OT--lights out for the planet

WEll, I did ask DH to turn off the lights in the kitchen because we were in the living room. Does that count??

I don't necessarily believe in global warming, or making a special occasion of "lights out"; I do however think that plain common sense of turning out lights when one leaves a room; don't have more on than you need etc, in other words conservation, is always a good thing. If the oven is on, I try to do a couple of things in it. I don't need a special day to do this LOL. The electric bill reminds me.

Gillian

Certainly good sense! Our power company was monitoring the comsumption. so I looked on this as an opportunity to let them, and through them our provincial government, know that people do care about energy conservation. I hope it works (and i did love the hour of candle light) Dawne

In Tel Aviv they did it on Thursday and calculated they saved a 1/3 of usage. But as Gillian wrote Common sense helps a lot, I was brought up with Saving ideas, I always "finish" the heat of the iron, on one more small item when it already out of the socket. I cook on electric plates but turn them off and let it cook on the left over heat. I cook in a steaming pot , thus 2-3 foods on the same hot spot, etc.... I eliminated the grass in my garden since it drinks too much water , and have little stones and plants in pots instead. Water used for washing fruits, goes to the trees and plants etc.. Reuse recycle and don`t Waste are my way of life . mirjam

We were going to be out for the evening, so before we left, I made sure all lights were out, and number of 'vampires' were unplugged. Vampires are those items like the microwave that have a clock in them that is constantly on, or the TV/VCR/DVD player etc. that have instant-on circuits so that they don't have to warm up.)

Ontario Hydro said that usage across the province was down by 5% from the previous hour, and 9% down from the same hour last year. Not bad.

I've done a number of things to conserve hydro. I've replaced most of the incandescents with fluorescents (although I still have to get up on the ladder and replace some of the hall lights). We found it made a noticeable difference in our electric bill at our old house. The newer compact fluorescents are getting better as to colour and warm up time.

Now I just have to convince the DH that he doesn't have to turn on every light on the main floor when he goes up from the family room in the basement to make tea (and of course, forgets to turn them off when he goes back downstairs).

MargW

Sorry to disillusion you, Marg, but the energy savings in Ontario and the rest of Canada will be virtually zero, nada, zilch. In March, Canadian houses are in a negative heating cycle; any energy "wasted" on lights goes to heating the houses. We may save electricity, but we burn more oil and gas. Any outside lights turned off, will save energy. Earth Hour was a wonderful idea, convincing people to do the right thing, conserve energy, for the wrong reason, reducing so-called "green-house" gases. It would do a lot more good if we could somehow persuade people to drive their cars to use less gas. Few people seem to realize that when you drive in a city, you can only save a negligible amount of time by speeding, and you can save a lot of gas by driving with a minimum of acceleration and braking, and keep your speed around ths speed limit. You only save energy if you use flourescents in the summer, when we dont use lights very much anyway. Flourescents as a porch light, yes. Otherwise they are largely a waste of money, Jim.

Fluorescent lights can last for years while incandescent bulbs sometimes for months. Doesn't that constitute a savings? Not necessarily an energy savings, but nevertheless a saving.

There's also the fact that here in Florida everything depends on electric. We have central air, electric heating, electric stoves, etc. and there is very little need for heating. Therefore a saving of even a little electricity seems important to me.

Lucille

We heat or Shower water by Sun , the law requires solar water heaters on every house. Most people on`t have driers here, wash is hanging to dry. I think that Lucille is right Any saving is helpful. And James ? why are you so Negative about the way we all try to save and educate ourselves to save more ..... mirjam

Remember a few years ago when California was having the rolling blackouts? They told us then to turn off all unnecessary lights, the more we could conserve, the less likely a blackout would be required.

So, I turned off the TV, turned off all the lights, lit a couple candles. And when I went in the kitchen to get a drink of water, I didn't have to turn on the lights, because the selfish *itches to my rear and side had every last d**n light, inside and out, turned on.

I called the electric company -- I didn't want to have to endure a blackout because of their wastage -- and was told there was not a thing the electric company could or would do. No one would knock on the door and give them a one-on-one explanation about why they should turn off some of the lights. And I quote "they can run as many lights as they want as long as they pay the bill".

Yes, at the end of the month, there would be a huge price to pay, but until they got the bill, there was absolutely no incentive for them to turn off the lights. And they are both the type who believe that they can have anything they want if they can pay for it, never mind if it's irresponsible or selfish or not-green.

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That depends. Some people are adversely affected by fluorescent lights. They can cause things like migraines and epilepsy. An online friend who teaches Special Ed says that they have filled their classroom with incandescent lamps ... when someone accidentally turns on the fluorescents, most of her autistic kids start screaming and the most severe epileptics start convulsing. The manufacturers can say what they like about having conquered the flicker and the hum, those kids say differently. And being SpEd, they don't know to have an ulterior motive, only that something about fluorescents annoys them enough to scream.

I have a particularly sharp sense of hearing (for not being autistic, but then, I did grow up in a musical family). I have not tried the "new" compact fluorescents, but we had gotten a free "original" one and I didn't like that one.

