Thank you Chris, I deleted my initial response to this as I took a rather insulting tone towards his EE degrees. I'm having enough problems with him thinking I'm insulting his intelligence.
No idea; yes, big ass potentiometer, not rated for 100W(part of the problem), maybe 40-60. We didn't really use it much, but it would warm the faceplate up quite nicely if you used it for long...
I'm in the USA, it was 120V.
My favorite electrical experiences was the socket wired parallel to the light switch, in series with the light, and the sparking fuse box switch.
My least favorite was when mom switch the breaker back on when I was swapping paint encrusted outlets with new ones in my new bedroom(previous owners hadn't covered them when they painted).
Ya know what pisses me off? People who dismiss your complaints as if they are meaningless. I've thrown-away at least a hundred dollars on shitty CFL products, and what kind of response do I get? "Your observations are wrong."
Sure, I outright disagreed with you on the PF thing. I took your vague universal statements 'CFLs *hate* heat. CFLs hate cold. CFLs hate humidity. CFLs hate dimmers.' and put my personal experiences countering that in. I even posited a reason for that - cheap bulbs. Cheap as in build quality, not necessarily the price you paid for them. My grandfather had over a decade on an old U-tube CFL lamp. We replaced it with one with a better color response.
I think it's interesting that people who complain about CFLs often have the same complaints - they normally complain about the same three things. IE I don't see many people complaining about slow start up times and NOT complain about fast burnout. I don't see many saying 'sure, they provide plenty of light quickly enough, but burn out too fast'.
I've also never lived in a house with as many dimmers as it seems others have. I'm used to houses that have 1-2 dimmers, not dimmers in every room.
don't you dare tell me that I'm too stupid to know
I never mentioned your intelligence in my post, so I'd appreciate it if you didn't assume I was trying to insult it. I simply posted my countering experience/knowledge.
We have two different experiences with CFLs, maybe the correct solution is to try to figure out what's different?
I think that this is about quality rather than it being CFL.
I think this is a very important idea. I've had cheap incandescents not last even a week, had some others last well over a year in the same spot. Build quality DOES matter, and I tend to look for 'other than china'. I know the mercury is required for function, but I don't need an extra dose of lead to go along with it.
I'm not really that much of a 'greenie. I consider myself for the environment, but I put that in context with the economy - how can I prevent the most pollution for the least amount of dollars?
The actual loss depends on how much wire is between the bulb and wherever the power company has a filterbank. A 0.5PF rating likely has an efficiency lower than 90%, possibly lower than 50% for rural customers.
Quite possible I guess. Still a better response than C64's 'I'M AN EE' response. When I first heard about PF and the correction of it I read up on it. Interesting stuff.
Correcting PF at the source is generally easier because you know what you are correcting for(i.e. harmonic problem or inductive load). Mains PFC is expensive and far less efficient.
True, and if CFLs keep spreading they might end up losing their current exemption to needing PFC. It shouldn't add that much to cost, and should have the side benefit of extending service life. From my understanding, PFC equipment tends to be a tad more robust about input voltage.
That's for a rather cheap one, and you likely install it yourself.
Mine technically isn't between the mains and the breaker box, but installs between the neutral and hots on a dual pole breaker. The idea is if voltage goes over a certain point it directs the excess voltage to ground.
Provides protection H1-N, H2-N, H1-H2.
The way I look at it, $100 bucks to protect the whole house is easily worth it compared to me spending $60 for a surge protector for each computer.
It doesn't matter. The point is that a 15 watt CFL is actually using 30 volt-amps, so it's only saving half as much energy as a 60 volt-amp traditional bulb (and no energy savings versus GE's new advanced technology incandescents).
Yes it DOES. The 15 watt CFL with.5PF PEAKS at 30VA, but it also puts the power back. It's demand load is funky compared to a straight resistive load. The end result is that you end up with more line resistance, not that it USES 30 watts, which is a measure of power.
The CFL still saves power over the new incandescents. You're still free to choose the one you like better to meet your style.
I've had 6 bulbs die in just this past year. Three of them were cheap Lights of America bulbs, but the other 3 were Philips which is a reputable company. They died because of being used in upside-down kitchen fixtures. I opened the bulbs, and found that the electronics had been cooked (caps bulged and the internal electrolyte oozed out).
Interesting. We have two substantially different experiences. My bathroom light is completely upside down, it's on quite frequently, and hasn't failed yet despite me showering there daily.
I have some different ideas at this point: 1. Dirty power - You have it, I don't. 2. Brand/model differences - I've had luck, you haven't. 3. For some reason our usage is actually quite different, but I don't exactly sit around in the dark either. 4. Environmental - My environment is nicer to them than yours. I generally don't have high humidity, it gets cold in the winter, I don't have AC, temperatures in the house spike up into the 80's in the summer. Don't know what yours is like.
