Let there be light!
Last month, I read a great article in FastCompany magazine (I adore FastCompany! I tend to refer to their articles often) about a new kind of light bulb. Well, ok, it's not *new* exactly... it's 
a compact flourescent lightbulb. According to the article, this little item will "change the world." I thought, "eh, it can't be that great." Then I got my first month's electric bill. Ouch! (of course, it was over 100 degrees here for 24 days in August, that could explain part of it...)
Turns out (I have just calculated), I paid for 51 kWh of light from my incandescent lightbulbs, just in the living room and my bedroom. I didn't notice that two of the bulbs in my bedroom were 100w until I went to switch them - no wonder it seemed so damn bright in there when I woke up in the morning! (I didn't count the ceiling fans in those rooms... apparently those use about 300 kWh per year, so that's another 50 kWh per month for my 2 most-used fans.) The kitchen is already fluorescent, and I don't know if I can reduce the wattage of the bathroom bulbs, but at the very least, by switching to the little swirly compact fluorescent bulbs, I'll go from 51 kWh to 22 kWh immediately. A savings of a whopping... $3-ish per month. Oh well. It seemed exciting at the time. :) [and that $3 savings pays for about ONE of the new bulbs, but the price is going down pretty fast.]
However, the $3 savings is amortized (ooh, an MBA word) over the expected 10,000 hours or so that the bulb will last - saving me from having to buy regular 60-watt bulbs for three years! The only bad thing about these bulbs is that the light is just a little too... dull, particularly when getting dressed in the morning or knitting/crocheting on the sofa, so I am keeping one incandescent for every 2 CF bulbs in my ceiling fans. And I've heard that the weather will get cool enough around here that the A/C won't be as necessary - but so far it's October and it's still in the 90's every day.
a compact flourescent lightbulb. According to the article, this little item will "change the world." I thought, "eh, it can't be that great." Then I got my first month's electric bill. Ouch! (of course, it was over 100 degrees here for 24 days in August, that could explain part of it...)Turns out (I have just calculated), I paid for 51 kWh of light from my incandescent lightbulbs, just in the living room and my bedroom. I didn't notice that two of the bulbs in my bedroom were 100w until I went to switch them - no wonder it seemed so damn bright in there when I woke up in the morning! (I didn't count the ceiling fans in those rooms... apparently those use about 300 kWh per year, so that's another 50 kWh per month for my 2 most-used fans.) The kitchen is already fluorescent, and I don't know if I can reduce the wattage of the bathroom bulbs, but at the very least, by switching to the little swirly compact fluorescent bulbs, I'll go from 51 kWh to 22 kWh immediately. A savings of a whopping... $3-ish per month. Oh well. It seemed exciting at the time. :) [and that $3 savings pays for about ONE of the new bulbs, but the price is going down pretty fast.]
However, the $3 savings is amortized (ooh, an MBA word) over the expected 10,000 hours or so that the bulb will last - saving me from having to buy regular 60-watt bulbs for three years! The only bad thing about these bulbs is that the light is just a little too... dull, particularly when getting dressed in the morning or knitting/crocheting on the sofa, so I am keeping one incandescent for every 2 CF bulbs in my ceiling fans. And I've heard that the weather will get cool enough around here that the A/C won't be as necessary - but so far it's October and it's still in the 90's every day.
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