I'm going round the house replacing all with energy efficient lighting, anyone have any views as to which are the best ? Osram, Phillips etc, I will be changing two "chandelier" type thingies which have five 40W candles in em for a pendant with probably 20w energy efficient numbers, the one in the lounge has to stay as it cost a small fortune so i'm gonna stick 5 7w candles in there and do away with three dimmers.
Cheers for any pointers
Phillips ones - some of them - have 6 year guarantees. Look for lumen output on the packet - and compute the lumens per watt, to get efficiency. (usually around 50lm/W, for linear 4' tubes it'll hit
100.)If a light is usually on under 3 or so mins, it's not a net saving - the extra switching will probably kill the bulb _well_ before its nominal life, normal filliment bulb is prolly a better idea.
Cheers, just calculated the "standby" costs of the stuff in the house, comes up to around =A325 -=A330 a year, fairly surprising but I cant see why the govt is banging on about that without pushing energy efficiant lighting first
calculator here
Cheers, just calculated the "standby" costs of the stuff in the house, comes up to around £25 -£30 a year, fairly surprising but I cant see why the govt is banging on about that without pushing energy efficiant lighting first
calculator here
For someone such as myself who has a duel tariff economy 7 meter standby is charged at 2p through the night so its far less than most realise. I dont keep my TV, DVD or Video on standby ( unless I am using the video to record overnight which is rare anyway). So energy saving limited.
I dont keep lights on in my house so again saving is limited. I still find low energy bulbs a bit dull ( old age and I cant read in the dimmer light they most definitely in my view produce).
I suspect a lot of energy is used by relatively few and many like me are using a lot less than propaganda suggests. This has to be an if the cap fits scenario.
There are also many other things I could moan about with this energy drive. I was washing all my clothes on 30 wash ( to save energy). I save more money washing on 40 or 60 and doing overnight and my clothes are cleaner.
I stopped the 30 degrees washes when my clothes came out stinking!!!!!! Sweat is not removed at 30 degrees. Tell the story to someone who hasn't tried it . Of course I dont use a bio washing power because its not environmentally friendly, maybe thats the reason they stink at 30 degrees. But stink they do. Give me a good clean boil wash any day.
Cleanliness is next to Godliness and its kills all sorts of nasties too. Keep your energy efficiency for me.
I'd recommend against this approach, for one simple reason. Some cfls give great quality light, and some give light with a funny slightly pinkish cast, that just does not look good. And theres really no way to know other than buy and try. So I'd buy one of each type of bulb you want, and try them before buying any more.
There is the other factor of light output. The stated equivalent powers are simply bs, a factor of 4 is more realistic. Again, try one to see what power you really need before buying the lot.
FWIW I've had consistently good results with osram, and not so with philips. Toolstation bulbs also have all been the icky type.
5x 7w = 35w, very roughly equiv to 140w bulb or maybe 200w of less efficient small filament bulbs.Another option to replacing your chandelier thing is to put much lower power bulbs in, eg 15w, and making up the light level with cfl background light elsewhere. This is a way to maintain the appearance of filament while getting somewhat better efficiency.
NT
And end up with a load of bulbs that you don't want to use. B-)
Asking in here is a good way to find out which ones produce decent quality light. I replaced the 6 x 40w candles with GEC 9W TBX/XM "Tech Extra Mini" CFLs, they actually have meaningful data on the packaging:
2700K, 480Lm (the 40W tungsten were rated at 390Lm). I did try one as a =match with tungsten after they where recomended in here and it is pretty= close.
They weren't cheap though 7 or 8 quid each(*) but even at that price payback on power saved was well less than a year, these lamps are on for=
18hrs+/day. They have been in now for a couple, maybe three years and ar= e starting to show their age in reduced output. Hardly surprising at 6,500hrs/year though.Agreed, the quoted equivalence is nearly always rather optomistic. Best =
to try and find ones that quote their output and compare that with yer typical tungsten bulb.
(*) This was before the supermarkets where flogging CFLs at 50p each (Morrisons =A31 BOGOF). Even without the offers branded CFLs prices are =
much lower now.