The first would be harder to check, but might be more likely. Consumer reports(or various other such organizations) should be able to check the 2nd. The 3rd could be chalked up to the same stuff as driving habits. CR should be able to test 'switch heavy'/'long use'. 4th can be tested as well, heck, do surveys and you should be able to find #1 as well.
Well I had a 40 watt bulb there. In order to get a bulb that equals that same brightness after initial turnon, I'd have to get a 120-watt-equivalent. So in terms of power we're talking about 40 volt-amps versus 60 volts-amps. Where's the energy savings?
I was thinking of going up a size; I don't really use anything less than a 60 watt equivalent.
Any reason you think you'd need to swap in a bulb 3 times the size?
Hmm... I don't know why you have such long start up times, I certainly haven't noticed them. I had a theory that there's something different about the construction of 240V CFLs that have them taking longer than 120V American ones, but you seem to counterdict that.
Responses people: Voltage and rating(happy, takes too long to light up, and/or burns out too fast) 110V - Happy with them
I'm a triple-degreed electrical engineer. Not an idiot. My observations have merit, and your casual dismissal of them is not in any way acceptable.
You're an EE? Huh. Well, have you checked your home's electrical system to make sure it's in tolerances? I did so and found some miswiring in my(really old) house.
I mean, I replaced my fuse box with a breaker box after I caught the fuse box switch sparking, my electronics have been much happier since then...
That's pretty much what businesses and schools do in our litigious age. A local school in my area was recently closed for two days over an old barometer that got dropped in one of the science classrooms. They brought in a professional cleanup crew and spent $80,000 to have the mercury spill cleaned up.
Meanwhile my junior high school only closed 4 directly effected classrooms when the roof paritally collapsed and dumped asbestos insulation all over.
Just like the lady in the story, school officials are capable of overreacting as well.
As in, garage door openers. Though I think the use cycle there may not exploit them much.
I've got two in my garage door opener, the sucker shakes when operating, and they've lasted over a year now, through a north dakotan winter in an unheated garage*.
*Might be 10 degrees warmer than outside, and at least it's protected from the wind, but we're still looking at outside temps averaging around -30 for extended periods from the unusually harsh winter we had last year.
My concern with LED and even CFLs is the heat they build up in their bases. Can they be used in enclosed fixtures? I was surprised how warm some globe lights became after going from 60w incandescent to 10w/15w CFLs
Generally they should be fine in any enclosure rated for the light output of bulb they're replacing - IE a 15W in a 60W enclosure. You just go from 'burning' to 'hot'.
so you can make the buyer agree that you'll be taking them in direct contradiction to the law.
That depends on the state. It'd be more accurate to say that there's a standard home purchase agreement as to what's staying and what's going, and any deviations need to be noted in the contract.
As far as home hardware goes - I look at it this way. Blind/curtain hardware are generally mounted&customized for the window it's on. Attempting to remove it and move to another house with completely different window sizes is inefficient. Might as well leave it for the next tenants - it's cheaper and less work for everyone. Unless they want to change it, but that's their bone.
Same deal with the major kitchen appliances. The ones in the old house might not fit the new house(physically or aesthetically), they're who knows how old, only $500-2000 new anyways, difficult to move, might break in transit, etc... In my area, the washer/dryer set is often included for the same reasons.
It's unwritten law that you don't take the lightbulbs when you move house; It's just being a cheapskate.
I took my then expensive CFLs with me when I moved some years back, the bulbs were 4x what they cost now.
On the other hand, I DID buy a couple cheap 4 packs of 60watt incandescents and put them in the apartment as I took my bulbs out. I think I paid $1 for the packs.
So with me you'd have had light, heck, all brand new bulbs! Even if they'd probably start failing in a couple months... Main reason I like CFLs - I don't have to keep replacing the suckers.
Standard heaters work by heating up the air - this is fairly inefficient, you need to heat most/all the air in the room to perceive the difference if you don't have yourself directly in the exhaust.
Radiant heat - significant loads of heat as IR radiation, on other hand, is heading him directly. If he's got it shining on his hands, for example, they'll feel warmer because they ARE warmer. And my hands are one of the first things to feel cold.
I've experienced this to a relative extreme in a hanger with the system installed. Out in the open you feel *HOT*. Walk under a wing and suddenly it's freezing.
Same deal with underfloor heating - people often feel the same equivalent temperature even if the air temp is actually 5F lower, because more heat is getting to the *people*.
Indeed*they do! The only downside is that they tend to be on the small side.
They even make heat pumps that interface with boiler systems to provide hot water for heating.
Electric resistance heat is definitely the most expensive, but I guess in apartments it can make sense.