I am not saving anything on electricity if I have to turn on the radio or TV to cover up the annoying hum of the light. (I finally realized that I functioned in a fluorescent office all those years because the ambient noise was just enough to drown it out, but at home where there's no one else chattering/walking/slamming file drawers, the hum of the fluorescents in the bathroom cutting through the absolute silence will drive me batty even if I'm in the next room. If I turn on the bathroom light when I turn on the tap in the tub, so that I can see to monitor the water level, I *have* to immediately turn on some music or the TV so I can't hear the fluorescents. Can't just turn on the music when I get into the tub, as I did in the past, or take a bath in silence. Granted, it's not a lot of extra electricity, but it is 5-10 minutes a day of either a TV or a radio/CD player, which is several extra hours a month. But the medicine cabinet with side fluorescents is part of the antique charm of the house, so I won't take it out. I just do my best to take my bath during the day when I don't have to turn on any lights in there.)

I cannot imagine filling my whole house with those things and having to listen to them hum constantly. Or walk around with my battery-operated CD player constantly turned on, which then clutters up the landfills with zillions of batteries.

Same here. We heat for 6 weeks, we A/C for 9 months.

When I had my HVAC vents installed in the ceiling (so the cats wouldn't burn their paws), Mom reminded me "warm air rises, cold air sinks". Exactly ... I'm more interested in the cold air sinking than in what the warm air does.

Fortunately, although this house has no insulation in the walls (which means in winter I don't even TRY to get it warm), it has scads of insulation in the ceiling. It has to be 100 outdoors for my A/C to come on. (And, yes, Lucille, my friend in Florida has explained that you-all run the A/C because of the humidity and that turning it off invites mold growth, so I'm not faulting you for not having your A/C only come on when it hits 100.)

I keep my TV or my radio on nearly all the time so the hum doesn't bother me at all. I really don't hear it. As far as flicker is concerned, I really don't notice it much at all with the bulbs. I used to have a reaction at work with the long tubes of fluorescent bulbs, but the spiral ones that I use in my lamps are fine.

You heat for 6 weeks. For me it's more like 6 days. I can't stand the electric heat for any length of time because it's like living in the Sahara and dries everything up like raisins. Instead I wear sweats and turtlenecks and look like I'm ready for an ice storm. Of course our cold waves last for hours and not for days.

I use ceiling fans to circulate the air but air conditioning is a must and I leave it on nearly all the time.

We did it and I saw a couple of other houses in the close go dark. I tried to walk through a closed door though and bashed my nose - trouble is our doors are dark, so I didn`t see it with the lights out! LOL!

Pat

So far as I can tell, the compact newer flourescents don't make any noise at all and they don't flicker. We have them all over the house.

Elizabeth

Sorry, Jim - but I am telling you what Ontario Hydro reported yesterday morning.(Other provinces are also reporting similar numbers). And I'm telling you what I know from our Hydro bill reductions when we switched to 90% fluorescent. You can decide not to believe me or not. Adding insulation, and reducing drafts in the house will more than make up the negligible heat that incandescents provide to the normal household.

I've always driven with the accelerator,(i.e backing off to slow down,and using the engine as a brake) not the brake pedal, so I already know that I use less gas than the person who speeds along only to have to brake hard.

Fluorescents as porch lights have problems in cold weather - they may not perform as well as an incandescent. Otherwise, there are savings to be had from the fact that they last longer (so the energy costs of new manufacturing is lowered and take up less room in the landfill), and use less energy.

MargW

Of course you will reduce your hydro bill. But your heating bill will go up by almost the same amount, as long as the house needs heating. Apart from the little bit of light that goes through the windows, ALL the energy used by any sort of light bulb is converted to heat inside the house in less than one millisecond. Jim.

I've tried the newer fluorescents - the energy saving bulbs. I think it was Cary Grant who said "That's not a light, it's a dark!" Bruce

Huh ????

Lucille

That's you. I often hear things that other people don't. One of these days, I'll be invited to visit someone who has them installed and I can figure out if they annoy me, without having to buy them and then throw them away if they do. I have heard from disability activists who have used the newer ones that there are still people having problems with them, despite the manufacturers' insistence that they've fixed the hum and the flicker.

Oh, yes, and CFLs contain enough mercury that you can't just toss them in the trash. When they burn out, you have to drive them to a hazardous waste facility. Which, if there's none in your neighborhood, again adds to greenhouse gases instead of reducing.

And if one breaks, first you have to leave the room for 15 minutes for your own safety, and then take hazardous waste precautions in cleaning up the mess. (That information is buried deep in the fine print that protects them from lawsuits when any of you get mercury poisoning from not leaving the room, or not wearing respirator/jumpsuit/gloves to clean up the mess, or if you scoop up the loose mercury and it goes to the landfill instead of the hazardous waste facility and contaminates your local groundwater -- it's certainly not something you're going to see in their advertisements.)

No thanks. As funds allow, I'm stocking up on Verilux TruColor bulbs for the fixtures I use most. With luck, I'll stockpile enough to last the rest of my life over my stitchy spots, and will only have to deal with the CFLs in the lesser-used areas where I don't spend enough time for it to matter.

And as I said, the little bit of heat that we don't get from fluorescents is negligible, and you can make up for not getting it from incandescents by making sure you have increased your insulation. This gives you both the benefit of offsetting the minute amount of heat energy lost from not using incandescents, AND, requiring less energy to heat your home whether it be natural gas, oil, electricity or propane. It's a win/win whether you like it or not.

MargW

Yep, that's me. That's what "so far as I can tell" means.

I will say though, that even though I don't hear the CFLs, I do hear my Ott light hum, so it's not as if my hearing isn't pretty good.

Elizabeth