Question about interior lighting.

[BlasterBob]

Years ago, MANY MANY years ago, as kids we were taught that when leaving one of the rooms in our house that had the light on, we were to always to turn off those lights. Now days, kids never seem to pay any attention to if the lights are left on or not. Back in the 40’s and 50’s it was a common belief that when a fluorescent light was used, it would be better to allow it to remain on for hours if we intended to come back in the room. Was told that it took more power to relight that type bulb than letting it burn for a few hours. If this was true, will this now also apply to our modern fluorescent bulbs, such as the long bulbs over a work bench. I hope this question will NOT wake up any trolls. TIA.[blaster]

[ray1970]

Not sure I fully understand the question. I was also raised to turn off the lights if you weren’t using them. I think too many on/off cycles will shorten the life of an incandescent bulb. Not sure it will used more energy coming on or off though. I’m sure Ohm’s law applies somehow.

Lights being left on is a pet peeve of mine since I’m the one paying the electricity bill.

[BladesNBarrels]

"When not in use, turn off the juice" was drummed in as a kid.
I also learned that fluorescent light starters used more electricity starting the bulbs.
As I recall when installing the daylight fluorescent fixtures in my shop, the labeling said that it was more efficient than incandescent bulbs and the daylight bulbs have lasted well -
I am going on 10 years on the first set - lights are on about 8 hours daily.

[DenverGP]

the energy an older fluorescent tube light fixture uses at startup is equivalent to about 5 seconds of run time. And many modern fluorescent fixtures use more energy efficient ballasts, so their startup takes even less energy. Turn em off.

[Irving]

Myth busters tested this, I bet you can find the clip with the results on YouTube.

[Gman]

Modern rapid-start fluorescent fixtures don't require as much energy to start them. Turn them on when you need them and off when you don't.

In the age of LED bulbs, it still saves a bit to turn them off, but it's not as big a difference as it used to be.

[henpecked]

At work it was explained to us that they charge a "peak usage" surcharge. If we come in and turn on all the machines at once we get a huge electric bill. We now have timers on all our equipment that turns 1 machine on every 15 minutes. Cuts our bill in half.

[Gman]

At work it was explained to us that they charge a "peak usage" surcharge. If we come in and turn on all the machines at once we get a huge electric bill. We now have timers on all our equipment that turns 1 machine on every 15 minutes. Cuts our bill in half.
Worked in a high-rise building in Las Colinas, TX that got around "peak usage" for AC by cooling a huge water reservoir under the building at night (off-peak). They then used that chilled water to cool the building during the day. Someone creates these schemes and others figure out ways to get around them.

[Bailey Guns]

I replaced almost all lights in the house with LEDs as soon as we moved in. Don't know if it made a difference but it's supposed to. I still turn lights off out of habit. The entire house is electric...heat, hot water, cooking, dryer, AC. Lots of homes are like that here since electricity is inexpensive.

[GilpinGuy]

We've been replacing incandescent bulbs with LEDs too over the past year or so. Most of the house has them now. I like them. Our electric bill has seen no noticable difference at all, though.

One thing I did notice. The LEDs are supposed to last waaaaaaaaay longer than incandescents. According to bulbs.com (http://www.bulbs.com/learning/ledfaq.aspx?mobile=true),

LEDs are notable for being extremely long-lasting products. Many LEDs have a rated life of up to 50,000 hours. This is approximately 50 times longer than a typical incandescent, 20-25 times longer than a typical halogen, and 8-10 times longer than a typical CFL. Used 12 hours a day, a 50,000 bulb will last more than 11 years. Used 8 hours a day, it will last 17 years!

Of course, bulbs.com is the "LED Authority", so maybe they are hyping it a bit.

I've had mabe 1/3 of the LEDs start flickering wildy within the year. Different brands too. Maybe they're lifespan is hyped a lot.

And yes, getting kids to turn off lights is like getting them to keep the front or back door closed when it's cold outside.

I still remember my mom saying, "What are you trying to do? Heat all the outdoors?" LOL

[Irving]

I've replaced all my bulbs with LEDs and my bill (the electric portion) has dropped significantly. Every month I get a letter from Xcel rating me against my neighbors and now I've been significantly lower than the "efficient" neighbors.