It all depends on your area, but especially if you already have AC, replacing/supplimenting it with a heat pump version might be cheaper than leaving your house cold and 'making up the difference' using spot heating.
But then, I use an electric thermostat, keep the house at 50 when I'm not home, and wear a sweater(house set to 65, not spot heating).
One thing you can do is figure out how much power you're using with spot heating, it's cost, compared to how efficient/costly your central heating is. Heat pumps in warmer areas(IE not -30) are often efficient enough that it'd be cheaper to just heat the house all the way.
As always, consider adding more insulation - in the USA at least(not assuming you're here), there's generous credits for upgrading your home right now. I think that's true in Europe and elsewhere, just the programs are different.
If you use a heat pump (usually a COP of around 3-4) then you are still using extra power.
It's still worse, I think. It also neglects to take into account that the majority of people in the world, especially those with serious heating needs, don't heat with electric at all, instead heat with alternative fuel sources that are cheaper per BTU. Direct heating with natural gas, propane, oil, even coal, wood, etc... is all cheaper than direct electric heat.
Sure, you lose money slower in the winter with incandescents, but it's still a loss for most people. Not to mention the whole 'heat where you don't need it' part.
I'll agree the parent was incorrect to say 100%, heat escapes in the exhaust gases, combustion isn't complete, etc...
On the other hand, heating directly rather than using electricity from the power plant IS more efficient unless you're running a heat pump(and not always then). An electric power plant is only ~30% efficient, there's transmission losses, etc... While a *good* furnace can get 90% efficiency with those fuels, and 98% efficient with fuels like natural gas and propane.
- CFLs have a power factor of around 0.5, which means they use twice as much power as rated. For example a 15 watt CFL uses 15 watts in your home, but then it uses another 15 watts at the central power plant due to the need to "rebalance" the power and restore the PF to 1.0. TOTAL == 30 volt-amps burned
Except that the power company puts PF correction in far sooner than the power plant, and while it doubles the amps for wire resistance calculations(until it hits the power company's correction equipment), it actually doesn't double the wattage used. More like 5-10%. They build PFC in pretty much as standard on high quality high efficiency computer power supplies, why would you think the power company couldn't do the same? And there are better bulbs out there with active PFC.
- New technologies have allowed folks like GE to build 60 watt incandescants that only use 30 watts while still providing the same brightness. So the net usage is the same as the CFL. No need to abandon the old bulbs.
Neat tech, but like I said, a 15 watt bulb with a PF of.5 doesn't mean it's using 30 watts. So the CFL still has a leg up of aobut 50% more light per watt than the new higher efficiency bulbs.
- CFLs *hate* heat. CFLs hate cold. CFLs hate humidity. CFLs hate dimmers.
I have CFLS in my unheated north dakota garage. the 12 watters start a little slower in the winter, but are still going strong. I have a 23 watt(100watt equiv) in my bathroom. It's been there for over a year, hasn't quit yet. Not instant full brightness - but I like that for those midnight trips. I don't have a dimmer in my house, but it's a five minute job to swap the dimmer out with a CFL compatible one(remember to get a dimmable CFL).
It sounds like you're buying cheap bulbs, and your dimmer is probably the old resistance type, not the newer electronic pulse type.
- CFLs hate being turned on and off. Rapid cycling makes them die as quick as an incandescent bulb. So you've spent 5 times as much for a bulb than doesn't last any longer.
In 6 years the only CFL to die on me was from being dropped.
- CFLs have a warm-up time. Turn it on to read your paper, and you have to wait 5 minutes before you can see the writing. Turn it on to go down the basement stairs - and you can't see the steps because it's still too dim (a safety hazard).
For me it takes longer for my eyes to adjust to the new light level, open the book/paper, whatever. The 100 watt equivalent in the bathroom has the longest start-up time, and even it is pretty much instant on, just at ~40-60 watt equivalnet for the first 10 seconds.
If the stairs are too dim, put in a brighter bulb. Heck, I wonder where people like you are getting your slow starting CFLs from, because none of mine take that long. I have two incandescent bulbs left in closets, and the only reason they aren't CFLs yet is because they haven't died, and I use them too little to bother.
I use a mix of GE and Sylvania bulbs, what are yours?
Currently there are no measurements of success for Government health policies as there is no Government health plan. This means that the Gov policies that are in place are not tested for efficacy and are erroneously maintained despite the fact that they are unsustainable - which simply means that the public tax dollars pay for the overruns.
Not entirely correct, there's actually a number of government health plans, though none are universal.
You have(off the top of my head, so I know there are missing ones): Medicare (mostly retired&disabled) VA Adminitration (veterans only) Tricare (active duty military)
Actually, I think they could. What they couldn't do is not cover the expensive medical device(EMD) if a doctor says it's necessary, or require the consumer get an iPhone instead.
