Consumer Reports - October 2008 Issue - Save Engery

[launderess]

Just received the October, 2008 issue of CR, and for what it is worth,it is all about choosing "energy efficient products over energy hogs can save thousands".

Topics covered but not limited to:

CR Investigates Energy Star
Compact Fluorescent Light Blubs
Tankless Water Heaters

L.

 

[autowasherfreak]

Compact Fluorescent Light Blubs

Any here use these? I have been thinking about but I've been reading stories on the net that if you breakage, mercury, and that you should throw them in the trash once they have burned out.

 

[spankomatic]

Compact Fluorescent Light Blubs

I don't care for them. They hurt my eyes and I do not like the kind of light they put off. They were in the stair well in the house we moved into. I had to wait about 60 seconds for them to "warm up" before they became bright enough to walk down the stairs. PITA ! Pulled out the fluorescents and put in Halogen flood lights. No more waiting to go down the stairs and gives the stair well a much richer look.

Jim

 

[spankomatic]

Stair case with Halogen flood lights.

 

[spankomatic]

Halogen lighting

 

[spankomatic]

Halogen lighting

 

[spankomatic]

Halogen lighting looks much better. Those old energy savers that were in there made everything look dull.... They would blink too!

 

[sudsmaster]

Nearly all my lights are fluorescent. I like them. The enclosed type tend to take longer to warm up than the exposed spiral type. For kitchen and bath I prefer daylight type bulbs, which are now more widely available. They put out a better light than incandescent, I think. And far less heat. The CRI or color rendition index is something to note - the higher the better.

The breakage issue is not a problem.

The local refuse district has locations where old CFL's can be dropped off. The same goes for other fluorescent light bulbs/tubes. One should not dispose of fluorescent lights in the regular trash.

 

[launderess]

CFL

Have them in most every room, except the kitchen (full flouresent round), and the bathroom (regular light blubs).

Find while CFLs do save energy, and give off less heat than normal bulbs (which in itself saves energy during the AC season), the light given off has a slight yellow tinge which one has to get used to. It is because of the yellow cast one uses other blubs where bright clean light is required.

Have CFLs in the laundry area and it is sometimes hard to tell if one has scorched something being ironed, or if it is just the light. Of course even with bluing and using detergents with tons of OBAs, white linens look a tad less so under CFL.

All and all am happy.

 

[frigilux]

I switched all my lighting to CFL's about three years ago. There was a noticeable change in my electric bill. I don't mind them a bit, and the newer bulbs get to full power quickly.

As with anything involving change, one adapts to the differences, which eventually become the norm.

 

[tolivac]

I use CFL's and like them BETTER than standard incandescents-the Yellow-Orange light from incandescent gives me a headache.the Blue spectrum from CFL balances the color better.Also I use Metal Halide lights-NOT HALOGEN.surprized these aren't making inroads to indoor lighting.Again BETTER then incandescent.you get more light for the same power used.and better quality light.Like flourescent and CFL-Metal halide bulbs come with different halide compositions in the arc tube to give diffrent color temps.actully like the cooler color-towards blue-6500Kelvin-used in aquarium lighting-thats where I get my halide bulbs from-the fixtures were surplus from an electrical supplier.Use 100W and 400W sizes.Love the light-very pleasent-like SUNLIGHT.Use CFL's in my other fixtures-at this point don't have a single incandescent-oops just one in the oven's light fixture-and the fridge.so I only have twh in the trash out here-you can throw CFL's HID,flouresecents right into the compactor at the dump transfer station here.The dump operator says Flourescent,CFL, and HID bulbs are not recycled out here.When you get down to it-they last so long few end up in the waste steam compared to incandescent and halogen bulbs.On CRI-this can be deceiving-what reference are you comparing to?If its sunlight-about 6500Degrees Kelvin-than incandscents would be very low.If you are using 2500degrees Kelvin-Incandescent lamp color than other cooler bulbs fail.I like to see the CRI referenced to SUNLIGHT-6500 degrees Kelvin-After all sunlight is the light most are familiar with.motion picture and TV studio lighting is 6500 degree Kelvin.Very large metal halide bulbs are used or filtered Halogen.The trend there is to use the Metal halide-more efficient and no 6500 degree filter required.another bonus-more light with less power and smaller airconditioning units can be used to cool the studios and actors.

