dreary - dreary to me usually means there's not enough light, as in gloomy, so I don't know how it could be both harsh and dreary.

Check out the Verilux brand. Their products usually get four and five stars on Amazon. My Dad bought their reading lamp and liked it so much that he now buys them and gives them as gifts. The Verilux CFL seems to be a hole in their line-up, though. It doesn't get good reviews.

The Litetronics Neolite CFL also gets some good reviews, though I have no firsthand experience with them. I do like the fact that there's far less mercury in their CFL than the average.

Don, what do you do anyway? You seem to have a particular affinity for lighting topics.

R

[John Gilmer]

"The pulse lasts a mere femtosecond, and delivers as much power as the entire grid of North America into a needle point size spot."

Huh? I think they left out one of the units or something, and if they didn't I don't see how using that much energy to modify the filaments could save energy on a production scale.

[RicodJour]

Yep, so it would seem. Trader did the math which I was too lazy to do, but there was something about that article that bothered me. It was poorly written and maybe I'm hung up on that, but I don't know, it seemed to me to read like one of those studies funded by RJ Reynolds that found you could smoke like a chimney and it wouldn't cause cancer. You know, bullshit.

The number crunching Trader did was based on some assumptions that were off a bit. How many light bulbs do you think you have in your house? I'm sure I have well over a hundred. There are 13 in the room I'm in. There must be many billions of bulbs in the US. Frankly I wasn't interested enough to do the math, but there are still questions due to the lame ass writing in that article. "As much power as the entire NA grid"...does that include nuke, coal, wind, the whole shebang? Trader used 1 terawatt and said that was certainly more than the NA grid. I'm not sure what the NA number is, but the worldwide consumption estimate was 15 terawatts in 2006, with the US consuming

25%.

Anyway, I'm all for efficiency as long as it is real efficiency and doesn't come with serious "side effects". The mercury in CFLs being one of them.

R

[David Nebenzahl]

I work on lots of houses that still have (and are still using) knob & tube wiring. But invariably if there's a dimmer switch, it's the "modren" triac type, not some kind of ancient rheostat.

[HeyBub]

My dentist has four DIFFERENT fluorescent bulbs in his overhead. When asked, he said that the different "colors" helps him get the right shading for his work.

Hmmm.

I replaced three of the four incandescent bulbs above the bathroom mirror with as wildly different (white) colors as I could find and my then-current squeeze said she could do a better job of applying makeup.

Looked the same to me, but for just a few bucks, she VERY enthusiastically expressed her gratitude.

[RicodJour]

This is interesting - there seems to be some confusion. Maybe you can help me.

I wrote: "so if someone is trying to be energy efficient they will need to upgrade those old dimmers along with the bulbs." How is it that people are reading that and construing it to mean that I said all dimmers were the older type and needed to be replaced? Right. I didn't.

Your experiences differ from mine on working on old houses. This does not surprise me.

R

[Don Klipstein]

In , RicodJour wrote in part:

Replacing incandescents with CFLs, where CFLs work well (not fridges or motion sensor lights), actually gives a net reduction of mercury contribution to the environment by reducing coal burning. On average, the coal saved by using a CFL in place of an incandescent has more mercury than the CFL has.

Meanwhile, there are safe ways to dispose of dead CFLs. Last time I heard, Home Depot accepts them. Also, for local legal requirements as well as for good ways to get rid of them, there is

- Don Klipstein ( [e-mail])

[RicodJour]

Yes, I understand that part, but it's the disposal I'm talking about...well, that and the fact that I am not getting the claimed life out of the CFLs I've been buying, so that skews the calculation.

Right. I collect the dead bulbs and bring them in, but I'm sure most people just toss them in the trash.

R

[HeyBub]

There's much more Tungsten in a discarded incandescent bulb than there is Mercury in a discarded CFL. Where's the outrage?

Dilbert: "I have recycle bins for paper and metal. But you only have one container." Janitor: (silence) Dilbert: "So I'm thinking you make two trips. Right?" Janitor: (silence) Dilbert: "Oh, I see. You resort them on the loading dock. Right?" Janitor: (silence)

[David Nebenzahl]

On 6/4/2009 6:13 AM RicodJour spake thus:

Well, you wrote, and I quote:

There are plenty of older houses around here with old wiring, old fixtures, and old dimmers.

As you noted, our experiences differ: I've *never* seen an old (i.e., non-triac) dimmer in a house with old wiring and old fixtures. And I've worked on plenty such houses (in the SF Bay Area). Maybe it's a geographical difference.

[RicodJour]

As most things in construction - probably.

Unfortunately the trend around here now is for people to buy a nice older home, knock it down and put up an over-sized McMansion. Some a- holes knocked down a house from 1693. That's not a typo. Another one had two houses and a beautiful storybook cottage on the property and the owner refused to let it become a historic landmark (even though one house was from the late 1700's) as they had "plans" for it and didn't want their hands tied. Their plans went up in smoke with the bankruptcy, the judge (who I swear someone got to) sold it for a pittance to a lawyer (who is now in jail) and the lawyer promptly knocked down all three houses and took down about two hundred trees. The only think the building department could get him on was for "unlicensed demolition". He started building a monstrosity before he got put in the pokey, it languished uncompleted for years, and just was completed a couple of years ago.

R

[Don Klipstein]

Although the calculation is affected by CFLs failing to meet claimed life expectancy, they otherwise reduce mercury contribution to the environment even if all of their mercury goes into the environment.

Meanwhile, I have a lot of experience with CFLs - not only mine, but also ones other than mine. My experience is that average life expectancy is not short by much.

Short life expectancy mostly occurs when:

• CFLs not rated for small enclosed fixtures, especially if over 15 watts, are used in small enclosed fixtures.

• CFLs not rated for use in recessed ceiling fixtures, especially if over

18 watts (over 14 watts if spiral), are used in recessed ceiling fixtures.

• CFLs are used where on-time is brief, such as motion sensor lights and restrooms used mainly for short trips.

• The CFLs are dollar store stool specimens. I have also had bad experience with Lights of America until I pretty much stopped using them in 2001. Better to get one having the "Energy Star" logo or one of a "Big 3" brand (GE, Philips, Sylvania), preferably both. You may want one of the many now coming with a limited warranty (save both the receipt and packake UPC code, and something to trace which bulb each is for).

- Don Klipstein ( [e-mail])