Some items about light bulbs (average): 15 Watt Fluorescent bulb = 500 Lumen 22 Watt FL = 800 Lumen 60 Watt 120 Volt Incandescent = 800 Lumen 100 Watt Incandescent = 1750 Lumen 42 Watt FL = 2800 Lumen Incandescent use a lot of energy to produce same amount of light. The bluish light can be avoided by buying a warmer version. In U.S. I think I paid $5.00 for a 22 Watt and $7.00 for a 42 Watt compact bulb. We have been using these CFLs for the last 10 years, but they do not last as long as advertised. The electronics crap out first. On the other hand, our kitchen lights that are tube type lasts us about 3 years. It is the ON/OFF cycle that kills the CFLs.
I'm quite a fan of LED torches, even retro-fitted LEDs into my old Maglites, but they aren't a cure all for domestic lighting. My most powerful torch is a 9w Luxeon LED, and it runs pretty hot. The newer Cree LED's run a bit cooler, but are still pretty expensive per watt, and in domestic use of course, you need several in the same bulb to provide the same output, so the price stacks up. Of course, if you can't find them to buy locally, there's always the Internet, but a quick look to find the sort of LED bulb I could see working in my fittings where I've had candle shaped bulbs sees them at $20 a piece, and my candelabra thingies take five bulbs each. Ouch. But I guess I'll just have to suck that up as CFLs would look horrid.
People years ago used to sit in the dark with a little oil lamp to light their studies. If you had provided them with a fluorescent bulb, they would have considered it a huge amount of light. It's night-time for godsake. The only reason why you were able to have so much light was that you were burning up energy as if its supply were without consequence and/or inexhaustible. It's not. Get used to it!
Uh...0.002 mg/L = 2 million ng/m^3. It looks to me like the highest concentration of mercury in the test room was 1/20 of the EPA's limit. Also, the "ambient air guidelines" are meant to be guidelines for air that you are constantly exposed to. The guidelines for short-term exposure (like when you break a bulb and it takes a while for the vapor to clear out) are much higher.
Like electronics and media how long will fluorescent bulbs be around before their kicked to the curb? I'm asking since I remembered watching the video on plasma bulbs.Cool stuff.Of course it could be years(maybe even never) before we see plasma bulbs on the shelf huh. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTGsM9pplUs
I use all energy efficient lightbulbs. While the "green" effect is important, the real deal is in how much it saves me each month on electricity. Preferred bulb: Sylvania CF30EL/MINITWIST/DAY, Dulux EL 30W compact fluorecsent with integral 120V ballast, medium screw base, Color Temperature 3500K, 82 CRI Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! ~String
Can you elaborate? Like how much you save and how many months it took to recap the purchasing price???
It's hard to say what I'm saving now because I took the measurements in my previous abode which was old and not Energy Star compliant, to say the least. I've since moved to a rather new, energy efficient home. I made the switch in the spring of 2007 and monitored the energy savings in March, April and May and saved about a third. Typical electric bills were about $90 per month and lowered to around $60 per month. The first bulbs I bought were the standard GE one's available at Walmart. Last year I discovered the better light that the Sylvania ones gave off and switched. I don't remember the original cost of the GE's, but I think it was around $6 a piece (20 bulbs total). The Sylvania ones are a bit more expensive (and compact, which is nice because they fit into fixtures that the GE's didn't). About 2/3 of%
People, have some sense. Go ahead and HOARD UP LIGHTBULBS. What an obvious response to the meddling eco-freaks who deny us any freedom or choice. There ought to be a black market, speculation, whatever it takes to fight and push back. And we have every right to BRIGHTEN UP our rooms, while we are "conserving" electricity. If the idea was to agree with the insane enviro-wackos and live in the dark or the dim, then why not just go to bed early when it gets dark, and have LARGE families and make babies at night freely like our ancestors used to enjoy doing, which means even more people alive using even more light bulbs in the near future? It's hard to stay awake, reading or doing homework, without sufficient light. So if we are going to violate the night, and add light, add plenty of light. I am using most every kind of light, and find they all have their pros and cons. Why can't things ever be simple anymore? One of the things I like about CFLs, is that they tend to be BRIGHTER. One can put a 100-watt equivalent in a 60 watt maximum fixture, because CFLs don't push out so much heat as incandescents. I had a nice 2 circular tube florescent reading light at one end of my living room, and was never long satisfied with it. It was to replace an ugly hanging fixture that came with my house. It worked for a while, but the tubes burned out, then the ballast apparently went bad. Replaced the fixture with an identical one, then the tubes wouldn't light. Got rid of it, and put in a nice 3-bulb fixture with CFLs, and been happy with it ever since. CFLs better solve bad ballasts issues, since the ballast is easily replacable by changing out the bulb. I changed out several fixtures, and put CFLs in most of them. I tried those nifty LED bulbs, which are even better than CFLs, but LEDs have a couple of issues. One is, they aren't bright enough yet. 40-watt equivalent just isn't enough for many areas. And LEDs won't shut off properly, on those ever glowing lighted light switches. LEDs are TOO EFFICIENT. LEDs light up still, off of the tiny current leakage of glowing light switches. Must be because they only use 1 1/2 watts. So either I have to get rid of the LEDs, get rid of the nifty glowing light switches, or the LEDs will in fact shut down when "Off," if they share a fixture with at least 1 normal incandescent or CFL to accept the tiny current leakage. But none of the more pricey, "more efficient" replacement lightbulbs, even meet their claim of energy savings, when placed in light fixtures which are rarely used anyway, so incandescents are just fine for such fixtures. There may also be issues with high humidity (i.e. bathrooms or outdoors or porch lights) and dimmer switches, which works better with incandescents. I decided due to changing technology and for simplicity, I would not have any ceiling fans nor dimmer switches. Regardless, my favorite reading light, still has those 3-way lamp similar Low/Medium/High settings. How did I pull that off? When my Dad and I, my Dad used to do maintenance and electrical, put in the switch loop to replace the old ugly fixture that had a switch right on the fixture, I had the foresight to suggest using a 3-conductor wire, rather than a 2-conductor, since it would be as easy to run either one. I was thinking maybe a spare conductor for a later ceiling fan or something. I had the electrician changing out my fixtures and adding a fixture to brighten my home office, use the spare circuit, and 1 switch turns on 1 bulb of the fixture, and the other 2nd switch now turns on the other 2 bulbs. Low/Medium/Both means Low/Medium/High, just like a 3-way bulb in a lamp. So I can have some light in my living room, or I can sit under a bright spotlight effect, to easily read by. Without using a dimmer switch which most CFLs can't properly use.
