Save on the Power Bill

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EvilAlchemist

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A common concern with adding a new borg for Folding @ Home is power usage.

One way to save some energy is to use Energy Efficient Light Bulbs.

CF.jpg


Now, let me give you some numbers to look out from my Apartment.

Bathroom:Light Fixture
Original: (4) 100 Watt Incandescent Bulbs
Replaced With: (4) 14 Watt CF Energy Efficient Bulbs

Was Pulling 400 Watts while Running Now using 56 Watts
(New Lights are actually Brighter)

That 344 Watts is more then enough to run my 3 Systems in the corner.

Living room: 2 Lamps
Original: (2) 60 Watt Incandescent Bulbs
Replaced With: (2) 14 Watt CF Energy Efficient Bulbs
Was Pulling 120 Watts while Running Now using 28 Watts

One Note, I know that these numbers are assuming you leave the lights on all the time and most of us remember to turn them off, but what if you forget.

I spent $40 at a home improvement store and replaced all the bulbs in my apartment.
If I turned every light on before it would be using 1400 Watts of electricity.
Now, if every light is on 265 Watts ... huge savings .....

Note about CF Energy Efficient Lights

Most come in 3 shades:
Soft White - Has Yellow Color Similar to Normal Bumbs
Bright White - Less Yellow / More White
Day Light - White Light

We have found that the Day Light ones work well in the Bathroom and Shower.
The Soft White is better in LivingRoom / Lamps / and Dining Room

It only takes 5 minutes to change the bulbs, and 5 seconds to see your power bill drop!

 
I pushed my parents to get these for their bed & breakfast, since they need some lights on 24/7 for safety reasons, plus people generally aren't thinking about leaving lights off while on vacation. Although these lights are slightly more expensive up front, they last longer than standard bulbs, and their electric use is phenomenal.

I can't recommend enough to run these in all of your lights if possible.

 
I installed these lights in every fixture in my house when I bought it two years ago; you're right, a dramatic difference -- especially in the basement where there were 6 100w bulbs running from one switch(!). Thankfully I didn't have to pay the bills when they were installed
 
Dropped my power bill by $20-30 a month when I switched. :D

 
We've switched to these but you have to be careful with them. They're really breakable and if you buy the multi-packs it's easy to have a broken one or two in the package.


 
I switched out a few bulbs around the house, especially ones like porch lights and such that stay on a lot. I found them to not be very good for rooms where lights are not on very long (like bathrooms) because they take a bit to get to full brightness. Usually by the time they are warmed up, I'm done and was annoyed by the low light levels. Hopefully they will get past that problem soon.
 
I have found the best ones are the nvision bulbs you can get at Home Depot. They have the least amount of flicker and seem to be the closest to normal bulbs. They also run very cool.


My one issue is you still cannot get very many that are dimable! Most of the lights in my house are on dimmers (bathrooms, bedrooms, kitchen, etc.) so I have only been able to replace a few bulbs :(
 
All my inside lights were changed out last year. Outside lights are still standard lights due to the low temps outside here in PA. After I did the switch I turned back on two machines and still saw a drop in my monthly bill.
 
Majic said:
All my inside lights were changed out last year. Outside lights are still standard lights due to the low temps outside here in PA. After I did the switch I turned back on two machines and still saw a drop in my monthly bill.
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I swapped my porch lights too; yes, the cold weather makes them warm up very slowly... but if you leave them on for a few minutes, they get to a decent brightness. Frankly I don't have the porch light on unless I'm expecting someone anyway ;) But they can definitely take the cold; it's been -52ish C all week. I should shove the q6600 outside and do some [H]ard overclocking, but too much moisture. Hrrmmm, unless I put it in the garage, and ran 50ft cables back into the house... I'll be back, I must think about this some more.
 