If the doctor says EMD or an iPhone, it's the insurance's option to go ahead and pay for the phone instead or say no, we're getting you the EMD.
When word gets out insurance will be covering hundreds of thousands of smart phones where they would be covering perhaps only 10 thousands of products that cost 5 times as much.
Basically.
Personally, this is why I like the idea of healthcare savings plans/high deductible healthcare insurance. Wrangling a smartphone out of your HSP is in the end a minor thing. Especially if you consider the price difference, with a plan, between a basic phone(free) and a basic smartphone(~$100-200).
Given that cell phones are now possessed by the majority of people, a significant fraction of which are 'smart', I'd simply adjust the rules a bit. The phone, computer, or Wii* isn't deductible - but any specialized medical software used in it IS.
Not so invisibly as that, as evidenced by the disappearance of Cartoon Network from my service...
From your comment, I'm going to deduce that you have cable.
Cable != broadcast. Two different protocols, requirements, etc... Comcast was merely taking advantage of the switch date to confuse people and deflect blame. Or if you're not as paranoid, to take advantage of people expecting change/disruption to their TV that day.
For the parent, though, I'll mention that the switch was NOT 100% transparent for me - I had to have the TV relearn the channels whenever a switch occured. Not a big deal except that every station switched on different days.
Though I do like that my stations are now clearer.
I am however much in favour of treating all fossil energy sources as outdated and putting considerable research efforts in renewable energy sources instead of betting on nuclear energy as the solution to our environment issues (this is IMHO more than stupid).
I don't know if I've said it in this section of the thread, but I figure a power ratio that's roughly 35% nuclear, 20% solar, 20% wind, 20% hydro, 5% other would work well.
Some people keep going on conservation - which I think is great, but our electrical demands WILL go up if we start replacing IC engines with electric ones on a significant scale.
Interesting article. Don't remember much German, much less scientific german, but given that contamination seems to depend more on species than location, I think it's an uptake issue.
With a halflife of 30 years, Cs-137 will only have degrated by about a 1/3rd since the accident.
On the other hand, do you want me to start posting links to various coal deaths, chemical accidents(such as Bhopal), etc...?
Life isn't safe; nuclear power comes close though.
The watchdogs are government employees, presumably getting the same paycheck as before, so they're not hurting.
Why would they be being bribed to reduce safety, employment in the middle of a downturn? You WANT people hired in that case.
It's part of the reason I want to see new plants however - they're much more intrinsically safe, more difficult for humans to seriously screw one up than the old plants.
To the point that trying to shave pennies is more likely to cost the company dollars in downtime when safety systems shut the plant down and repairs have to be made. So the company going for maximum productivity also achieves maximum safety. Because at those levels they're more than willing to spend the pennies in order to ensure that the dollars keep coming in.
It still beats the amount of coal you have to dig up by a couple orders of magnitude.
There's 6,150 kWh/ton of energy in coal, you generally get 2,460 kWh/ton of electricity - actual results depends on plant efficiency and grade of coal.
Uranium, on the other hand, gives you 360,000 kWh per Kilogram, Or 327 Million kWh per ton of Uranium(actual generation). Given that each ton of fuel provides 133k times the power, that you need to refine the stuff tends to become background noise.
And 100 tons of refined fuel isn't necessary for a reactor - A gigawatt plant will produce ~ 7.8 Billion kwh in a year. This will consume 21,900 kilograms of fuel, or 24 short tons.
For the 100k to 1 ratio: The Economics of nuclear energy: In order to obtain(after refining) 150 tonnes of natural uranium, the requirement would involve mining, at most, some 300 000 tonnes of ore[5].
That's a 2,000 to 1 ratio - not a 100,000 to 1. Worst case. Some Uranium 'mining' techniques utilize leaching to essentially dissolve the uranium in the mine and collect the liquid Uranium at the bottom, without extensive extraction of ore.
It also says: Such a quantity of natural uranium burnt in a reactor for one year would generate as much electricity as would a coal-fired station burning over two million tonnes of coal.
Don't forget that construction costs for an equivalent amount of wind/solar stations is even higher for the nuclear fission plant, and they aren't maintenance free.
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Thank you Chris,
I deleted my initial response to this as I took a rather insulting tone towards his EE degrees. I'm having enough problems with him thinking I'm insulting his intelligence.
Though I got my information from a electrical engineering site, not wiki. It explained inductive and impedance losses.
A power factor of one or "unity power factor" is the goal of any electric utility company since if the power factor is less than one, they have to supply more current to the user for a given amount of power use. In so doing, they incur more line losses. They also must have larger capacity equipment in place than would be otherwise necessary. - Note they don't say MORE FUEL would have to be burned, other than to presumably offset the increased line losses.
