BS: Energy Effiency

Subject: BS: Energy Effiency
From: Metchosin
Date: 06 Oct 06 - 04:07 PM

I was thinking about this today when I replaced a burnt out light bulb in an unheated outside shed with another incandescent. The bulb helps keep the shed temperature above freezing in cold snaps during the winter. Perhaps JohnInKansas or some other like minded individual could provide some "illumination".

We use electric baseboard heating for some rooms in our house. There has been a big push by our hydro supplier, particularly on Vancouver Island over the past few years, to get their customers to switch to energy effcient light bulbs for lighting, which I have done in some fixtures.

However I think it may be rather pointless, particularly in the winter, as incandescent bulbs contribute to overall heat production in a room in conjuction with the baseboard heaters. Are incandescent bulbs any less effcient as a heat source than a baseboad heater? Would I ever see a reduction on my bill?

I do realize that the fluorescent bulbs last much longer and some monetary saving might be realized there, but they are possibly more energy consumptive to manufacture.

So in the grand scheme of things, if one already uses electricity as a home heating source, where's the saving regarding winter personal power consumption in switching to fluorescent bulbs?

Subject: RE: BS: Energy Effiency
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 06 Oct 06 - 04:16 PM

The heat given off by one incadescent bulb is pretty negligble compaired to the enegery savings of using one flourescent bulb for light....

If you really want to measure the heat, do this experiment
http://www.energyquest.ca.gov/projects/heat.html

Subject: RE: BS: Energy Effiency
From: NH Dave
Date: 06 Oct 06 - 04:32 PM

The only combination gains I have heard of was the one realized at the Tuskeegee Institute, where the mantle equipped kerosene lamps that the students used to study, were used to begin cooking the next day's meals. The lamps were arranged in a circle in a common room and a specially made oven, insulated with straw, was lowered down over the tops of their chimneys, to heat the inside which was filled with food for the next day's meals.

Other than this, a general rule goes something like this, compare apples with apples, when you are considering purchases or savings. Various heat sources are more efficient at heating than the odd incandescent light bulbs scattered around a room. If you want to decrease the use of electricity for lighting, buy and use fluorescent lighting; if you want to decrease the amount of energy used in your home, buy and use energy efficient heat sources, or devices like fans that direct the heat to where it is needed. Or simply buy sweaters for the entire family, so they don't mind the cooler temperatures. This worked well for us when we were in England, where heat was expensive.

Dave

Subject: RE: BS: Energy Effiency
From: Amos
Date: 06 Oct 06 - 05:05 PM

An incandescent bulb's heat is probably not going to radiate far enough in any density of energy for you to feel it, I suspect.

If you're striving for energy efficiency, one path is solar thermal collection, which can gather enough heat even in a clear cold environment to heat a room. Photovoltaics is another.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Energy Effiency
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 06 Oct 06 - 06:01 PM

I gather about 95 per cent of the power consumed by an incandescent buld is emitted as heat. I'm sitting on a chilly night in a room with the only source of heat, aside from the PC, whic is pretty cool, is the bulb in the desk lamp, and it's quite comfortable.

I suspect it's a more energy efficent way of staying warm at a desk than putting the central heating on and warming the whole room - more localised.

Subject: RE: BS: Energy Effiency
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 06 Oct 06 - 06:04 PM

You sitting under a 400 watt bulb McG??

If you have a traditional CRT, it's probably pumping out a LOT of heat too!

:-)

Subject: RE: BS: Energy Effiency
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 06 Oct 06 - 06:14 PM

Virtually 100% of the energy consumed by and incandescant bulb (or any other kind of light for that matter) goes to heating the room it's in--the tiny remainder escapes through windows and such as light energy, but there's not much of that. A 100 watt bulb will generate as much heat as a 100 watt electric heater; the 5% that it emits as light is converted to heat when it strikes a wall or other absorbing surface.

Electricity is an extremely efficient way to heat--100%--but it's also an extremely expensive one, mostly because of the inefficiencies encountered in generating th electricity. If you're looking for efficient electric heat, consider a heat pump, which effectively provides heat at more than 100% efficiency, or installing solar or wind-powered generation of electricity (nuclear is too feasible for home use.) Of course, those efficient approaches come with a high initial cost.
   Another sweater, anyone?

Subject: RE: BS: Energy Effiency
From: Metchosin
Date: 06 Oct 06 - 08:10 PM

sheesh...... my spelling's bad.....

Thanks dick, that is what I suspected.

As far as contributing my small bit to lessen the demand on our power grid, if I only used electricity for lighting and running electrical home appliances, then using fluorescents might make sense to me, although if I were really serious about being power smart, for task lighting, white LEDs would be my preference.

