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Lowes Compact Fluorescent Bulbs Free AR

Thanks! I have to go to Lowe's later today anyway, so this is a great addition. Free is good.
 
Originally posted by: LuckyStrike
Al Gore says we need these ...
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Groan. Like Albert had anything sensible to say on the subject, or practically anything else. These won't do anything worth the effort to reverse environmental trends, if the environment may be in danger, but you can save money.

When you work it out, it is the cost of the power that lights the light bulb which swamps the cost of the light bulb. And compact fluorescents use something like 1/4 the power.

An ordinary light bulb's life span is 2000 hours or less, and the bulb costs maybe a quarter or fifty cents. But what does the power cost?

These are ballpark, but realistic, numbers to give you the idea:

Let's say you save 50 watts.

50 watts X 2000 hours = 100 kilowatt hours. At $0.10 per kilowatt hours, that $10. So does it make any sense to use $0.25 light bulbs if you can save enough to pay for the expensive ones before the cheapo burns out, and the expensive one will last 3 to 10 times as long? I used to buy compact fluorescents when they were like $15 AR.

Of course if the expensive light bulbs are free AR, you don't have to figure that out, which is why the government would subsidize things like this. I don't know for a fact they are subsidizing this one, but it would be typical behavior.





 
I must be dense, but wouldn't using bulbs that take 1/4 the electricity bring down the total required to light my house?

And if we all did this, wouldn't it bring down the total power consumption required, at essentially no cost to us, long term? And with lower total power consumption, wouldn't we be burning less fossil fuels, releasing less CO2 into the atmosphere, which is the major cause of increased global warming (according to most scientists in the field - lets not turn this into one of those arguments).

I think that's the line of reasoning Gore (and many others) are using when championing the use of these bulbs.

But if you don't care about that, and the cost savings alone will drive you to use them, then the same results are realized, so go for it.
 
I picked some up yesterday.

It should be known that these are slightly "taller" than a standard bulb...they didn't fit in the cheapie fixtures that are in my closet.

Just fyi.
 
Originally posted by: tsrich
I must be dense, but wouldn't using bulbs that take 1/4 the electricity bring down the total required to light my house?

And if we all did this, wouldn't it bring down the total power consumption required, at essentially no cost to us, long term? And with lower total power consumption, wouldn't we be burning less fossil fuels, releasing less CO2 into the atmosphere, which is the major cause of increased global warming (according to most scientists in the field - lets not turn this into one of those arguments).

I think that's the line of reasoning Gore (and many others) are using when championing the use of these bulbs.

But if you don't care about that, and the cost savings alone will drive you to use them, then the same results are realized, so go for it.
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Yes, that's exactly right. There are some drawbacks to fluorescent bulbs, but they're usually a pretty good trade-off. Some fluorescent bulbs flicker noticeably, and those tend to give me headaches, so I don't use them. Also, they sometimes take a few minutes to reach full brightness, and they use more electricity when you first turn them on than a regular bulb would, so they might not be worth putting in your hallway or anywhere else that they would only be on for very short periods of time.

My understanding of why they are more efficient compared to traditional bulbs is that they don't have nearly the same amount of heat loss that incandescent bulbs have. That's why a 20 watt fluorescent bulb can put out the same amount of light that a 75 watt incandescent bulb can.
 
These bulbs don't have a noticeable flicker and they take less than 1 second to reach full brightness. The flicker and warm up problems are more of a problem with older fluorescent bulbs
.
 
Originally posted by: tsrich
I must be dense, but wouldn't using bulbs that take 1/4 the electricity bring down the total required to light my house?

And if we all did this, wouldn't it bring down the total power consumption required, at essentially no cost to us, long term? And with lower total power consumption, wouldn't we be burning less fossil fuels, releasing less CO2 into the atmosphere, which is the major cause of increased global warming (according to most scientists in the field - lets not turn this into one of those arguments).

I think that's the line of reasoning Gore (and many others) are using when championing the use of these bulbs.

But if you don't care about that, and the cost savings alone will drive you to use them, then the same results are realized, so go for it.
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Exactly. If one light bulb in every house in this country were replaced with a CFL bulb for every year the bulb is used, it would have the affect of removing the emissions of 1,000,000 cars off the street. Saves money, saves emissions...why can't that just be a good thing no matter who says it. The evironment should not be a political issue...
 
Originally posted by: crashball
Originally posted by: tsrich
I must be dense, but wouldn't using bulbs that take 1/4 the electricity bring down the total required to light my house?

And if we all did this, wouldn't it bring down the total power consumption required, at essentially no cost to us, long term? And with lower total power consumption, wouldn't we be burning less fossil fuels, releasing less CO2 into the atmosphere, which is the major cause of increased global warming (according to most scientists in the field - lets not turn this into one of those arguments).

I think that's the line of reasoning Gore (and many others) are using when championing the use of these bulbs.

But if you don't care about that, and the cost savings alone will drive you to use them, then the same results are realized, so go for it.
Click to expand...


Exactly. If one light bulb in every house in this country were replaced with a CFL bulb for every year the bulb is used, it would have the affect of removing the emissions of 1,000,000 cars off the street. Saves money, saves emissions...why can't that just be a good thing no matter who says it. The evironment should not be a political issue...
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I have done my part to remove 45,000,000 cars off the street! 😀

And I just bought two more 4 packs to go with the 45 I have installed! 😀

(Just 3 more fixtures to replace so I can have medium base bulbs everywhere)
 
Originally posted by: tw1164
Be sure to dispose/recycle of your CFL properly when they burnout

Text
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Thanks for that link tw1164. I just had a CFL start to go bad (starting to flicker and when I took it out the base was hotter than other CFLs in the house), and was wondering how to dispose of it.

All of the political/environmental debate aside, these make great economic sense and are one way we can help to lesson the burden on our over-taxed distribution system.
 
Originally posted by: crashball
Originally posted by: tsrich
I must be dense, but wouldn't using bulbs that take 1/4 the electricity bring down the total required to light my house?

And if we all did this, wouldn't it bring down the total power consumption required, at essentially no cost to us, long term? And with lower total power consumption, wouldn't we be burning less fossil fuels, releasing less CO2 into the atmosphere, which is the major cause of increased global warming (according to most scientists in the field - lets not turn this into one of those arguments).

I think that's the line of reasoning Gore (and many others) are using when championing the use of these bulbs.

But if you don't care about that, and the cost savings alone will drive you to use them, then the same results are realized, so go for it.
Click to expand...


Exactly. If one light bulb in every house in this country were replaced with a CFL bulb for every year the bulb is used, it would have the affect of removing the emissions of 1,000,000 cars off the street. Saves money, saves emissions...why can't that just be a good thing no matter who says it. The evironment should not be a political issue...
Click to expand...

yup, ikeas been pushing these for years before they became widespread. back when you could pay 10 bucks for a bulb from frys... i remember doing that🙁 good stuff, if you miss this deal or need different types of bulbs ikeas a good place to get em, they sell many varieties and have the light fixtures made to use them, and their lights put out decent colored light. with decent spot/ambient/task lighting you don't always have to blast light into a room from a central fixture like it was done in old style houses, you save power both with cf's and better placed light sources. plus itlooks better🙂 many of my lights are only 7-11 watts actually. and well especially for bedrooms too much light is a bad thing, screws with your body clock.
 
Just installed 3 new light fixtures with medium based sockets (instead of the candalleria based bulbs) that used 6 of these new bulbs so I'm now up to 51 CF bulbs in the house! 😀

 
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