I know... If he was going to go thru all the bother of having all these extra switches and whatnot put in, he should have had those old-fashioned Doktor Frankenstein's laboratory type jobbies installed, so that if one bulb lighting up wasn't sufficient, he could have ever-so-dramatically boomed NO MERE DARKNESS SHALL THWART ME...!!! and then thrown the second arcing, sparking, oversized switch whilst cackling the cliche MOO HOO HA HA HAAAAAAAAAAA...!!! of the "mad scientist" about to unleash the fruit of his latest lunatic scheme on the world... I mean - is there no sense of style anymore ?
All the stuff about CFL light being "bad" is bullshit anyway - the light from a properly-made CLF is much closer to natural sunlight than light from a tungsten bulb. Look at the emission spectum of a tungsten bulb vs. the sun some time - they're very different. Sure, you can get shitty CFLs that are noticeably different from sunlight, but if you get a good CFL you're getting light that's much closer to actual sunlight.
Did you even bother to carefully read my posting? I put in 5 new fixtures, all holding 3 light bulbs, with the exception of just 1 matching 2-bulb fixture. The remaining 2 fixtures which I didn't otherwise mention, merely swapped out old-fashioned kitchen fixtures. I hear women like a bright kitchen. Upgrading from an old-style 1-bulb fixture, to a 2 and 3-bulb fixture with CFLs, can do wonders for brightening a room, all without making any new holes in the ceiling nor pulling any additional wires. While still using less electricity than before. The only fixture that has 2 switches to control it, rather than just 1, is my reading light at one end of my smaller cozy living room. Since I had an extra conductor wired already in the switch loop. Do you think I should have but only 1 brightness option, that of 300-watt equivalence of 3 CFLs? Living rooms should always be lit up above one's reading chair with a bright spotlight? No romance factor adjustment? By having just 1 extra switch, I can turn on 1, 2, or all 3 bulbs (CFLs). It's the only fixture I added the extra control on. What that has to do with Dr. Frankenstein's laboratory, I just didn't seem to grasp. Now what makes me so special, as to have a bright reading light upon my living room ceiling, rather than to have a 1-bulb reading lamp? (And traditionally no ceiling-installed lights in the living room?) Mainly that my house came with an ugly hanging light fixture already in that spot, and to yank it out, didn't I need to replace it with SOMETHING BETTER? Probably that ugly light fixture was there, due to the lack of any dining room, and I think it was meant as the place to set the kitchen table, however, my kitchen table isn't all that big, and I found place to set it, in the kitchen actually. And did I mention, I am not particularly fond of space-wasting lamps? That was what sort of started the whole project anyway, because I decided when I was going to convert the old big (bigger than my cozy living room) family room into my home office, that I would not put a single lamp in there. Rather, I would yank out the outdated ugly hanging 1-bulb fixture, and replace it, and add another 3-bulb fixture. I'm pleased with the result. The electrician pulled a wire from the original fixture, and now I flip 1-single light switch, and a good amount of 600-watt equivalent light (total of 6 CFLs) floods the room. Aha! Now I can get to work in my brightly lit LABORATORY, uh, make that home office. And it's my house, so I shall have it wired the way I like. Wasn't that like sort of the whole point of my earlier post, urging people to hoard regular incandescents, to protect their CHOICE to use whichever technology they wish?
I have heard that complaint, but it seems I was lucky enough to buy only CFLs that apparently had a decent color temperature. At least for me. None of them seem blueish nor greenish, but of warm color that I am used to. I've also heard the complaint, you can google it, as to what good are CFLs, if they don't last? People have been plagued with off-brand, too cheap versions, that didn't last near long as they should, or didn't light at all. I bought mostly Phillips brand, which seem to work fine. I've also read of people complaining that the CFLs take too long to start up and light, after turning on the switch. I do have an old CFL in a bedroom, which is a little slow. It's not slow enough to bother me, but there's an advantage of LEDs, that LEDs come on instantly. It's a 2-bulb fixture, which I could only put but 1 LED bulb into, because LEDs refuse to turn off properly, on circuits with a lighted glowing light switch. Glowing dimmer, is not "off." Having a CFL as the 2nd bulb, solves the problem by allowing the current leakage used to light the glowing light switch, somewhere to leak through. Anyhow, my newer CFLs seem to light up right away. And what does it really matter if one has to wait but half a second for light? You aren't supposed to be turning on and off CFLs too often anyway. They won't tolerate too many on/off cycles like incandescents will. You would think there would be one type of light bulb that would be ideal for every situation. But that would just be too simple. So far, I've found every technology type to have its pros and cons, which makes any 1 type unfit for use in every fixture in the house. So now I have to stock all 3 types of replacement light bulbs? Perhaps someday they will get it right?
