On Mon, 26 Apr 2010 04:50:24 +0000 (UTC), (Don Klipstein)
wrote:

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

snip for size

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.

Except that USA national average electricity cost is more than 10 cents
per KWH - was 11 a couple years ago, probably closer to 12 now. Make that
35 cents *per day* for the amount of lighting mentioned, which appears to
me below-average in modern USA homes unlike mine.

Wow, what to do with a nickel...

The Philadelphia metro area is bracing itself for a big jump soon from
the already-above-national-average rate.

Doesn't change the percentages. Lighting is still insignificant.

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)

(Except that I have cold breakfast to save time as well as energy, and my
heat does not use a circulating fan)

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

That means the TV consumes 500 watts

You can do arithmetic!

- sounds to me very high!

Measured.

My TV
consumes slightly less than 100 watts! My boyfriend and I combined only
have the TV on 2 hours per day on average!

If SWMBO wasn't working it would be more like 24.

snip

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.

One thing that I see is ROI.

Bigger fish to fry, without *ugly* bulbs. BTW, I do have T10s in the "attic"
(bonus room above garage - finishing it into a shop).