I also have some old (50's) lights in the house on a dimmer. LEDs and compact florescent bulbs do NOT like that fixture and very quickly burn out, even if it isn't dimmed.

[Ronin13]

We're replacing any bulbs at our house with LEDs as they go out... it's a long process. I was even thinking of upgrading a few areas (like bathrooms) with the motion sensor switches that automatically shut off the lights after a certain time. They're running about $20-30, and I figure if we forget to turn off a light it's a no-worry fix.

[00tec]

I've replaced all my bulbs with LEDs and my bill (the electric portion) has dropped significantly. Every month I get a letter from Xcel rating me against my neighbors and now I've been significantly lower than the "efficient" neighbors.

I also have some old (50's) lights in the house on a dimmer. LEDs and compact florescent bulbs do NOT like that fixture and very quickly burn out, even if it isn't dimmed.

You have to replace the dimmer regardless. This really has been the only thing stopping me from swapping my kitchen lights out, as I need 3 new dimmers.

[BlasterBob]

Hey guys, many thanks for the great comments on the electric light thing. This kinda reminds me of the long distance telephone usage when I was a youngster - coming up on 81 years of age soon. Long distance calls were kept extremely short due to the high prices of each minute back in the old days. Now we can chat without the old rush of getting the words rattled off to avoid high phone bills. NO, we didn’t have to use smoke signals to communicate however we did have to go through the local town switchboard and a live operator for ALL outgoing calls. Party lines were kinda neat to check on the activities of the neighbors. Now, that’d probably be unlawful to listen in on the neighbors conversations. [blaster]

[O2HeN2]

Jogged my memory. I've always liked the scene in "A Christmas Story" where the wife runs back into the house to turn off the leg lamp "to save electricity" and you can see that all other lights in the house, and I do mean all, are on... :)

O2

[Ronin13]

Jogged my memory. I've always liked the scene in "A Christmas Story" where the wife runs back into the house to turn off the leg lamp "to save electricity" and you can see that all other lights in the house, and I do mean all, are on... :)

O2

Makes you wonder what the Griswold's electrical bill looks like this time of year...[LOL]

[fitterjohn]

That's popular here too. Even the city of Denver has a chilled water loop for buildings. All the schools in Loveland are like that too.

[newracer]

I have heard that some of the new LEDs and CFLs do not like to be turned on, off, and on again in short cycles, it will shorten their lifespan.

[hollohas]

I have an engineering degree in "Illumination". Seriously, it's a thing.

Anyway, the power usage on start-up on the fluorescent is only a minor part of the equation. The more important part of the equation is that the surge of electricity used to start them up degrades the electrodes inside the lamp and each on/off cycle significantly degrades the life of the lamp much more than just leaving it on.

In other words, a fluorescent lamp that is left on forever actually has a longer life (in hours 'on') than one that is turned on and off excessively.

[Irving]

I have heard that some of the new LEDs and CFLs do not like to be turned on, off, and on again in short cycles, it will shorten their lifespan.

Not to be too flip, but isn't this true for pretty much everything, both electronic and mechanical?

[newracer]

Not to be too flip, but isn't this true for pretty much everything, both electronic and mechanical?

Probably, it was something specific about the starters. It was stated they should be on for at least 15 minutes.

When my kids were younger at my previous house I installed switches that shut off after a set time with no movement. They would also come back on with movement. It worked well but I may have trained my kids to not use switches as in the new house they leave lights on a lot. Maybe I need to install the switches again, I still have several that I reclaimed from a building being demolished.

[BladesNBarrels]

I have an engineering degree in "Illumination". Seriously, it's a thing.

Anyway, the power usage on start-up on the fluorescent is only a minor part of the equation. The more important part of the equation is that the surge of electricity used to start them up degrades the electrodes inside the lamp and each on/off cycle significantly degrades the life of the lamp much more than just leaving it on.

In other words, a fluorescent lamp that is left on forever actually has a longer life (in hours 'on') than one that is turned on and off excessively.

Thanks for that illuminating insight. It lightens my concerns.