For two systems transmitting the same amount of real power, the system with the lower power factor will have higher circulating currents due to energy that returns to the source from energy storage in the load. These higher currents in a practical system may produce higher losses and reduce overall transmission efficiency.
No idea; yes, big ass potentiometer, not rated for 100W(part of the problem), maybe 40-60. We didn't really use it much, but it would warm the faceplate up quite nicely if you used it for long...
I'm in the USA, it was 120V.
My favorite electrical experiences was the socket wired parallel to the light switch, in series with the light, and the sparking fuse box switch.
My least favorite was when mom switch the breaker back on when I was swapping paint encrusted outlets with new ones in my new bedroom(previous owners hadn't covered them when they painted).
Ya know what pisses me off? People who dismiss your complaints as if they are meaningless. I've thrown-away at least a hundred dollars on shitty CFL products, and what kind of response do I get? "Your observations are wrong."
Sure, I outright disagreed with you on the PF thing. I took your vague universal statements 'CFLs *hate* heat. CFLs hate cold. CFLs hate humidity. CFLs hate dimmers.' and put my personal experiences countering that in. I even posited a reason for that - cheap bulbs. Cheap as in build quality, not necessarily the price you paid for them. My grandfather had over a decade on an old U-tube CFL lamp. We replaced it with one with a better color response.
I think it's interesting that people who complain about CFLs often have the same complaints - they normally complain about the same three things. IE I don't see many people complaining about slow start up times and NOT complain about fast burnout. I don't see many saying 'sure, they provide plenty of light quickly enough, but burn out too fast'.
I've also never lived in a house with as many dimmers as it seems others have. I'm used to houses that have 1-2 dimmers, not dimmers in every room.
don't you dare tell me that I'm too stupid to know
I never mentioned your intelligence in my post, so I'd appreciate it if you didn't assume I was trying to insult it. I simply posted my countering experience/knowledge.
We have two different experiences with CFLs, maybe the correct solution is to try to figure out what's different?
I think that this is about quality rather than it being CFL.
I think this is a very important idea. I've had cheap incandescents not last even a week, had some others last well over a year in the same spot. Build quality DOES matter, and I tend to look for 'other than china'. I know the mercury is required for function, but I don't need an extra dose of lead to go along with it.
I'm not really that much of a 'greenie. I consider myself for the environment, but I put that in context with the economy - how can I prevent the most pollution for the least amount of dollars?
The actual loss depends on how much wire is between the bulb and wherever the power company has a filterbank. A 0.5PF rating likely has an efficiency lower than 90%, possibly lower than 50% for rural customers.
Quite possible I guess. Still a better response than C64's 'I'M AN EE' response. When I first heard about PF and the correction of it I read up on it. Interesting stuff.
Correcting PF at the source is generally easier because you know what you are correcting for(i.e. harmonic problem or inductive load). Mains PFC is expensive and far less efficient.
True, and if CFLs keep spreading they might end up losing their current exemption to needing PFC. It shouldn't add that much to cost, and should have the side benefit of extending service life. From my understanding, PFC equipment tends to be a tad more robust about input voltage.
That's for a rather cheap one, and you likely install it yourself.
Mine technically isn't between the mains and the breaker box, but installs between the neutral and hots on a dual pole breaker. The idea is if voltage goes over a certain point it directs the excess voltage to ground.
Provides protection H1-N, H2-N, H1-H2.
The way I look at it, $100 bucks to protect the whole house is easily worth it compared to me spending $60 for a surge protector for each computer.
It doesn't matter. The point is that a 15 watt CFL is actually using 30 volt-amps, so it's only saving half as much energy as a 60 volt-amp traditional bulb (and no energy savings versus GE's new advanced technology incandescents).
Yes it DOES. The 15 watt CFL with .5PF PEAKS at 30VA, but it also puts the power back. It's demand load is funky compared to a straight resistive load. The end result is that you end up with more line resistance, not that it USES 30 watts, which is a measure of power.
The CFL still saves power over the new incandescents. You're still free to choose the one you like better to meet your style.
I've had 6 bulbs die in just this past year. Three of them were cheap Lights of America bulbs, but the other 3 were Philips which is a reputable company. They died because of being used in upside-down kitchen fixtures. I opened the bulbs, and found that the electronics had been cooked (caps bulged and the internal electrolyte oozed out).
Interesting. We have two substantially different experiences. My bathroom light is completely upside down, it's on quite frequently, and hasn't failed yet despite me showering there daily.
