CFLs

[wilheldp_PE]

I'm going to start hoarding incandescent-bulb Christmas lights...

We'll set aside an area in the fire lab for the remains of your tree and presents, then. We get at least 10 Christmas light fires in here every year...in fact, the other EE in the lab is looking at one right now.

 

[csb]

I had to explain to my child last Christmas that we can't string as many incandescent lights together as we can LED lights. This was after he shorted a line by plugging in the third string. Explaining power consumption to a seven-year-old is cumbersome, but worthwhile.

 

[wilheldp_PE]

Turn off everything in the house, show her the electric meter. Turn everything on (including oven, dryer, etc.) then show it to her again. Explain that the faster the meter spins, the fewer toys you can afford.

 

[Dleg]

Cool to see this thread revived.

I am actually thinking about reversing my no-hot-water policy at home. I attended a talk by Gil Masters (Stanford prof. and author of several textbooks in enviro eng.) and he turned me on to heat pump water heaters:

http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?fuseaction=find_a_product.showProductGroup&pgw_code=WHH

These have been around for a long time, but not in this latest and more efficient form.

A cool side benefit (for me) is that it puts out cool air, which would cool my kitchen (water heater is in a utility room just off the kitchen in our house).

 

[envirotex]

^^We toured a house last fall that had a geothermal heat pump for AC and solar panels for hot water from their rain collection system...it was around 90 degrees that day very cool. The heat pump was set up as an auxiliary to the main AC, though.

 

[Exception Collection]

Cool to see this thread revived.

I am actually thinking about reversing my no-hot-water policy at home. I attended a talk by Gil Masters (Stanford prof. and author of several textbooks in enviro eng.) and he turned me on to heat pump water heaters:

http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?fuseaction=find_a_product.showProductGroup&pgw_code=WHH

These have been around for a long time, but not in this latest and more efficient form.

A cool side benefit (for me) is that it puts out cool air, which would cool my kitchen (water heater is in a utility room just off the kitchen in our house).

I had a client (that went to school to become an ME) that intended to put one of those in to heat a spa, but had to back off the plan when he realized he had to use explosives to dig down far enough into the rock his house was going to sit on. (He abandoned the entire pool idea.)

I've also done a few solar water heater designs. Rather, some designs for attaching them to the roof. When I have a house built to my specifications (I'm saving currently, estimated construction start is 2020), I plan to have a geothermal heat pump, solar panels, rain collection cisterns so I can reuse it, and high R-value walls/roofs (50+).

Right now, though, I'm an energy hog. Except for my car, which is still getting 33 mpg 113,000 miles after I bought it. I'm hoping it lasts long enough for Electric or Hydrogen cars to be reasonably useful (that is, until I can drive to/from my hometown with one 15 minute stop between, with the ability to refill in almost any town in the US).

 

[Capt Worley PE]

Turn off everything in the house, show her the electric meter. Turn everything on (including oven, dryer, etc.) then show it to her again. Explain that the faster the meter spins, the fewer toys you can afford.

Spinning meters are a thing of the past in my neck of the woods.

I think I'm going to try and switch all Christmas lights to LED this year. We absolutely love lights, so the power bill goes up a bit. Plus the LEDs seem to be a good bit more robust.

I wish the solar LEDs would have worked out better. They just aren't bright enough for the outside tree.

 

[wilheldp_PE]

My meter has a digital read-out, but it still has the spinning disk.

 

[Capt Worley PE]

Mine's just a black box with a digital readout that flashes up from time to time. It is one of those 'read by remote sensing unit' meters.

Coincidentally, my usage took a large jump when it was installed. many in the area noticed the same thing. I was told SCE&Greed claimed the old meters spun too slowly and didn't reflect true usage.

 

[csb]

^That's what we have too.

 

[mudpuppy]

^it's just another way for the NSA to keep tabs on you.

 

[Capt Worley PE]

^it's just another way for the NSA to keep tabs on you.

You joke, but the local sheriff's departments and local municipal PDs regularly reviews 'unusual' power usages. They've caught a few grow houses that way.

 

[knight1fox3]

Plus the LEDs seem to be a good bit more robust.

I wish the solar LEDs would have worked out better. They just aren't bright enough for the outside tree.

Tis what I also thought and what I switched to exclusively last year. I believe I bought whatever standard variety Home Depot/Menards offered. They were giving out discount coupons for bringing in old light strings to recycle. I thought, LEDs won't burn out and should be better-suited to withstand the WI elements. :BS: Different technology but had the same old problems. One damn LED would go out and half the string of lights would then go out too. So I'd have to sort through and try to figure out which one went bad (in a string of 100). This happened many more times so the 2 spares provided did not suffice. Replacement LEDs (in a Xmas light form factor mind you) weren't readily available from what I could see in the stores near me. So it was either, buy a new string to have "spares", or buy LEDs in bulk online to replace the dead ones. I chose the bulk route which actually was pretty reasonable. But it was a pain in the arse to have to trim the leads on each LED I had to replace. From my experiences, it seemed like the voltage was possibly too high for the LEDs. Because I quickly learned how to find the dead one in a string by the leads that were blackened and would just fall off when taken out of the socket. It was strange and even got me thinking about safety factors and such. I'm sure the energy savings were substantial switching from incandescent to LED, but the headaches were the same if not worse for me. At least that was my experience.

If anyone knows of a better "brand" of LED lights, I'd be all ears. Because honestly, when they do work, they look pretty slick. And there are some strings on our patio I could leave up year-round since they are "cool white" and light up the patio nicely. But I got real sick of hunting down and replacing dead LEDs. :brickwall:

 

[Dleg]

^I used some LED lights in decorations a few years back, and they were kind of nice, but they gave off a 60 Hz flicker that drove me kind of nuts. I hope this has changed with the mroe recent ones.

But I think any kind of mass-produced Christmas lights will always be junk. Made in China, baby!

I had a client (that went to school to become an ME) that intended to put one of those in to heat a spa, but had to back off the plan when he realized he had to use explosives to dig down far enough into the rock his house was going to sit on. (He abandoned the entire pool idea.)

I wasn't talking about geothermal heat pumpz - just heat pump water heaters (drawing heat from the ambient air). Just plug it in and go, but probably more suitable for warm climates with warmer water, like mine.

 

[csb]

We've been using the same roll of LED lights from KMart for 3-4 years now with no problems at all. Target ones are on their second year with no problems.

 

[envirotex]

^I used some LED lights in decorations a few years back, and they were kind of nice, but they gave off a 60 Hz flicker that drove me kind of nuts. I hope this has changed with the mroe recent ones.

^^^This.

 

[Capt Worley PE]

Yeah, there are folks with a set of lights that give me vertigo when I drive by them because of the flicker.

Certain V-dub tailights irritate the snot out of me too, with their fast flicker.

 

[Dexman PE PMP]

We didn't realize there was a difference between the "white" LED's and the "white" incancescents until we put them up last year for Xmas. I had to completely rearrange my lighting plan last year so it didn't look completely piece-mealed together.

 

[knight1fox3]

We've been using the same roll of LED lights from KMart for 3-4 years now with no problems at all. Target ones are on their second year with no problems.

Outside or inside?

 

[csb]

K-Mart ones are outside. They have been exposed to subzero all three winters and we get winds in excess of 50mph during winter. Our snow is pretty devoid of moisture, though.