[Cheer]

[DenverGP]

In other words, a fluorescent lamp that is left on forever actually has a longer life (in hours 'on') than one that is turned on and off excessively.

But it'll cost you more money in wasted electricity than the cost of replacing the tube.

[Not_A_Llama]

Worked in a high-rise building in Las Colinas, TX that got around "peak usage" for AC by cooling a huge water reservoir under the building at night (off-peak). They then used that chilled water to cool the building during the day. Someone creates these schemes and others figure out ways to get around them.

Not really a scheme, but a reflection of the costs and expenses for the electrical company. The type of peak use you were dealing with was the daily cycle of high energy use around noon. The electrical company has low-cost base generation that runs through the day (traditionally cheap coal). At high use periods, especially around noon when industry is working and air conditioning is on, the electrical company has to bring in additional expensive generation (traditionally natural gas). You’ll see this peak/offpeak residential pricing in Texas, and here (implicitly) in the Xcel air conditioning “saver switches”

The other type of peak is how much is being used at once. It’s partly about maximum usage, and by proxy, how much can come online at once. Most residential electric tariffs don’t concern themselves with peak rampup, because a single house won’t be able to generate enough surge to make a difference. A large piece of moving machinery or an induction furnace kicking on, though, can slow down turbines enough to drop voltage and and frequency. The electric company then needs to compensate elsewhere on the system, either with spinning reserves or other correction services (battery, in some cases!).

You weren’t gaming the system, so much as you were helping to optimize the system and getting rewarded for it.

In your case, the water chilling was essentially an energy storage mechanism; a physical battery. It cost money to build, and the electric company paid you to use it.

[Gman]

It's a scheme.

scheme
skēm
noun
1.
a large-scale systematic plan or arrangement for attaining some particular object or putting a particular idea into effect.

I'm not saying that's a bad thing. The higher pricing is a disincentive to consumption. Otherwise, production capacity has to be increased to meet peak consumption. That costs money and has limited applicability, so no full return on investment and pricing has to go up for all consumers to pay for the added infrastructure.

[Not_A_Llama]

Yep. It’s just that most people are going for the 1.1 definition right under the one you quoted (https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/scheme), especially with the bit about people trying to “get around”:

1.1 A secret or underhand plan; a plot.

[GilpinGuy]

I've replaced all my bulbs with LEDs and my bill (the electric portion) has dropped significantly.

I'm calling you out here Sturv. What do you call "significantly"? 10% reduction in electric bill?

[Irving]

I'm calling you out here Sturv. What do you call "significantly"? 10% reduction in electric bill?

Well, I used the word significantly because I used to always be rated mid-pack when they send out those reports, and then I was always better than even the super savers or whatever the rating is. I haven't really kept track of the actual amount. I'll see if there is any historical data I can access to give a better idea. It's entirely possible that the power company just changed their ratings and now they rate me differently, but nothing else has changed.

[GilpinGuy]

Well, I used the word significantly because I used to always be rated mid-pack when they send out those reports, and then I was always better than even the super savers or whatever the rating is. I haven't really kept track of the actual amount. I'll see if there is any historical data I can access to give a better idea. It's entirely possible that the power company just changed their ratings and now they rate me differently, but nothing else has changed.

OK. Not to be a dick or anything, but we've been up here 18 years and our bill has been within a few bucks a months the entire time. Going to new (expensive, government mandated) bulbs did nothing to our bill at all.

[BigDee]

The flickering of fluorescent lights has always bugged me and I’ve never been a fan. Fluorescents also contain mercury and they’re terrible for the environment if not disposed properly.

I put on a pretty massive Christmas light show at my house and my parents house. My parents house consists of mostly incandescent lights and my display is completely LED. My parents electric bill goes up a couple hundred bucks when they run the Christmas lights and mine only goes up about $15. Both of our shows are synchronized to music and involve hundreds of strands of lights being turned off and on.

Ditch the fluorescents and go with LED.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Irving]

OK. Not to be a dick or anything, but we've been up here 18 years and our bill has been within a few bucks a months the entire time. Going to new (expensive, government mandated) bulbs did nothing to our bill at all.

