Do the flourescent bulbs really save $$?

[ShawnD1]

Yeah, the flickering is enough to drive one insane!

Another thing is that you should be aware that flourescent bulbs break much easier so don't have them in any standing lamps where you expect your kids to be screwing around.

[brandon184]

Yeah, the flickering is enough to drive one insane!

Or give them insane headaches... I had a History teacher once who was constantly drugged up on pain killers because the flourescent lights in his classroom gave him the craziest headaches. They changed the bulbs to something else and he was fine...

I should note that I do have flourescent lights in my house... I have them running near the wall above the cupboards in my house. You can't see them, and I like the effect that they have when the lights are off and the brick that runs to the roof is illuminated... Beyond that, you won't find them anywhere else..

- Brandon

[jmebonner]

I understand all that, but do these little screw-in type do all that flickering?

[Gomer]

I prefer fluorescent myself. I like the white light it gives off compared to the yellow of an incandescent.

As far as savings goes, the longer you use the light over the course of a day, the quicker your return on investment... it is easy to figure.

Say you have a 100 watt incandescent bulb you use ten hours per day. That is equal to 1 kWh per day for that bulb. Over the course of a year (365 days) that bulb will cost you $46 to operate.

Now you replace that bulb with a 20W fluorescent leaving all other variables the same (10 hrs/day etc.). It uses 1/5th the electricity so the cost to operate it for 1 year is 1/5th the 100W bulb or $9 per year. That is a savings of $37/year for that bulb. It will take you 2 months to see a return on your investment on that bulb.

By improving the electrical efficiency of your house, you are cutting load on power plants which helps to keep the cost of electricity down. The only way for the power co to deal with increased load is to build new plants... and those are not cheap. Some power companies even go so far as to subsidize the installation of more efficient electrical items in businesses and the like as it is less expensive for them to do that than to build new plants. They see more of a return on their investment that way.

[tgxiii]

If you're a business, like a restaurant for example, switching to flourescent will save you A LOT of money since your lights are on the whole day and you use a lot. If it's only for household use, I'm not sure if you would notice a significant difference.

[Gomer]

Screw in ones typically do not flicker.

[tgxiii]

The flourescent lights in my house don't flicker.

[ShawnD1]

Originally posted by Gomer
Say you have a 100 watt incandescent bulb you use ten hours per day. That is equal to 1 kWh per day for that bulb. Over the course of a year (365 days) that bulb will cost you only $0.46 to operate.

1kWh/day * 365days = 365kWh
$0.46/365kWh = $0.00126/kWh = 0.126 cents per kWh

Jeez your power is cheap. I pay like 100x what you pay!

[Gomer]

damn the decimal places... didn't seem right, maybe I should eat dinner =)

[IQB]

Don't get me wrong... but flourescent lighting doesn't exactly provide the most comfortable or home-like environment available.

Yes, and some models put out one hell of a lot of RFI. Still, 14W versus 60W X however many lamps/fixtures you've got.