alexseanchai | (no subject)

(no subject)

Me, months ago: You know, it'd save on our electricity bill if we swapped all the incandescent bulbs in the house for compact fluorescents.

Dad, in reply: But it'd waste our stash of incandescents. Let's wait till we're running out of the bulbs we've got before we buy new ones.

Me: Fair enough.

Mom, today: Oh, you're going to Lowe's? Buy a bunch more incandescent bulbs while teh Ebil Gubmint still lets us.

Dad, in reply: Okay.

Me, silently: GAAAH.

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Indeed.

The porch light and one of the bare basement bulbs is now compact fluorescent. The rest? HAHAHAhahahahaaaaaaaa. (The rest will get done, but it'll be slow.)

The other aggravating part is the rant Mom went off on about how compact fluorescents are actually worse for the environment than incandescents when tossed in the trash. Which is why, Mother, one does not toss them in the trash.

Unfortunately our experience with compact fluorescents has not been good. We replaced 2/3 of our bulbs with them over the past two years. Half of them have burned out since then, while the incandescents continue on. Given their cost and the fact that they are advertised as having a much longer lifespan, this doesn't bode well.

Ah. Damn. Did they at least save on your electric bill while they lasted?

Not that I noticed. Of course, our lighting costs in an apartment are pretty minimal compared to A/C or the refrigerator to begin with so it would be hard to tell. It's true that they do produce less heat, which is good in the summertime. Now that it's winter, I've deliberately swapped around some of the bulbs so that I can have the high heat ones in lamps close to where I sit.

Yes, my publicly traded energy company sending me free CFL bulbs was all part of the government's dastardly plot to force people not to destroy the planet on which they depend. It's all so clear to me now!

Mom's beef is actually something to do with what's inside compact fluorescents having health risks and environmental risks. But yeah.

I can understand being concerned about mercury, because ew death, but there's not actually a lot to worry about unless someone has a history of breaking light bulbs and/or doesn't have the resources to learn about and follow laws regarding safe mercury disposal.

But! It's their energy bill. *shrugs*

Speaking of breaking light bulbs, guess what I did when I'd been inside Lowe's ten seconds this morning? One of the ones we'd brought so Dad could be sure to get the same ones. Solution might just be to find a plastic that can tolerate whatever heat level is in fluorescents and that doesn't smash easy. Though environmentally that might be a no-go; this is not my field.

Is it mercury that's the problem? Mom never specified and I haven't bothered looking it up. I knew it was something only dangerous if not handled properly.

Haha, nice. I did a quick look around about other light alternatives, and apparently you can now get LED set-ups for normal lamps. They cost way more than either incandescent bulbs or fluorescents, but they also last a hell of a lot longer and use way less electricity (7 watts to an incandescent's 60 watts for the same amount of light, for example) so I'm actually thinking of taking a look at what's out there.

Mercury is indeed the problem, but the EPA's website (when it's working properly) has information on proper disposal or at least links to that information, depending on where you live.

I got an LED desk lamp off ThinkGeek. Half the LEDs were dead inside an hour (and it was shaped like a microscope and was about six inches high, which wins geek points but not practicality points, I wanted it to light the whole desk), so I sent it back for store credit. I'd still like to trade the incandescent on my desk for something a bit less energy-burny, since I've got it on all the damn time.

As much as I love ThinkGeek, I don't exactly consider them a reliable source of lighting. What I was seeing is more along the lines of these normal-ish sized bulbs. But, like I was saying, they do currently cost a lot more, so your best bet at this point is probably just to get a CFL and wait for science to optimize LEDs.

*nods*

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