OT Rant- Cheap light fixtures !!!!

I wish they still made a GOOD old fashion light bulb ! These new ones are so cheap they don't last at all ! I once heard a news story about an old original Edison light bulb that has been in constant use at a fire house somewhere ( maybe Ohio ) for 100 years ? or something like that ? I was able to get a bunch of used take out 4 bulb flouresent fixtures from a local bank remodel and have used these in my shops. A few of them have needed ballasts but they are good heavy duty lights.

Based on the rule of thumb that reducing the voltage 5% drops the light by 10% but doubles the lamp life, half voltage on a lamp should let it run for over 100 years.

I'm not getting the multiyear lifetimes from the curly compact fluorescents either, seems like sometimes I'm only getting the same life as an incandescent round about 1000 hours. But the energy savings with 14 cent per KWH electricity is still several times the price of the CFL. A 1000 hours of a 23 watt CFL is 23 KWH, costs $3.22, 1000 hours at 100 watts is 100 KWH, costs $14.00. Pays for at least two CFL. At 2000 hours the savings are more.

There is a difference in brands, but I'm not sure which is better. I suspect any at wallyworld were specially made for low price and so have shorter lifetimes.

Gerald J.

The flourescents that are up there now are the old fashioned ones out of a school, have been up there thirty years, and have been as relaible as the day is long, but they don't give off nearly as much light as a compact florescent.

All together I have 32- forty watt tubes up there, and I could probably have twice as much light from 16- 23 watt compacts, if I use the right ones. The compacts will be inside glass fixtures to protect them.

By my figures I'll only be using 28% of the electricity I use now, so that'll be a savings. What I don't know is if there will be any savings in bulb replacement costs. Right now I probably replace eight tubes per year. The replacement rate for the compacts is the unknown. Jim

Gerald J.

To figure take the bulb wattage i.e 40 watt. and multiply by the Number of hours used. i.e. 10 hours ... 40 watts X 10 hours = 400 watt-hours. Divide by 1000 to get kilowatt hours.... i.e. 0.400 kilowatt hours. Thus with electic at $0.10/ kw-hr., in a 10 hour day, one 40 watt bulb will cost you .4 X $0.10 = $.04 to run.

Now multiply that by number of bulbs and days of the year.

Savings is calculated the same way. 32 bulbs * 40 watts * 10 hours /1000 = 12.8 kw-hours/day

The proposed system is 16 bulbs * 23 watta * 10 hours /1000 = 3.68 kw-hours /day

a savings of 9.12 KW-hr every day. or at $.10 a KW-hour $0.92 a day => *7 = $6.39 week => * 52 = $331.97 a year => *4= $1327.88 over a four year life span of the bulb.

Like bank interest the power is in letting the small numbers build up over time.

If you do some looking, not all florescents put out the same lumens per watt. Some are about half again more light than the worst.