On Sat, 24 Apr 2010 20:55:46 -0400, wrote:

On Sat, 24 Apr 2010 12:43:28 -0500, "
wrote:

On Sat, 24 Apr 2010 05:28:31 +0000 (UTC), (Don Klipstein)
wrote:

In ,
keith wrote in part:
On Apr 23, 7:19*am, Tegger wrote:

SNIP to here

Well, that's part of the point. Generally speaking, when I need my
bulbs, the A/C is off. When I need my A/C, the bulbs are off.

Our heat pumps will "run" seven or eight months a year... When in use
they don't often get shut down at night (though the thermostat will
cycle).

Moreover, in the winter, when the need for the bulbs is greatest, the
heat from the bulbs reduces the need for the furnace, so my gas bill is
lower.

Yep.

It costs about half as much to heat a home with a heat pump as it does
with resistive heating. And in most areas, it costs less to heat a home
with gas or oil than it does with resistive heating.

The "half as much" applies to a small outside temperature band where less heat
is actually needed. Yes, that drops the cost of the "wasted" incandescent
electricity by "50%" instead of 100% and a similar amount with other heat
sources. Something the CFL idiots never take into account. That still
doesn't get us to "ransley's" 50% electricity savings he's trying to tell us
that is somehow "normal".

And we follow the ancient (and apparently forgotten) precept of turning
the lights off when we leave a room, so there are few bulbs left on
regularly. With incandescents, I can do that. Snap, it's on. Snap, it's
off. No waiting.

Perzactly! The average bulb in our house is likely on for 2 minutes
per day with only the bathroom lights on for anything close to an hour
per day. CFLs really suck in our application; won't have them.

What? No need for lighting for long outside a bathroom in a house in a
location that needs heat 7-8 months out of the year?

It's time for you to try thinking, Don. Heat pumps are not only used in
heating season.

SNIP from here

Use a proper sig separator.

In a well dsigned house with reasonable window area in most of the
country, if you use natural gas for heat and hot water and electricity
for everything else, how much power is consumed by lighting on an
average day? Say 3 lights for 4 hours, and a couple more for an hour
each.
Say they are 100 watt bulbs. That's 1400 watt hours - or 1.4kw hours
per day for essential lighting. If you have kids at home, and they are
in differnt rooms, double it. Add a bit to be fair, and you have 3KWh
of lighting consumption.

Ok, $.30.

You make a pot of coffee with your 1500 watt tea kettle. It takes 3
minutes?

Sounds light by two or three, but...

That's 75 watt hours Yout toast is another 125?
Your Bacon and eggs another 500.
Then there is your refrigerator, and your circulating fan on your
furnace (2.4KwH minimum)

Now add for to six hours of TV (or twelve), for another 2-3kWh (double).

So your lighting is already less than half your electrical consumption
- meaning that if you turned ALL your lights OFF you would save
roughly half of your electricity. So even if your CFLs consume 1/4 the
power your incandescents do, you are only saving about 35% of your
power consumption.
In reality you usually use electricity for a lot more non-lighting
purposes than just breakfast so the returns drop even more - even if
you also use more lights.

Yep. Lighting really is small potatoes. CFLs are a (lousy) solution without
a problem.

CFLs definitely save money - but I'll never believe 50% of the
electrical bill unless they are like mine and don't work at all after
several months to a year - and I've NEVER bought cfls for half a buck,
or even a buck.

In my opinion the only CFL worth wasting much time on is the one that
plays on the "big" field - and I don't even waste time or TV power on
them these days.

I haven't even watched the 'N' version for a couple of years. ;-)