Lena wrote:

Don Klipstein wrote:

A 150 watter dimmed to the brightness of a 75-watter consumes about
or maybe a bit under 100 watts. Given the dimmer likely to "lose" a watt
or two in the process, I would say that a 150-watter dimmed to the
brightness of a 75-watter ends up consuming close enough to 100 watts.

Assuming a 10 cent per KWH electricity cost, that extra 25 watts over
the 750 hour rated average life expectancy of a "standard" 75W lightbulb
costs $1.87. Even if the lightbulbs are at a "convenience store price" of
$1.15 apiece and only average 500 hours actual life, you pay more if you
even completely eliminate burnouts with 25 watts more power consumption
per lightbulb.


But at $3.19 per gallon of gas, that trip to the convenience store to
buy a replacement light bulb (if not using a dimmer) will add another
$1 to the cost. ;)

Suppose you have a combo ceiling fan with four light bulbs in it. (The
lights are wired separately through a switch.) You start out with four
fresh bulbs. One eventually burns out. Do you replace the one, or all
four? If you replace one, another will burn out in a few days.
Replace that and another burns out. Drives you nuts. Replace all four
when the first burns out and you could be wasting good bulbs because of
one bad bulb. What do you do?

That's why I prefer a dimmer with higher wattage bulbs. It greatly
extends the bulb's life, and then I'm willing to replace all four at
once. Not the most frugal, but lessens the frequency of my chances of
falling off the ladder.

Lena


I agree.

I installed "hidden" dimmers for the "vanity lights" in our bathrooms
and set them just a little down from full brightness. It seems like I've
hardly ever had one of those bulbs burn out in the twenty years since
I did that.

Jeff

--
Jeffry Wisnia
(W1BSV + Brass Rat '57 EE)
"Life is like a sewer -- what you get out of it depends on what you put
into it."