In article , Tegger wrote:

" wrote in
:

On Sat, 24 Apr 2010 15:36:32 +0000 (UTC), Tegger
wrote:

ransley wrote in
:


snip


Dam what kind of Dumb ****s you and teger are, totaly stupid
ingnoramuses. FACT, 94-96 % of the power consumed by incandesants is
output as HEAT, not light you see or use.

But, as I keep pointing out (very politely, mind you), the primary
problem is that the /dollar values/ in question are very small,
regardless of what the percentages are.

That is the only percentage that matters. Ransley is a liar with his
50% *overall* savings with the only change being CFLs.

snip

Im laughing hard at this stupidity you two keep
posting.

You're not laughing, you're absolutely apoplectic with anger that I
choose not to agree with you, and wish instead to go my own way with
incandescents. You probably regard my viewpoint as horribly immoral.

That's the way with watermelons.

I just asked my wife (who does all the money stuff around here). She
says we pay about $150 a month for water/sewer/electricity, which come
combined on one bill. She's not sure about the exact breakdown without
actually checking, but I seem to remember that water and sewer were
about $50 last I looked. So electricity is likely about $100 a month.

So, now I must attempt to remove from the equation the

microwave,

That is likely much more negligible than the lighting.

stove,

Is it electric? Even if it is, there is some fair chance that
incandescent home lighting amounts to more.

both fridges,

That is usually the biggie in households without electric heat and
extreme skimping or lack of A/C.

the clothes washer,

That usually amounts to less than lighting of the same home does even if
such home's lighting is mildly to moderately on the energy-efficient side.
A washer usually consumes less than a kilowatt for no more than a few
hours per week, usually less than 10 KWH per month.

clothes dryer,

If the heat is from gas rather than electric, then its electricity
consumption is usually even less than that of the washer.

computers,

Even in homes when they are left on 24/7 and the computers do not go
into energy-conservation modes when not in use, the computer(s) usually
consume less electrical energy permonth than the home lighting does.

TVs,

That gets to be a bit of another "bone of contention", as in an area
where opportunities for improvement in energy efficiency abound. That
became "more true" during the past decade or so, as screen size of home
TVs bloomed about as much as (or more likely outrunning) energy efficiency
of making each square foot of a TV screen glow.

radios,

Most now consume only a few watts, comparable to an incandescent
*nightlight* or a CFL whose light output is in the 25-40 watt incandescent
equivalence range.

wife's hair dryer,

KWH per month, if getting to double digits, probably has the first
significant digit being 1 or 2.

4' fluorescent lights in the basement,

4' fluorescent is energy-efficient lighting. Even the "residential
grade" turds of 4' fluorescent have energy-efficiency close to that
of "big-3-brand-name" Energy-Star-logo'ed CFLs.

and various other components that get used less frequently
than the above,
before I can determine how much electricity I'm actually wasting on the
incandescents, most of which are not in use for most of the day, even in
winter.

Then I need to add a correction factor for those CFLs that would need to
stay burning all the time, to make sure they will supply immediate light
when needed, like the porch light.

As much as I see many porch lights glowing 24/7/365 or on for *hours
every night*, I expect those to be good candidates for usage of CFL (of
wider temperature range duty, or "outdoor duty", "my words").

Consideration of all this is how I come to the conclusion that CFLs are
not all they're cracked-up to be when it comes to saving money. They
probably do save money, but the amount saved is surely very, very small.

Usually $ to $$ per year, often with "rate of return" / "ROI" exceeding
historical average of investing into "S&P 500 index funds" according to
projecting backwards the methods/rules and incurred expense ratios of even
Vanguard's "Index 500" fund, even should it have existed in 1929 and you
"bought in" at the "1929 high". (And while Vanguard's "Index 500" fund
existed, most stock mutual funds fared worse than Vanguard's "Index 500").

- Don Klipstein )