Charlie_D said:
I swapped my porch lights too; yes, the cold weather makes them warm up very slowly... but if you leave them on for a few minutes, they get to a decent brightness. Frankly I don't have the porch light on unless I'm expecting someone anyway ;) But they can definitely take the cold; it's been -52ish C all week. I should shove the q6600 outside and do some [H]ard overclocking, but too much moisture. Hrrmmm, unless I put it in the garage, and ran 50ft cables back into the house... I'll be back, I must think about this some more.
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leave it near a window, and build a block that has a direct duct feeding air into the case above the cpu....problem solved :D
 
CFLs are the way to go. You can get all shapes and sizes. I have the can lights with Flood style CFLs in them. I have a generic chandiler that has 5 lights in it shaped like C9 lights. I have replaced them with ones of nearly the same height and fits in the smaller socket. Sams has been my favorite place so far to get them for cheap.
 
Grentz said:
I have found the best ones are the nvision bulbs you can get at Home Depot. They have the least amount of flicker and seem to be the closest to normal bulbs. They also run very cool.


My one issue is you still cannot get very many that are dimable! Most of the lights in my house are on dimmers (bathrooms, bedrooms, kitchen, etc.) so I have only been able to replace a few bulbs :(
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I second the nvision bulbs from Home Depot!
They cost a little more than the ones you can get from Walmart or Sams, but I have tried many brands and nvision are the only ones I found that do not flicker, hum, or take a long time to warm up. I prefer them in the Bright White package.

 
I switched all of my bulbs to CFL's over a year ago. They are awesome! I've only had to change 1 of them and that was because I busted it playing Wii Tennis.
 
For outside use as a flood light the LED bulbs work really well and seem pretty impervious to temperature variations.

I even use a few in my office inside adjustable can lamps. They are for the most part dimmable and 2 provide these old eyes with more then enough light to work inside a computer case.;)

My wife, seing this post recomended this site:

http://www.lightbulbwarehouse.com/


 
I have slowly been replacing mine with a similiar light that Costco sells. They claim 60w for 14w with a very small hit in lumens. Dimmers are the only lights I am not swapping out...

My power bill has actually taken a hit, since my rigs have been 24/7, but I am looking at addressing that now. I think one of my PS were very inefficient.
 
I've put a bunch of these in our house, starting about two and a half years ago. I haven't had a single one burn out on me yet. Good stuff. Our bulbs seem to come on at something very close to full brightness, and the delay between flicking the switch and the lights coming on is probably less than a quarter of a second. The delay doesn't bother me, really--it's short enough that it doesn't really have any effect on you, and you get used to it pretty quickly.
 
I haven't done any Google searching, and I'm sure it'd be a 10-second answer, but I'm lazy and want more info in case the answer isn't the ideal one.... anyways, do they make 3-way versions of energy-saving lights? The reason I ask is I have two lamps that require/recommend 3-way bulbs that support 50W/100W/150W (if I remember correctly.) If I were replacing bulbs I'd likely do an "all or nothing" approach, hence my question.

202276
 
same here. i have lamps that require 3-way bulbs
 
in our basement we have 46ish lights (the wider regular light bulbs, kinda flood lights). our contractor put in regular lightbulbs, so we were pulling 4600w if every light was on (though they all weren't on at one time). we replaced them with these energy saving bulbs which pull ~17w each, and give the same amount of light.



2900w saved. not a bad deal.
 
rayman2k2 said:
in our basement we have 46ish lights (the wider regular light bulbs, kinda flood lights). our contractor put in regular lightbulbs, so we were pulling 4600w if every light was on (though they all weren't on at one time). we replaced them with these energy saving bulbs which pull ~17w each, and give the same amount of light.



2900w saved. not a bad deal.
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Odd cause I assume from the numbers you said 46 lightblubs (an est.) total at 4.6kW, they got replaced with 17w each, by the numbers your new bulbs should be drawing in at an max of 782w so isn't that more of a saving of 3,818w instead of 2900w saved?

Correct me wrong if I'm wrong, this confuses me.

 
Tytalus said:
I haven't done any Google searching, and I'm sure it'd be a 10-second answer, but I'm lazy and want more info in case the answer isn't the ideal one.... anyways, do they make 3-way versions of energy-saving lights?
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Yes, there are 3-way CFL bulbs. I can't tell you where to get one, since I've never been in the market, but I know they exist. You'll probably have more luck looking in a Lowes or Home Depot than Walmart.
 