 

[tolivac]

I read the article about the energy savings-esp the lights-but CU's life tests on the CFL's-do they just put them in a lab fixture and let them shine continuously?Or do they turn them on-off several times to stimulate actual home use?Of course leaving them run continously will give a long life.Any sort of discharge bulb such as flourescent,CFL,HID don't last as long when switched on and off.the starts is what stresses the lamp.I have had no problem with "warm-up" on my CFL's except for some I put in my ceiling fan fixture.These take a minute or so to get to brightness.the Sylvania ones have otherwise warm up in less than 30sec.My metal halides may take a few to several min to warm up.I leave those on for about a few hours per use on average.I was trying to remember what brand the ceiling fan CFL was-got them from Lowes.So far my CFLs have been in use for a year with no problems.

 

[frigilux]

I switch my CFL's on and off constantly; I'll enter a room for a minute, then leave. After three years of use, the only bulb that has burned out is one of six CFL's in my bathroom.

 

[sudsmaster]

Launderess,

If you look you can find CFL's that are "daylight" rated. These give off a very white light - not greenish like cool white - and good color rendition. GE has a variety of wattages on sale at Walmart, for example. I've tried some of their 100 watt equivs. Costco has 75 watt equiv. daylight CFL's - less expensive than the Walmart ones and they put out a lot of white light as well.

The yellowish cast of most CFL's is by design - they are "warm white" rated, which is an attempt to duplicate the warm tones of the average incandescent bulb. I don't care for it much, either, but have found that daylight bulbs are a bit out of place in areas like living rooms or rooms with warm wall colors. I use the daylight bulbs in the kitchen, bath, and work areas (like desk in family room).

 

[petek]

Love em, except for the oven, dryer and range hood lights every lightbulb in our house, approx 50, are CFL's or tubes in the workshop and garage. The new ones are really good, no yellow tinge, pretty much instant on. The ones from just a couple of years ago weren't so good.

 

[joeekaitis]

We screwed in so many of 'em at once that the electric company came out and replaced our meter, saying the drop in consumption indicated "possible meter tampering, but not necessarily by you".

Uh, yeah.

 

[rp2813]

We had a couple of dimmable CFL's but they were difficult to regulate and we went back to incandescent. If they can improve on the dimability, we'll likely start using them again.

In our previous garage which was attached to the kitchen, we had a motion sensor with a CFL so we wouldn't have to reach around for the light switch every time we went into the garage to do laundry or grab a soda out of the drinks fridge. I think I replaced 3 of those bulbs in less than a year's time, I suspect because of so much on/off activity. Another reason we are not quite yet sold on CFL's.

 

[perc-o-prince]

We've been using them in as many lights as possible for so long that I'd hate to see what the electric bill would be like without them! Kind of like I'd hate to know how much more I'd weigh if I drank regular soda instead of diet!

Chuck

 

[qsd-dan]

I used them in the beginning, but at our house, we are old fashion and never leave lights on in an area that isn't occupied. We went through many fluorescent bulbs and found that they died much quicker than the incandescent ones.

I believe the rule of thumb is that a fluorescent light should never be installed in socket where the lights don't remain on for more than 20 minutes. In our house, that would only leave 2 lamps. I also was told by an optometrist that cataracts are the result of toxins and fluorescent lights.

I'll continue using tungsten bulbs until the LED's become cost effective. LED's will be probably be the electric companies most hated product since they're so damn efficient.

 

[mattl]

Hate them....

Hate CFLs. I only use them where they are not obnoxious, which for me is my 4 outdoor lampposts. I picked up a 2 pack to replace a burned out bulb, as a rule they last 18-24 months in my lamppost, NOT 9 years as claimed, and tried one in my garage. Sorry, I'm not going to wait for these things to warm up so I can see in my cupboard. I had considered putting them in closets and such, but it really doesn't make sense for me. These lights are used for only a minute or two at most and it would take they crappy bulbs that long to warm up.

I have dozens of recessed lights in my home and they are all lamped with Halogen and will stay that way. The light is close to pure white, does not flicker, and has a point source rather than that awful diffuse crap of CFLs. CFls remind me of walking around on a cloudy day, dull light, no shadows, everything looks flat and crappy.

LED might be the answer, they do have a point source look to them, but I've yet to see any that are a true white, most are blue or yellow.

 

[whirlcool]

I agree about the CFL's
We put one in the bedroom and it turned the buttercream yellow walls a ghastly green color.
I have one in my office in the house and while the light is the correct color it takes at least 30 seconds to come to full brightness.
We did replace the 6 can lights in the kitchen with newer CFL floods. The color seems right, but we at least one of them fails every month. At $8.00 each, that's pretty expensive.
But when our electricity provider jacked up our rate to 28.9 per KWH any savings we may have enjoyed went right out the window!