Pretty sure reporting your experience with actual facts doesn't make you a dick. I looked on-line and I can only see the past 24 months. I was done converting by then, and I had compact florescent before the LED. I took a screen shot, but it doesn't mean much. I held the cursor over the month with the biggest difference and it was only a few dollars. You've piqued my interest though, so I think I'm going to call Xcel and see if they still have data from the year that we moved in.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/06xIVi6FV2KMmL0G2BQD-eP93iqQsVET58w96MdtSZDdTAeQH3IImiUG6qIkoRCJNflHtDa cBNNUmTLqtAXVukGtIJhS_X5DM_TcO9fGWXtLZMzLyBM9Y2fP1 ftKMIdcw50FiLVlkCLGnFlIZKyNZmk_DunVO-QY4rpZNFM7-bRNCCHMGBK6RuDLir4TTRI_rhE7uhk8wMXACmxoI8_KvgGiKOf KipEXvlcPFfqVN2rX0ohPgS_ITMOEKJsF9d820G6nsnFlPTiwc aUJ3ff_hqCnrJrCEx7_UZlhLwiizgqn5sR4OAol9YKBAPUtbfa tJ6l0o_j9kixzo10MAyNGBq9gnjrrrW_XzD8KI3dA15qGWvpQE 59Q-yjNu_k2vPTQaYhpKhcSE6NfZobnv5RGfYJpY15hWIQzwaib7Kn M9xo4SJtHlNbt5PPDWniCNj0CSA2j5mclaYyQSrCsix7SyjGud y4vpOFzk7w7tMNT2_kzB7SjQ3JO56JFD6h4LD2K_VaeA-X6DepdUfwbCzaAKF5Ic0koZjf5qQ9EMlQ-HfqwZfJmI_c2-6WvGr9_BCz3Lulmg3jC11slqOVrRx7lyDvtvrRgrKNiPnIRZSK zsiQz6N3xEVT5bsBY8NgTthGirDAvmU3Lt26j7zx6Xw-I4p6ZchfjqJVGQyjl=w1231-h801-no

[Aloha_Shooter]

I put on a pretty massive Christmas light show at my house and my parents house. My parents house consists of mostly incandescent lights and my display is completely LED. My parents electric bill goes up a couple hundred bucks when they run the Christmas lights and mine only goes up about $15. Both of our shows are synchronized to music and involve hundreds of strands of lights being turned off and on.

I don't do a massive show but ran about 12 strings of LED lights on trees in the backyard and plan to add to that next year. The nice thing is that the LED strings in the backyard are powered by solar collectors so they cost me nothing other than initial purchase and the time to put them up and take them down. I expect I will have to replace the batteries eventually -- the lawn lightsticks I put in last year are already fading after just 2-3 hours of operation (last year they ran from dusk to nearly dawn) but I've left those around the lawn all year round -- but they look good and add no load to the grid.

The LED lights I strung along the front of the house are traditional plug-ins and it's just easier to leave them on all day -- you really can't tell they're on during the day unless you look hard and they're there as soon as it gets dark. Plus, leaving them on all day/night removes one indicator that I might not be home.

[hollohas]

But it'll cost you more money in wasted electricity than the cost of replacing the tube.

This is true. However, for commerical use there is more to consider when considering lifetime cost. Businesses may have hundreds or thousands of lamps. Many large commerical spaces used to choose to leave them on...but dimmed. This is because they have to pay people to change them which is expensive. In many cases it cost more to change lamps more frequently than the extra electricity to keep them on. That was obviously largely dependant on the electricity cost.

New electrical code requires they be turned off when not in use in commercial spaces. But the on/off cycle killing lamp life is moot now because 90%+ of new commercial lighting is LED. I rarely sell anything that isn't LED anymore.



Fluorescents also contain mercury and they’re terrible for the environment if not disposed properly.



Meh. A modern T8 lamp (like Philips Alto II) has 1.7mg of Mercury. In a unit that more of us would understand, that's 0.026 grains of Hg.

Let's compare the terrible for the environment Fluorescent lamp vs an incandescent lamp. Consider a 5 year life (on for 12 hours per workday)...

