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Don Klipstein

In , 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, 7:19Â*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.

You make a pot of coffee with your 1500 watt tea kettle. It takes 3
minutes? That's 75 watt hours Yout toast is another 125?
Your Bacon and eggs another 500.

Maybe a little unusually, I tank up on hot caffeinated beverages after I
get to work at my "day job" and tank upon cold ready-to-drink caffeinated
beverages at home as well as at times on the job. I use the time saved
for getting in some sleep or getting done something else that I want to do
(sometimes that's getting paying work done).

Then there is your refrigerator, and your circulating fan on your
furnace (2.4KwH minimum)

2.4 KWH per day minimum for a furnace circulating fan? How about days
when I don't need heat much or at all? What about modern technology
where effort is made to reduce the energy cost of such things? How about
if the circulating fan is my landlord's problem? How about my *actual
situation* where my heat is delivered without a circulating fan, and is
not resistive electric heat?

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.

I did already admit that 50% is only achievable in some homes and most
will save less. As I said before, for USA national average, lighting is
9% of residential electricity use. Even with the percentage being lower
where electricity costs less and higher where electricity cost is more,
I see 50% reduction of electric bill by changing the lighting to be doable
in only some minority of homes. In most homes, the percentage is less,
often a lot less, but still significant.

In reality you usually use electricity for a lot more non-lighting
purposes than just breakfast

I don't eat hot breakfast. Cold cereal with milk, some juice and
caffeinated soda takes less time and costs me no utility bills unless the
refrigerator costs me more to store milk in it.

so the returns drop even more - even if
you also use more lights.

CFLs definitely save money - but I'll never believe 50%

What I claimed before is that in some but not most homes 50% is
achievable, and in most homes a lesser but still-significant amount is
doable.

of the electrical bill unless they are like mine and don't work at all
after several months to a year

Most CFLs that I have used lasted 4 years or more. I have mentioned
brand of CFL or abusive application that in my experience accounts for
most CFLs that don't.

- and I've NEVER bought cfls for half a buck, or even a buck.

Lowest I saw for ones other than dollar store 99%-stool-specimens
is $9.99 for a 6-pack plus sales tax. That is still a lower ratio of
cost-per-bulb to life expectancy (even if only CFL only averages
4,000-6,000 hours in real-world) than incandescents. Energy savings are
in addition to bulb savings in that area.

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.

--
- Don Klipstein )