Lights

So I’ve been looking for ways to save money and energy. One of the most obvious things to do about the house is to replace conventional bulbs with lower power bulbs. For the longest time I have been replacing conventional bulbs with compact florescent bulbs. There are two problems with this.

One is that they just don’t work very well in a fixture with a rheostat such as our ceiling fan. There are some bulbs that claim to work with them but the ones I have seen are too low in lighting power. I’ll keep looking though. Those are the big power eaters in our house.

The second problem is that they don’t work well outside in winter.  They take a while to warm up and the light you get is not so hot (minor pun) until they do warm up. So I can’t use them every where.

A seasonal expense has long been lights on Christmas trees. Put several strings of 9 watt bulbs on a tree and you quickly get up to some serious wattage. Even the little bulbs require a lot of power. Ah but this year I think I have the answer – LED Christmas lights. Yes, both Wal-Mart and Home Depot (probably other places as well) are selling LED Christmas lights for both indoor and outdoor use. I figure I am using about 1200 fewer watts of lights this year. A savings on between 80-90%. And best of all I really like the way the lights look so I am not giving up anything.

The LED and compact florescent bulbs cost more to buy but they should last long enough that between using less power and lasting longer they should save money in the long run. If enough people buy them maybe the costs will come down as well.

What I really want to look into next is alternate energy. Perhaps solar to power the light bulbs? It could work couldn’t it?

3 Responses to “Lights”

  1. Matt says:

    Someone else was talking to me about the LED lights. We were wondering how they work — he didn’t notice any sort of converter, and 120VAC into LEDs is about the best way to make sure they become FEDs. (Fire-Emitting Diodes.)

    I’m extremely picky about light quality. CFLs I can do (though their mercury helps me to dismiss them as an amateur attempt), but normal fluorescents are the work of Satan. They’re green and they flicker and they hum.

  2. Ricki Alcala says:

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