I have some different ideas at this point:
1. Dirty power - You have it, I don't.
2. Brand/model differences - I've had luck, you haven't.
3. For some reason our usage is actually quite different, but I don't exactly sit around in the dark either.
4. Environmental - My environment is nicer to them than yours. I generally don't have high humidity, it gets cold in the winter, I don't have AC, temperatures in the house spike up into the 80's in the summer. Don't know what yours is like.
The first would be harder to check, but might be more likely. Consumer reports(or various other such organizations) should be able to check the 2nd. The 3rd could be chalked up to the same stuff as driving habits. CR should be able to test 'switch heavy'/'long use'. 4th can be tested as well, heck, do surveys and you should be able to find #1 as well.
Well I had a 40 watt bulb there. In order to get a bulb that equals that same brightness after initial turnon, I'd have to get a 120-watt-equivalent. So in terms of power we're talking about 40 volt-amps versus 60 volts-amps. Where's the energy savings?
I was thinking of going up a size; I don't really use anything less than a 60 watt equivalent.
Any reason you think you'd need to swap in a bulb 3 times the size?
Hmm... I don't know why you have such long start up times, I certainly haven't noticed them. I had a theory that there's something different about the construction of 240V CFLs that have them taking longer than 120V American ones, but you seem to counterdict that.
Responses people: Voltage and rating(happy, takes too long to light up, and/or burns out too fast)
110V - Happy with them
I'm a triple-degreed electrical engineer. Not an idiot. My observations have merit, and your casual dismissal of them is not in any way acceptable.
You're an EE? Huh. Well, have you checked your home's electrical system to make sure it's in tolerances? I did so and found some miswiring in my(really old) house.
I mean, I replaced my fuse box with a breaker box after I caught the fuse box switch sparking, my electronics have been much happier since then...
and I have never seen a resistance-type dimmer switch
The house I lived in as a teenager had one until I replaced it. I'll agree that it wasn't a good solution.
Good point though, there's old style and then there's old style. The newest dimmers work a bit closer to a switch mode power supply.
That's pretty much what businesses and schools do in our litigious age. A local school in my area was recently closed for two days over an old barometer that got dropped in one of the science classrooms. They brought in a professional cleanup crew and spent $80,000 to have the mercury spill cleaned up.
Meanwhile my junior high school only closed 4 directly effected classrooms when the roof paritally collapsed and dumped asbestos insulation all over.
Just like the lady in the story, school officials are capable of overreacting as well.
As in, garage door openers. Though I think the use cycle there may not exploit them much.
I've got two in my garage door opener, the sucker shakes when operating, and they've lasted over a year now, through a north dakotan winter in an unheated garage*.
*Might be 10 degrees warmer than outside, and at least it's protected from the wind, but we're still looking at outside temps averaging around -30 for extended periods from the unusually harsh winter we had last year.
My concern with LED and even CFLs is the heat they build up in their bases. Can they be used in enclosed fixtures? I was surprised how warm some globe lights became after going from 60w incandescent to 10w/15w CFLs
Generally they should be fine in any enclosure rated for the light output of bulb they're replacing - IE a 15W in a 60W enclosure. You just go from 'burning' to 'hot'.
so you can make the buyer agree that you'll be taking them in direct contradiction to the law.
That depends on the state. It'd be more accurate to say that there's a standard home purchase agreement as to what's staying and what's going, and any deviations need to be noted in the contract.
As far as home hardware goes - I look at it this way. Blind/curtain hardware are generally mounted&customized for the window it's on. Attempting to remove it and move to another house with completely different window sizes is inefficient. Might as well leave it for the next tenants - it's cheaper and less work for everyone. Unless they want to change it, but that's their bone.
Same deal with the major kitchen appliances. The ones in the old house might not fit the new house(physically or aesthetically), they're who knows how old, only $500-2000 new anyways, difficult to move, might break in transit, etc... In my area, the washer/dryer set is often included for the same reasons.
It's unwritten law that you don't take the lightbulbs when you move house; It's just being a cheapskate.
I took my then expensive CFLs with me when I moved some years back, the bulbs were 4x what they cost now.
On the other hand, I DID buy a couple cheap 4 packs of 60watt incandescents and put them in the apartment as I took my bulbs out. I think I paid $1 for the packs.
So with me you'd have had light, heck, all brand new bulbs! Even if they'd probably start failing in a couple months... Main reason I like CFLs - I don't have to keep replacing the suckers.
Well, it's not necessarily just perception.
He's probably taking advantage of radiant heat.
Standard heaters work by heating up the air - this is fairly inefficient, you need to heat most/all the air in the room to perceive the difference if you don't have yourself directly in the exhaust.
Radiant heat - significant loads of heat as IR radiation, on other hand, is heading him directly. If he's got it shining on his hands, for example, they'll feel warmer because they ARE warmer. And my hands are one of the first things to feel cold.