The whole reason behind the popularity of low-temperature washing is the development of "biological" washing powder, because - eco-friendly or not - it's specifically desiged to work at low temperature. It contains enzymes, which are proteins intended to break down dirt, and which work at 'biological' temperatures (ie, circa 37 degrees). Use them above that temperature, and the protein is destroyed, ergo it doesn't wsh properly.
David
(*) This was before the supermarkets where flogging CFLs at 50p each (Morrisons £1 BOGOF). Even without the offers branded CFLs prices are much lower now.
I got a couple free from British Gas recently.
Mary
Well. While low energy bulbs do produce less light than some ordinary bulbs, replacing one ordinary 100W bulb with 3 '100W equivalent' bulbs still saves a bit of energy, and produces a hell of a lot more light.
If everyone were to buy new stuff now, it'd be lots more energy efficient. (in general). For example, I have a fridge and a freezer. Replacing with a new combined unit, with the same amount of space would save some 50 quid a year - according to measurements, and pay back in maybe 4 years. It's almost not possible to buy a freezer as inefficient as I have at the moment.
I'd like to replace the bulb in our lobby with a CFL, but it's a glass globe fitting, with no ventilation - filament bulbs last noticeably less time in that fitting than others. Are CFLs reasonably resistant to heat? I guess I could replace the fitting, too, but that lengthens the pay-back time even more.
One advantage seems to be that they produce less heat. I've used CFL replacements for R25 spots in fittings at Mrs F's shop and also in the house. The only headache IMO is that despite the claims, a 14W CFL does not provide as much light as a 25W incandescent bulb.
The electronics in a compact fluorescent will be more likely to fail at higher temperatures. Generally, the life of such electronic components halves with each 10C rise in temperature. However, failure of the electronics in compact fluorescents is rare, so it's certainly not the case that a 10C temperature rise will half the lamp life. I suspect you'll find that even if the lamp life is significantly reduced, you'll still cover the payback period easily, given how cheaply they can be found nowadays.
The last option sounds good for the lounge
The tubes themselves, yes. However, the electronics tend to drop in life by around half every increase by 10C.
Depending on design et al, might removing the globe, and replacing with a large globe CFL, something like
Since they are more efficient they produce far less heat so in practice will be suitable for nearly any enclosure they will fit.
In theory it should produce more light - as less than double isn't one of the extravagant claims. Perhaps it's more to do with the optics and beam concentration. I've got one of the expensive RO80 replacements, and if anything it produces more light than its filament predecessor. Can't really comment on the beam pattern as I have barn doors around it. ;-)
Many are fine like this, but some arent. Suck it and see really. The lower the power, the less likely trouble is to occur. The screwfix spirals really object to this kind of treatment.
NT
They produce less heat.
However, they are far, far more vulnerable than filliment bulbs to the heat they do produce.
If the life of filliment bulbs is affected by the enclosure, it's probable that CFLs will be even worse affected.
However, at 49p/1 pound each, it's not impossible that it is economically worth it - after all it's only 2 months life at 8 hours a day.
More important may be the fact that it may be awkward to change the bulb.
These claims are always made for CFL and I have yet to find one that is as bright as the incandescent it is claimed to replace. The 25W CFL Globes that I have in my wife's shop are dimmer than 40W incandescent bulbs.
It isn't IMO possible to save 50% of the electricity using CFLs unless one is willing to accept sitting in the gloom.
We converted to CFL because in a shop one needs a huge number of spots. The best solution was 50W halogen lighting but we can't tolerate either the bills or the heat output. Replacing throughout with (more) 14W R25s was the only way to go but it isn't a patch on the halogen lamps for light quality.
This is a drawback of automatic washing machines. When I had a twin-tub in my no-longer-a-student days I could do a fortnight's wash in one load of once-heated water, starting with the boiled whites and ending with the wooly socks.
Because one load rinsed and spun while the other was washing, it didn't take any longer time than doing one load in an automatic, plus the splashes washed the kitchen floor nicely.
And they're great for mulled wine at parties.
Owain
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