Mohonri said:
Yes, there are 3-way CFL bulbs. I can't tell you where to get one, since I've never been in the market, but I know they exist. You'll probably have more luck looking in a Lowes or Home Depot than Walmart.
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I saw one in special in my local paper ad last week so they do exist. The ad is from Walmart.

 
Mohonri said:
Yes, there are 3-way CFL bulbs. I can't tell you where to get one, since I've never been in the market, but I know they exist. You'll probably have more luck looking in a Lowes or Home Depot than Walmart.
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didn't know this...... hummm
 
Jon855 said:
Odd cause I assume from the numbers you said 46 lightblubs (an est.) total at 4.6kW, they got replaced with 17w each, by the numbers your new bulbs should be drawing in at an max of 782w so isn't that more of a saving of 3,818w instead of 2900w saved?

Correct me wrong if I'm wrong, this confuses me.

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oh you're right, I multiplied by 17 by 100, rather than 46.


long day :-\
 
I switched all 4 bulbs in my bedroom over to CFL lights today. Went from 65w bulbs each to 20w for a nice total savings of 180w in one room. I went hunting throughout the house and remembered that quite a few lights had been running CFL for a while now. With 180w being saved, does that mean that I have to get another system running to use up all that extra power now? I think that's how it all works...:D
 
owkia said:
I switched all 4 bulbs in my bedroom over to CFL lights today. Went from 65w bulbs each to 20w for a nice total savings of 180w in one room. I went hunting throughout the house and remembered that quite a few lights had been running CFL for a while now. With 180w being saved, does that mean that I have to get another system running to use up all that extra power now? I think that's how it all works...:D
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you can probably squeeze more than one system into that 180W if you play your cards right ;)

 
living in Sunny California...home of the wackos...they have been trying to push CFLs for a while now and say how much better for the environment they are becuase they draw so much less power....the one BIG thing they have never mentioned is that nice little bit of mercury that is put into each and every one and what is going to happen when it is time to dispose of these modern marvels....I am not knocking them as I know they do save energy...and cut down on heat...and more importantly free up wattage for more systems to fold with..but when will they acknowledge that 'Inconvenient Truth' ?
 
gigglebyte said:
living in Sunny California...home of the wackos...they have been trying to push CFLs for a while now and say how much better for the environment they are becuase they draw so much less power....the one BIG thing they have never mentioned is that nice little bit of mercury that is put into each and every one and what is going to happen when it is time to dispose of these modern marvels....I am not knocking them as I know they do save energy...and cut down on heat...and more importantly free up wattage for more systems to fold with..but when will they acknowledge that 'Inconvenient Truth' ?
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the same day al gore acknowledges the errors of his inconvenient truth :D

 
Keep in mind also that these bulbs will last a very, very long time, so you need to compare the environmental/health impact of the number of incandescent bulbs they replace. Yes, they have mercury, but only 4-5mg, which, considering the density of mercury, is very little indeed. The worst thing you can do with burnt-out fluorescent bulbs is to break them. There are also ways to recycle them in order to keep th mercury out of the landfills.
 
Majic said:
All my inside lights were changed out last year. Outside lights are still standard lights due to the low temps outside here in PA. After I did the switch I turned back on two machines and still saw a drop in my monthly bill.
Click to expand...

Go to the PP&L homepage and you can get 2 of these bulbs for free..:)


I have them in almost all of my fixtures,..just waiting on the last few incandescent bulbs to burn out, then Ill replace them too...
 
Thats the other thing i forgot to mention with nvision from Home Depot.

They have a 7yr and I think 5yr warranty depending on the bulb. Not bad at all :cool:


Honestly I cannot stand most CFLs because of the flicker (I am very sensitive to things like that...CRTs drive me up the wall!), but the nvision ones do not seem to flicker at all and I have tried plenty of CFLs that all do flicker.

I have these can lights that I have one pretty much 24/7 in my living room and I used to change the bulb every 4-6months or so...its been about a year and a half on the CFLs and I have not had to change them yet! They start to pay for themselves overtime with less replacements and much less power consumption.


EDIT: and to clarify, they do make dimable CFLs now, but they are WAY to expensive. They are around $20 EACH!
 
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