I've experienced this to a relative extreme in a hanger with the system installed. Out in the open you feel *HOT*. Walk under a wing and suddenly it's freezing.
Same deal with underfloor heating - people often feel the same equivalent temperature even if the air temp is actually 5F lower, because more heat is getting to the *people*.
Indeed* they do! The only downside is that they tend to be on the small side.
They even make heat pumps that interface with boiler systems to provide hot water for heating.
Electric resistance heat is definitely the most expensive, but I guess in apartments it can make sense.
It all depends on your area, but especially if you already have AC, replacing/supplimenting it with a heat pump version might be cheaper than leaving your house cold and 'making up the difference' using spot heating.
But then, I use an electric thermostat, keep the house at 50 when I'm not home, and wear a sweater(house set to 65, not spot heating).
One thing you can do is figure out how much power you're using with spot heating, it's cost, compared to how efficient/costly your central heating is. Heat pumps in warmer areas(IE not -30) are often efficient enough that it'd be cheaper to just heat the house all the way.
As always, consider adding more insulation - in the USA at least(not assuming you're here), there's generous credits for upgrading your home right now. I think that's true in Europe and elsewhere, just the programs are different.
*Not an endorsement, high hit on google.
If you use a heat pump (usually a COP of around 3-4) then you are still using extra power.
It's still worse, I think. It also neglects to take into account that the majority of people in the world, especially those with serious heating needs, don't heat with electric at all, instead heat with alternative fuel sources that are cheaper per BTU. Direct heating with natural gas, propane, oil, even coal, wood, etc... is all cheaper than direct electric heat.
Sure, you lose money slower in the winter with incandescents, but it's still a loss for most people. Not to mention the whole 'heat where you don't need it' part.
I'll agree the parent was incorrect to say 100%, heat escapes in the exhaust gases, combustion isn't complete, etc...
On the other hand, heating directly rather than using electricity from the power plant IS more efficient unless you're running a heat pump(and not always then). An electric power plant is only ~30% efficient, there's transmission losses, etc... While a *good* furnace can get 90% efficiency with those fuels, and 98% efficient with fuels like natural gas and propane.
- CFLs have a power factor of around 0.5, which means they use twice as much power as rated. For example a 15 watt CFL uses 15 watts in your home, but then it uses another 15 watts at the central power plant due to the need to "rebalance" the power and restore the PF to 1.0. TOTAL == 30 volt-amps burned
Except that the power company puts PF correction in far sooner than the power plant, and while it doubles the amps for wire resistance calculations(until it hits the power company's correction equipment), it actually doesn't double the wattage used. More like 5-10%. They build PFC in pretty much as standard on high quality high efficiency computer power supplies, why would you think the power company couldn't do the same? And there are better bulbs out there with active PFC.
- New technologies have allowed folks like GE to build 60 watt incandescants that only use 30 watts while still providing the same brightness. So the net usage is the same as the CFL. No need to abandon the old bulbs.
Neat tech, but like I said, a 15 watt bulb with a PF of .5 doesn't mean it's using 30 watts. So the CFL still has a leg up of aobut 50% more light per watt than the new higher efficiency bulbs.
- CFLs *hate* heat. CFLs hate cold. CFLs hate humidity. CFLs hate dimmers.
I have CFLS in my unheated north dakota garage. the 12 watters start a little slower in the winter, but are still going strong. I have a 23 watt(100watt equiv) in my bathroom. It's been there for over a year, hasn't quit yet. Not instant full brightness - but I like that for those midnight trips. I don't have a dimmer in my house, but it's a five minute job to swap the dimmer out with a CFL compatible one(remember to get a dimmable CFL).
It sounds like you're buying cheap bulbs, and your dimmer is probably the old resistance type, not the newer electronic pulse type.
- CFLs hate being turned on and off. Rapid cycling makes them die as quick as an incandescent bulb. So you've spent 5 times as much for a bulb than doesn't last any longer.
In 6 years the only CFL to die on me was from being dropped.
- CFLs have a warm-up time. Turn it on to read your paper, and you have to wait 5 minutes before you can see the writing. Turn it on to go down the basement stairs - and you can't see the steps because it's still too dim (a safety hazard).
For me it takes longer for my eyes to adjust to the new light level, open the book/paper, whatever. The 100 watt equivalent in the bathroom has the longest start-up time, and even it is pretty much instant on, just at ~40-60 watt equivalnet for the first 10 seconds.
If the stairs are too dim, put in a brighter bulb. Heck, I wonder where people like you are getting your slow starting CFLs from, because none of mine take that long. I have two incandescent bulbs left in closets, and the only reason they aren't CFLs yet is because they haven't died, and I use them too little to bother.
I use a mix of GE and Sylvania bulbs, what are yours?
