Electricity from wood pt. 2

[Mt Bob]

Walked into the house after working in the yard yesterday evening, and here's what was on:

10 x 45w floods in kitchen
12 x 45w floods in family room
10 x 50w floods in living room
4 x 40w in upstairs hall
2 x 60w in laundry
2 x 60w in bedroom
3 x 50w floods in changing room
2 x 40 w in bathroom

My wife was sitting at her computer in the office, in the dark.

My dad would have had a heart attack!Sounds like you need occupancy sensors.Not a big fan of the new light bulbs,as a ham,because we have run into many problems with radio emmisions from their transformers.

 

[woodgeek]

Sounds like you can get the boy to go around the house and turn out the lights. Give him a percentage of the difference in light bills, in toys.

 

[begreen]

Walked into the house after working in the yard yesterday evening, and here's what was on:

There is a big chunk of the 55KWh/day load. If those lights are on 8hrs it adds up to 17KWh. As noted, lighting can be a surprising load when it is for illuminating a large area or many rooms of a house. More rooms and larger spaces require more lighting. I would be replacing all lights with LEDs if this is a concern. And put some floor lamps with lower wattage bulbs in rooms that are passage ways. These lights can be left on instead of flooding the room with light. We have a 15w CFL and a 25w halogen table lamp that illuminate our living room in the evening. The overhead floods only go on when we want to bathe the room in light, which is rarely. Timers and motion detecting light switches might also be considered.

 

[Bret Chase]

Walked into the house after working in the yard yesterday evening, and here's what was on:

10 x 45w floods in kitchen
12 x 45w floods in family room
10 x 50w floods in living room
4 x 40w in upstairs hall
2 x 60w in laundry
2 x 60w in bedroom
3 x 50w floods in changing room
2 x 40 w in bathroom

My wife was sitting at her computer in the office, in the dark.

My head would have exploded....

 

[BrotherBart]

Walked into the house after working in the yard yesterday evening, and here's what was on:

That ain't a house, it is a tanning booth!

 

[Ashful]

Sounds like you can get the boy to go around the house and turn out the lights. Give him a percentage of the difference in light bills, in toys.

That's a very good idea, and with him coming up on 5 years old this fall, I think I'll be implementing that plan soon. He can reach all the switches in the new part of the house, and about half of those in the old part. Seems our forefathers mounted light switches up out of children's reach, when electric was new and comfort with using it had not yet evolved.

 

[Grisu]

What do you do when your wife is much worse than the kids?

You can't change the kids...

Mine is really good with electricity and having CFLs or LEDs almost everywhere helps. What gets me is how much water goes down the drain for nothing. Like drinking a glass of water and then the glass needs to be soaked in the sink with .... water. Only afterwards it can go in the dishwasher. As water is a renewable resource it would not be so bad. However, all the dishes need to be rinsed with hot water, of course. There are only so many battles you can win as a husband. I have resorted to doing most of the dishes myself.

Walked into the house after working in the yard yesterday evening, and here's what was on:
10 x 45w floods in kitchen
12 x 45w floods in family room
10 x 50w floods in living room
4 x 40w in upstairs hall
2 x 60w in laundry
2 x 60w in bedroom
3 x 50w floods in changing room
2 x 40 w in bathroom

I know you prefer incadescent bulbs but for utility rooms like the laundry (or changing room?) I would really look into putting LEDs in. For the floods, it would maybe have been an idea to separate them in two circuits for each room with independent switches so you flip one switch and only half of the lights go on. Should still be plenty of light for most tasks. Probably too much effort for a retrofit. I like the idea of motion-sensing switches or getting your son involved.

My 4 year old shows all of my somewhat OCD tendencies, lining all his toys up and counting them, cataloging his collections of Thomas traisn and Angry Birds telepods... there is some hope for this one.

Sounds very familiar. Mine is older now but can still spend hours sorting his Pokemon cards.

 

[Ashful]

I know you prefer incadescent bulbs but for utility rooms like the laundry (or changing room?) I would really look into putting LEDs in. For the floods, it would maybe have been an idea to separate them in two circuits for each room with independent switches so you flip one switch and only half of the lights go on. Should still be plenty of light for most tasks. Probably too much effort for a retrofit. I like the idea of motion-sensing switches or getting your son involved.

Actually, most of my rooms are already divided into 2 or 4 lighting zones, but she'll just hit all the switches on a panel sometimes, and turn them all on.

I may start looking into LED's for the few fixtures where the bulbs are hidden behind frosted glass (eg. laundry room ceiling light, bedroom ceiling lights, etc. I really dislike the LED floods, as the ones I have seen are not friendly to look at, and we pretty much always have them dimmed and I like the amber hue of a dimmed incandescent.

When I say "changing room", it's really the room between our master bedroom and master bath, containing our clothes closets. You can see one of the recessed floods in the first photo, although that old Honeywell round-stat has been replaced with a programmable now. Bathrooms are less than spacious in old houses...



The kid is the key, I think. He's still easily trained.

 

[Mt Bob]

http://www.lutron.com/en-US/Products/Pages/Sensors/Occupancy-Vacancy/Occupancy.aspx

 

[TradEddie]

I guess we'll never convince Joful to switch to LED's...

The down side of LED's is that your hard work training the family now produces diminishing returns! Some of my vampire appliances use more power switched off than my LEDs when lit. I just tried a Cree 6" can for my basement, $20, and I couldn't be happier. The only regularly used incandescents left in my house are 40W candleabra lights in our bedroom, and the 50W halogen over the kitchen table.

