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Don Klipstein

In , zzzzzzzzzz
wrote:

On Mon, 26 Apr 2010 05:28:02 +0000 (UTC), (Don Klipstein)
wrote:

In , zzzzzzz wrote:
On 25 Apr 2010 05:02:10 +0 UTC, (Don Klipstein) wrote:

SNIP from here to edit for space

Do you claim that no home can have its electric bill halved by switching
from incandescents to CFLs?

Pretty much. If *all* he had were electric lights, no refrigerators, no
electric water heater, no stove, no clothes dryer, no dish washer, no
AC, only electric lights, perhaps. He would still have the "billing"
(flat) rate to deal with.

My experience in the Philadelphia metro area is that this is
$5.something per month.

...and you were going to save $.05 per day.

I figure more like 30 cents per day for my apartment. In most houses,
the savings are more.

In any case it's a trivial amount.

I don't see electric bills as trivial. One thing I do see is
opportunities with high ROI.

I see the *LIGHTING* part of my electric bill as an absolutely trivial
amount. The electric clothes dryer, dish washer, refrigerator, stove,
water heater, and heat pumps are not so trivial, but not a bank breaker,
either. Sure, I'd like a 50% reduction in my bill. I wouldn't walk
across the street for $5, though, particularly if it cost me $50.

For most, more can be saved by turning the damned things off (which
CFLs make problematic).

I already illuminate only what I need to illuminate and when I need to
do so. I still have most of my CFLs producing light for ~4,000 hours
without kicking the bucket.

When it takes 5-15 minutes for them to get to full brightness, most will
leave them on.

My N:Vision spirals are most of the way warmed up in 1 minute, and are
usually as bright at 2 minutes as they ae at 2 hours. This is according
to my Lutron LX-101A light meter. My Philips and Sylvania spirals arrea
only slightly slower to me.

Again, most of my lights are only on long enough to get from the
switch at one end of the hall to the one at the other. The bathroom and
kitchen are the exceptions, where I don't want fluorescent light at all.

If the heat is not electric (fairly common) and A/C is not used at all
or only extremely sparingly (less common but I have done that and lived
through that in non-A/C households), and no electric dryer is used (gas
one or clotheslines used instead), then it appears to me that halving
a household's electric bill by replacing incandescents with CFLs is
fairly easy to do.

It's *STILL* a trivial savings, if at all.

Reducing monthly electric bill by even what one can earn after taxes in
an hour or half an hour appears to me to be attractive. And, the ROI
looks good to me!

If your life is built around being green, perhaps. Otherwise trivial.

...

--
- Don Klipstein )