 

[sudsmaster]

I haven't experienced the high failure rate with CFL's that some here report.

I get most of mine from Costco. They are Philips, or Feit, or Lights of America.

Five years ago, the failure rate was higher, but more recent purchases have been much better. As has been the light quality, warm-up time, etc.

The 7 or 9 year advertised life expectancy is based on usage similar to that of the incandescents they replace. If you leave a CFL on 7x24, of course it's notgoing to last 7 or 9 years. Also, they are more sensitive to enclosed locations. If you put one in an enclosed fixture, you should make sure the CFL is rated for such an application. Although they produced much less heat than incandescents, they do produce about 20% of the heat. And they have electronics in their bases that may fail if overheated. Again, I have found that more recently purchased bulbs from Costco (the 75 watt equiv Feit daylight CFL's) are working just fine in small enclosed fixtures in the bath and elsewhere.

 

[mihi]

we use CFL and.....

we have been using the CF lightbulbs for several years now. They are so much easier to find today than they were too.
We've just rarely had a problem with any of them, have had maybe a total of 4 to 5 stop working over a period of several years. They should be recycled too, not just thrown away.

I even use them outside for the driveway lights, door lights, etc. When its cold though it takes them a second or two to come on.
Probably 95% of the lights in our house are the CFLs.
I highly recommend them.

For our daily driver washer we use a Fisher-Paykel GWL15 and an energy-star Whirlpool dishwasher.

 

[rolls_rapide]

Compact Fluorescent Lamps

I've been using them since the late Eighties, in various forms.

One of the first available was the Philips 'Prism' or 'Prismatic' series; a heavy bulb that had the tubes enclosed in a glass envelope (shaped and sized like a tin of beans). The light was pinkish, and flickered if you looked at it out the corner of your eye. Probably was operating at 50Hz.

Later Philips models were long slender clusters of four tubes which poked out of light fittings. The Philips models took a minute or two to get to full brightness. They still do. But the light no longer flickers.

Mazda made the '2D' models that fitted better in small table lamps; the tube was detachable, but the adapter was still heavy due to the size of the transformer used. The light hue was a better balance. They also had stick models that went up to eight tubes (23-25W, light output equal to 2 x 60W incandescent bulbs).

Osram had 20Watt bulbs that were more equal to a 100Watt incandescent bulb. They were stick shaped, with six tubes so fitted a bit better than Philips 4-tube versions. I think they also had 23W bulbs, similar to the Mazda.

The Osram bulbs actually had a weird effect on my Ferguson VCR. On a cold winter day, in a cool room, they took a little longer to get to full brightness. During this warm-up period, they transmitted an infrared frequency that switched the VCR on, tuned it to BBC2, and started recording.

Similarly, Mazda stick types, when warming up, sent out a frequency of light that blocked the Panasonic telly's remote control signals.

 

[sudsmaster]

The first fluorescent lamps that would fit in a standard fixture were the circline type. The first ones had magnetic ballasts. I remember buying a few CFL's back in the 80's that had heavy magnetic ballasts. They had big u-shaped tubes with a clear vented plastic shroud around them. They were quite bulky and took a very long time to warm up and then they put out a rather ghastly glow. Plus, they buzzed. Didn't last all that long, either. Later ones came along, with the rectangular type tubes, some replaceable. When the spiral type bulbs came along, for a while all one could find was the Lights of America brand which were an improvement but didn't seem to put out the lumens they claimed. They had this weird base that had a spiral that followed the spiral of the tubes.

About five years ago, it seems, things started getting better, with small bases and tubes so that the CFL's could actually fit inside lamps with limited clearance - not just bare bulbs in ceiling fixtures.

Of course just about all the CFL's I see for sale these days are made in China. But what isn't?

 

[sudsmaster]

Just got the CR september issue yesterday.

Most of the energy advice is predictable, but it is nice to have dollar figures attached to the various solutions.

One article, on tankless water heaters, came as a bit of a surprise. The savings are not as great as one might otherwise think. The biggest savings was only $80/year, with the quickest payback time of 15 years (Takagi T-K3). Also mentioned various drawbacks of tankless units: no hot water if power goes out, no hot water if you just want a trickle, more maintenance needed (such as annual flushing by a plumber), water running hot/cold because of the unit's need to feed in cold water to determine how much of a temperature rise is needed.

In another section CR suggests replacing an electric tank type water heater with a heat pump storgage type unit, saying that it could pay for itself in two to five years if it's used to replace an electric water heater due for a changeout anyway. Only problem is that I've never seen one of these for sale, but I suppose they are out there if you look hard enough.