Back to the point, 10kWh/day is a fine goal, if I could reduce to that level I wouldn't care of it was 100% from coal!

TE

 

[Ashful]

The down side of LED's is that your hard work training the family now produces diminishing returns!

 

[begreen]

The latest generation of LEDs is getting cheaper and their designs are more conventional. The two floods I am testing in the kitchen look just like an incandescent R30 bulbs and have a light very similar to a halogen bulb. So far I like them, particularly because they were only $9.97 apiece on sale. I dated the bulbs like I do with all modern bulbs. We'll see how they stand up for longevity next to the CFLs in the same application.

 

[woodgeek]

Joful....I think you should resist the pressure.....we've done this with you like what, 5 times?

Do it if/when you want....and then become an insufferable LED snob/evangelist afterward and yell at us for not telling you earlier to get them!

 

[TradEddie]

I dated the bulbs like I do with all modern bulbs. We'll see how they stand up for longevity next to the CFLs in the same application.

Watch out, depending on what you mean by "next to CFLs", don't mix and match within the same fitting. I used one CFL and one LED in a twin bulb enclosed fitting, luckily I was removing the fitting a few weeks later to paint, and the heat of the CFL had started to damage the coating on the Cree. Only later did I notice that the directions specifically warn against doing this.

I thought I was the only one dating their bulbs.I've been doing it for about 5 years now, and have only replaced one dated CFL. The early ones didn't all last as long as advertized, but it seems when the newer ones die, LEDs might be under a dollar!

TE

 

[Longstreet]

Walked into the house after working in the yard yesterday evening, and here's what was on:

10 x 45w floods in kitchen
12 x 45w floods in family room
10 x 50w floods in living room
4 x 40w in upstairs hall
2 x 60w in laundry
2 x 60w in bedroom
3 x 50w floods in changing room
2 x 40 w in bathroom

My wife was sitting at her computer in the office, in the dark.

You were using about the same power with 12 x 45w floods in the family room than I would be if I turned on every light in my entire house.

Then again, my wife loves to crank down the A/C in the middle of our GA summers. Let me tell you, that ain't cheap!

 

[Mt Bob]

When you live in a cold climate a little xtra heat only helps.Europe still sells old style 100w bulbs as heater elements.Led cfl and flor. bulbs make things hard for me to read,causes headaches.Had to remove cfls from house,found out they interfere with my ham radios.FCC supposed to be preventing this,yeh right.Field day is coming!KF7BBL

 

[Ktm300]

Joful I have noticed a little extra steam belching from the Limerick Towers

 

[renewablejohn]

When you live in a cold climate a little xtra heat only helps.Europe still sells old style 100w bulbs as heater elements.Led cfl and flor. bulbs make things hard for me to read,causes headaches.Had to remove cfls from house,found out they interfere with my ham radios.FCC supposed to be preventing this,yeh right.Field day is coming!KF7BBL

I dont know which part of europe your referring to but the old style 100w bulbs where banned in the UK years ago. I cannot believe how much energy you use over the pond. If we use over 8kwh per day then we have a witch hunt to find the reason why.

 

[begreen]

Yes, we are spoiled by a history of abundance which led to a lot of waste excepted as normal. That has to change. Is there a luxury tax in the UK on excess power use like there is on gas guzzling cars?

 

[renewablejohn]

Yes, we are spoiled by a history of abundance which led to a lot of waste excepted as normal. That has to change. Is there a luxury tax in the UK on excess power use like there is on gas guzzling cars?

Not a luxury tax as such just very high energy charges and incentives to insulate your homes which reduces demand.

 

[Slow1]

Public transportation is also much more available generally in Europe - enough so that the culture accepts it far better than here in the US it seems.

 

[Ashful]

Public transportation is also much more available generally in Europe - enough so that the culture accepts it far better than here in the US it seems.

I can speak more for Germany than the rest of Europe, as I worked in Germany on and off for several years. There the traditional zoning favors public transportation, as they have very dense and small towns, separated by open farm land, without any of the "suburban sprawl" we have here. That has been changing over the last 15 years, but traditionally, you can NOT build outside of the town borders, and building a new house usually means knocking down an old one within town.

Looking at my own local area here in PA, most of our towns have spread to the point where you can no longer distinguish the boarders between any of them, and most of us are living on lots of 0.5 to 10 acres. Buses and trains simply don't work when we're living at 100 - 150 people per square kilometer, but it works very well in Germany's typical small towns of 800 - 1500 people per square kilometer.

 

[Mt Bob]

I dont know which part of europe your referring to but the old style 100w bulbs where banned in the UK years ago. I cannot believe how much energy you use over the pond. If we use over 8kwh per day then we have a witch hunt to find the reason why.

Yep,not on uk ebay any more(100 w),were last year,listed as heating elements.

 

[woodgeek]

Um, Bob, you can still find incandescent bulbs on store shelves all over the US, listed as 'decorator' bulbs, 'appliance' bulbs, flood lights, 'can' lights, etc. And it doesn't matter. Most have switched.

I cannot believe how much energy you use over the pond. If we use over 8kwh per day then we have a witch hunt to find the reason why.

We do use about 2x as much energy overall as in the UK. The electricity thing is partly I think a function of the US never building out its natural gas network completely. Maybe 50% of US homes have access, so we end up using a lot of electric for space heating/stoves/etc.

And then there is the ubiquitous air conditioning and clothes dryers.

 

[begreen]

Correct, about 60% of US homes have natural gas. The main difference is the low cost of electricity and energy here. That has allowed people to live in McMansions, have second and third vacation homes that still need to be heated in winter and a/c in summer in some areas.