Currently there are no measurements of success for Government health policies as there is no Government health plan. This means that the Gov policies that are in place are not tested for efficacy and are erroneously maintained despite the fact that they are unsustainable - which simply means that the public tax dollars pay for the overruns.
Not entirely correct, there's actually a number of government health plans, though none are universal.
You have(off the top of my head, so I know there are missing ones):
Medicare (mostly retired&disabled)
VA Adminitration (veterans only)
Tricare (active duty military)
Actually, I think they could. What they couldn't do is not cover the expensive medical device(EMD) if a doctor says it's necessary, or require the consumer get an iPhone instead.
If the doctor says EMD or an iPhone, it's the insurance's option to go ahead and pay for the phone instead or say no, we're getting you the EMD.
When word gets out insurance will be covering hundreds of thousands of smart phones where they would be covering perhaps only 10 thousands of products that cost 5 times as much.
Basically.
Personally, this is why I like the idea of healthcare savings plans/high deductible healthcare insurance. Wrangling a smartphone out of your HSP is in the end a minor thing. Especially if you consider the price difference, with a plan, between a basic phone(free) and a basic smartphone(~$100-200).
Given that cell phones are now possessed by the majority of people, a significant fraction of which are 'smart', I'd simply adjust the rules a bit. The phone, computer, or Wii* isn't deductible - but any specialized medical software used in it IS.
*Being used for physical therapy today.
Not so invisibly as that, as evidenced by the disappearance of Cartoon Network from my service...
From your comment, I'm going to deduce that you have cable.
Cable != broadcast. Two different protocols, requirements, etc... Comcast was merely taking advantage of the switch date to confuse people and deflect blame. Or if you're not as paranoid, to take advantage of people expecting change/disruption to their TV that day.
For the parent, though, I'll mention that the switch was NOT 100% transparent for me - I had to have the TV relearn the channels whenever a switch occured. Not a big deal except that every station switched on different days.
Though I do like that my stations are now clearer.
I am however much in favour of treating all fossil energy sources as outdated and putting considerable research efforts in renewable energy sources instead of betting on nuclear energy as the solution to our environment issues (this is IMHO more than stupid).
I don't know if I've said it in this section of the thread, but I figure a power ratio that's roughly 35% nuclear, 20% solar, 20% wind, 20% hydro, 5% other would work well.
Some people keep going on conservation - which I think is great, but our electrical demands WILL go up if we start replacing IC engines with electric ones on a significant scale.
Interesting article. Don't remember much German, much less scientific german, but given that contamination seems to depend more on species than location, I think it's an uptake issue.
With a halflife of 30 years, Cs-137 will only have degrated by about a 1/3rd since the accident.
On the other hand, do you want me to start posting links to various coal deaths, chemical accidents(such as Bhopal), etc...?
Life isn't safe; nuclear power comes close though.
The watchdogs are government employees, presumably getting the same paycheck as before, so they're not hurting.
Why would they be being bribed to reduce safety, employment in the middle of a downturn? You WANT people hired in that case.
It's part of the reason I want to see new plants however - they're much more intrinsically safe, more difficult for humans to seriously screw one up than the old plants.
To the point that trying to shave pennies is more likely to cost the company dollars in downtime when safety systems shut the plant down and repairs have to be made. So the company going for maximum productivity also achieves maximum safety. Because at those levels they're more than willing to spend the pennies in order to ensure that the dollars keep coming in.
It still beats the amount of coal you have to dig up by a couple orders of magnitude.
There's 6,150 kWh/ton of energy in coal, you generally get 2,460 kWh/ton of electricity - actual results depends on plant efficiency and grade of coal.
Uranium, on the other hand, gives you 360,000 kWh per Kilogram, Or 327 Million kWh per ton of Uranium(actual generation). Given that each ton of fuel provides 133k times the power, that you need to refine the stuff tends to become background noise.
And 100 tons of refined fuel isn't necessary for a reactor - A gigawatt plant will produce ~ 7.8 Billion kwh in a year. This will consume 21,900 kilograms of fuel, or 24 short tons.
For the 100k to 1 ratio:
The Economics of nuclear energy: In order to obtain(after refining) 150 tonnes of natural uranium, the requirement would involve mining, at most, some 300 000 tonnes of ore[5].
That's a 2,000 to 1 ratio - not a 100,000 to 1. Worst case. Some Uranium 'mining' techniques utilize leaching to essentially dissolve the uranium in the mine and collect the liquid Uranium at the bottom, without extensive extraction of ore.
It also says: Such a quantity of natural uranium burnt in a reactor for one year would generate as much electricity as would a coal-fired station burning over two million tonnes of coal.
Don't forget that construction costs for an equivalent amount of wind/solar stations is even higher for the nuclear fission plant, and they aren't maintenance free.