[This is a seriously oversimplified explanation of the L1A AD 2006 edition]
For new housing, electric heating is heavily penalised. In simple terms, for a new dwelling using the SAP2005 methodology you work out the CO2 for an identically sized dwelling to the one proposed built to 2002 standards with a gas boiler, then knock off 20% to get a target figure that your dwelling's calculated CO2 emissions must not exceed. There is a limited concession for non gas fuels: if your design has electric heating the target is multiplied by a fuel factor of 1.47 ...
.. but the assumed CO2 for electricity/kWh (0.422kg) is more than twice that for gas (0.194), roughly twice factoring in the relative efficiencies.
So if your target is 1000kg/year, with gas heating and a 90% efficient boiler, you can burn 5155kWh = 4639kWh useful energy.
With electric you can use 1470kg which (assume 100% efficiency at point of use) translates to 3483kWh, i.e. you have to reduce the calculated energy usage by 25%. Easier said than done, especially on flats where the hot water usage may be 50% of the total.
This is an interesting one - I was having a similar experience to this and tried several different brands with fairly similar results. I then bought a job lot of Sylvania ones ( I think - can't check because I'm not at home) from Screwfix simply to have a lower price per unit. Coincidentally, all of the previous ones had gone within the space of about a week and so all were replaced with these. I haven't had a single failure in 18 months which is a record
That's only if you run them 18 hours a day. I'd estimate use of about a third of that - say 1600 to 0000 worst case in the winter and
2100 to 0000 best case in the summer - average is probably 5hrs a day. Using the same arithmetic, that comes to 1.2 and 0.27 and a saving of
0.93 units. £25?
I don't think it's worth it - even before factors beyond running cost are considered.
I expect that for one thing the human vision colour perception and intensity sensitivity is not consistent between different examples of us. In the same way that I find 50Hz TV very difficult to watch (especially at larger screen sizes), when others seem to have no problem, or some people rave about DLP projectors, yes others complain of a "rainbow effect" that many can't even see.
Some CFLs I have seen seem to produce a very obvious (to me) green cast that others seem oblivious to. The next door neighbour is fond of CFLs all over the place. The ones he has in the front room are "daylight" (i.e. very strong blue cast). He has one pinky / rose coloured one in a bedroom that once warmed up is actually ok, but astoundingly dim for the first 5 mins or so. Then he has another one in the bathroom that to all intents and purposes leaves the room unlit for the five mins it takes to achieve any brightness.
I have seen a couple of CFLs that border on "OK" to my eyes but they are in the minority. So far I have not been motivated to spend that much time trying different brands for a number of reasons; mostly because I have lots of dimmers, which I find very useful with the kids at the age they are, and also have lots of R80 spot fittings, and have yet to see a decent low energy replacement. The room I would quite like to relamp with LE if available would be the kitchen which is currently lit with four GU10s (plus linear fluros under the units). Any recommendations for GU10 LE bulbs that work?
I find that if you stick enough power into linear fluorescent lighting you can get quite nice results. The triphosphor (electronic) tubes I installed in the neighbours kitchen actually produce a really nice light to work in with no colour casts and plenty bright enough. I put 5 fittings on top of the units reflected off the white ceiling, and five below illuminating the worktop from behind a pelmet. They start instantly with no flicker and achieve full output very quickly as well. Having said that, they are not exactly energy saving since they add up to 210W combined. The 240W I have in my workshop are nice to work in as well - apart from at switch on where they start with a (non electronic ballast) flicker.
I returned a DLP projector because of this -- actually two of them before I found out the reason.
I tend to see this from pretty much all I've seen. At a certain point I stopped looking until there is a huge improvement to the technology and the designs.
I looked for those at one point. They all seem to project out of the fitting and one can see the tube inside.
For workshop use, I have used a lot of conventional linear fluorescent lighting as well. With rotating machinery having electronic ballasts is a pretty good idea.
I found teh early ones so. The later ones seem much better, to the piunt where I can't actually distinguish them from ordinary bulbs.
Its a sop to the eco mob.
Mostly this government response to a problem by doing something that makes the average stupid person think that they have actually addressed the problem. As I pointed out in my long post about saving the planet, CFL bulbs are so insignificant in a domestic situation as to be completely irrelevant.