Fluorescent lamps (32w cfl, 20,000 life) used over 5 years - 1
Hg in each cfl lamp - 6mg
Hg emissions from power plant to power fluorescent lamp for 5 years - 30mg
Total environmental Hg - 36mg

Equivalent incandescent lamps (150w, 750 hour life) used over 5 years - 21
Hg per lamp - 0
Hg emissions from power plant to power lamps for 5 years- 140mg
Total environmental Hg over 5 years - 140mg.

The environmental impact of the Hg in fluorescent lamps used to be an issue but is way overblown now.

New LED tech is the best of both considering Hg pollution. They typically have zero Hg in the lamp and they are more efficient than Fluorescent so the power plants contribute less Hg as well.

For home use, LED's are finally priced right too.

16w LED A19 - 15,000hr life - $5. Electrical cost during life $29 total @ $0.12/kwh. Lifetime cost $34.

23w CFL - 10,000 life - $3. $4.50 cost for lamps over 15k hours. 43% more electricity. ($41 total @ $0.12/kwh). Lifetime cost $45.50.

75w A19 incandescent - 1,000hr life - $0.60. $9 cost for lamps over 15k hours. Almost 500% more electricity.($135 total @ $0.12/kwh). Lifetime cost $144.

[Irving]

CFLs are much cheaper than $3-$4 per though. But thanks for doing the math for the examples.

[hollohas]

To keep apples-to-apples with the 16watt LED lamp, I used a more expensive 23watt cfl which run about $3/ea for name brand on Amazon.

A 16watt A19 LED replacement lamp and a 23watt cfl each have the same amount of light output so they were a good comparison.

A 9watt LED lamp (about $3.75) is typically equal to the very common 13watt cfl (about $2). Both are 60w replacements. You come out ahead with LED in this case too. Actually the cfl lamp could be free and you'd still come out ahead with the LED over the 15,000 life @ an average $0.12/kwh.

[Irving]

I'm calling you out here Sturv. What do you call "significantly"? 10% reduction in electric bill?

Okay, I called in and got the lady to read me the monthly kWh from the first full year that I lived here 2013. Back then I had less light fixtures and everything was incandescent or florescent; not to mention I have twice as many computers and electronics that are always/often plugged in and charging.
I don't know what the rate per kWh was back in 2013, but it seems to be about $8.5 now, so I just used that figure for all three years and put everything into a spread sheet.
You can be the judge, but I'm still comfortable with using the word "significant."

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[GilpinGuy]

Good on ya Stu. I didn't mean to give you a homework assignment, but it looks like you're benefiting from the change if all that changed was the bulbs. We've seen zero difference in our electric bill, but we do have a very modest home. We just don't have a ton of bulbs burning I guess.

I have nothing against LED's. In fact I wrote earlier that I like them better that incandescents. I am a bit jaded by having several "go bad" by flickering wildy in less than a a year though. They're supposed to last years and years.

[NFATrustGuy]

One of the first things I did when I moved into my new [to me] home last year was switch out all the light bulbs to LED. This was a pretty big task. I have 78 can lights in the house and probably another 60 other bulbs of various styles. I purchased almost all of the bulbs from Costco. I've had a very high failure rate with the LEDs that look like a standard old-fashioned light bulb. I haven't kept exact numbers, but I'd estimate a 25% failure rate within the first year. I haven't had a single failure of any of the can light bulbs (mostly PAR30).

My whole house uses z-wave enabled dimmer switches. The can lights tolerate the dimmers well, but the standard-looking bulbs flicker at lower dimmer settings. They do a big flash as they quickly dim from full bright to off. I'm a bit bummed and am hoping technology continues to improve because I really like the concept of using less electricity and never having to replace a bulb again.

I wish I would have saved all the bulbs that burnt out so I could have returned them to Costco. If I would have known that such a large number were going to fail, I certainly would have done it, but I figured I'd be seen as petty for making a warranty claim on one or two lightbulbs.

[Great-Kazoo]

NM DT

[Aloha_Shooter]

I usually have one, maybe two, lights on at a time (if any) with about half my bulbs being either CFL or LED so I wouldn't expect changing the bulbs to have a significant effect over the hot tub, computers, TV, etc. Having said that, there's almost no reason I can think of to NOT switch to LED bulbs as your regular ones burn out.