Personally I'd like the government to switch off ALL public lighting at midnight, and leave it off till morning. Someone with the time should research what THAT would save.
Absolutely.
Well I agree but for two points..they ain't that bad and are in most cases as good as a cheap bulb color temp and output wise, and they last ten times longer.. Now you can but a bulb for under 50p in bulk, but typically you pick one up at Tescos for a lot more..
Yup. I am replacing all my outside lanterns with CFL's as they blow. They DO get left on a long time if we go out..otherwise getting the keys on the locks is tricky.
If you read my post on 'saving the planet' you would realise that the things people are being encouraged to do are the most trivially useless things: The REAL gains would come from boring things like wall and floor insulation, switching OFF street lights, wearing a jumper, working from home, and making petrol and diesel so expensive that local shops would become more cost effective than going to Tescos. Even not bathing or showering every day would make a significant contribution.
Flats tend to be in urban areas where there is gas, but there is a move away from gas because the installation issues and the maintenance - not only the cost, but for individual boiler systems it means someone being home. The heating energy requirement is a flat built to 2006 regs is very low so direct energy costs are much less important. So if you want to go all electric, heat pumps are probably the way forward. From a CO2 pov a ground source heat pump is better than gas, though obviously not practicable everywhere. Air to air heat pumps are a bit less efficient but give you the option of A/C in the summer (and which probably undoes everything that L1 aims to deliver!).
A further complication these days is the 'Merton rule' being enforced by planners in many places which requires 10% of energy to come from renewables on all new dwellings regardless of whether this makes sense. Again particularly problematic on flats. Common sense would make them see that flats are an intrinsically energy efficient form of housing, terraced houses next best, and their fire power would be better directed at big detached houses.
On Fri, 19 Jan 2007 13:09:20 +0000 someone who may be Andy Hall wrote this:-
As with heating there is no need to do this sort of thing individually in a block of flats. It can be done collectively.
I have never understood the British mania for individual boilers in flats. Far better to have an unobtrusive heat meter that measures the amount of heat taken from the mains.
Ah. Collectivism. That means that the approach won't go anywhere in a hurry
That I can believe.
I'm aware that this approach is done in apartment buildings in Germany - in fact in office buildings, there are frequently metering devices on radiators that are used to bill the tenants for heat from a central source.
There are some absolute historical disasters of communal heating systems in the former Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact countries.
British people seem culturally not to want communal things if they have a choice - hence the disasters of the tower blocks. Personal space and personal control are important.
I agree with you that there may be good technical arguments and even feasibility for scaling of energy services to a building size such as a block of flats. However, if the cultural issues are not addressed, the technology won't fly because people won't buy into it.
Yes, I had a user of our software phone up, who to keep the planners (not BC) happy was putting in a communal solar panel and DHW preheat tank. I may be being too cynical, but my hunch is that if this requires repair and residents are given the choice of £1000 shared to fix it or £50 to cap it off, they will choose the latter.
In response to your other post ISTM that the key issues with flats are (a) if it's everybody's it's nobody's (last para); and (b) the capital costs do not diminish proportionately with the energy saved, so in many cases people are being pushed into things that make no economic and little ecological sense though they might on larger dwellings.
'ere, youre not running your CFLs on lectrick are you? Mine are all on gas, they take about 20 seconds to warm up before they give any light out, and its much more energy efficient than the thorium mantle :)
Building Regs approach to low energy lighting is touching realistic. You can specify whatever proportion you choose (subject to a minimum) but the CO2 sums will be done on 30% of fittings being LEL. So no making things comply by specifying 100% and then taking them out once the BCO has signed off!
In the case of the kitchen, the lighting levels are not much brighter than say for example the adjacent hall that has a couple of medium output CFLs in it. The main difference is the quality of the light - is very even and diffuse (remember this is all reflected light from small link lights which are not as energy efficent as the bigger linear tubes).
My workshop is bright enough to work in safely and comfortably but probably no brighter than most offices. I installed the lights switched in two sets of two - thinking that all four might bet a bit over the top. In practice however I have never found using just two satisfactory and usually have them all on.
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