I'm not looking for a more efficient way to heat or necessarily cheaper. (I actually do use a much cheaper method in some areas of my house.) I just couldn't see, that if I am using electricity as a source to provide heat in a room, whether or not that heat comes from a 1500W baseboard heater, the motor of my fridge or as a by-product of a couple of 60W incandescent light bulbs, that the heat produced by all sources isn't all cumulative and makes no difference.

What I may save, powerwise, by using low heat, low wattage fluorescents, I'm still going to have to make up for in extra demand on the baseboard heater, when using electricity as my primary heat source.

Amos, although solar works well in most areas of California, it is not on its own a reliable source of power in the fall, winter or spring on our foggy, rainy Island. Wind and tidal power are more applicable and I wish our damned government would get behind that instead of pushing natural gas.

It may be surprising how well you can heat a small room on our temperate coast with just a 60 W incandescent light bulb, particularly if the room is well insulated against both thermal and radiant heat loss. I'm not certain replacing that bulb in my shed with a fluorescent and as a result having to install a 500W electric heater would be a wise use of energy either.

Subject: RE: BS: Energy Effiency
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 06 Oct 06 - 08:25 PM

Maybe I'm wrong but off the top of my head, I would guess the quetion with your lightbulbs is where the heat they generate goes. Hot air rises and I presume most of these things are near the ceiling.

Subject: RE: BS: Energy Effiency
From: Rapparee
Date: 06 Oct 06 - 09:01 PM

I will turn on the lights in the bathroom when I get up and leave them on. In a hour or so they will have warmed the room a few degrees.

But this is a small, windowless, interior room.

I have used regular incandescent bulbs to keep water pipes from freezing too -- in small, enclosed, spaces. When younger I "toasted" bread over light bulbs.

We use flourescent bulbs and tubes where ever possible. In fact, any incandescent bulb we use is the exception (like in the bathrooms).

Subject: RE: BS: Energy Effiency
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 06 Oct 06 - 10:58 PM

The "hot air rises" is, in most residential areas, an overrated concept. Almost all rooms have sufficirent air circulation to mix things fairly well. It's easy enough to demonstrate: raise one arm and lower the other one. If you don't notice a dramatic difference in how warm or cold your hands feel, there isn't much of a difference. Skin is a pretty sensitive thermometer, at least for comparing temperatures.

Subject: RE: BS: Energy Effiency
From: Rapparee
Date: 07 Oct 06 - 12:15 AM

Now at work we have a 30 foot foyer and about a 50 foot atrium. Both of them are energy inefficient heat wasters. And I want to put fans in both of them so that the hot air that DOES rise in them is better circulated.

I'd also like to have the money to completely fill in the suspended ceiling (it's the "open warehouse" look in 90% of the place right now -- architecturally it might have been comme il faut, but energy-wise it's comme il fart).

So, if anyone has about 50,000 USD they don't know what to do with....

Subject: RE: BS: Energy Effiency
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 07 Oct 06 - 02:57 AM

Rapaire -

You would probably be thinking of ceiling fans, suspended, to bring some of the heat that rises down to useful levels. These can be quite helpful in evening out the temperature, but of course require installation - hanging and often routing wire and installing outlets.

As a test of whether this is going to actually help, you can probably get circulation comparable to a couple of ceiling fans with a portable fan on the floor that you can plug into an existing outlet and aim upward to set up the desired circulation if you use one of the high efficiency ducted fan models like the Vornado in each of your problem spaces. This will give you an indication of whether circulation is really going to help, and/or if the lowered ceiling is really needed.

Metchosin -

If you put 60 Watts into any electrical device in a closed space, you get 60 Watts worth of heat. Whether if comes out of the device as heat, light, or noise, the "heating" is the same. The problem with using a lighting device as a heater is that it's difficult to regulate it so that it's used when needed and not used when it's not needed. With many devices designed specifically for heating, a thermostat is included so that they run only when they should run.

A 60 Watt incandescant bulb puts out less than one Watt of light, while a 14 Watt fluorescent "bulb substitute" produces the same amount of light. If the purpose is to produce light, the fluorescent saves about 75% of the electrical power that would otherwise be used. Usage is highly variable with people's personal habits, but a rule of thumb sometimes used is that 30% of the electrical power one buys is used for lighting, if you're in an "all electric" home. If you have another method of room and water heating, the "lighting" burden can be as much as 60% of your electrical consumption.

A 60 Watt light bulb running for one year (8,766 hours) puts about 565 KWH additional consumption on your electric bill. Of course the rated life for 60 W incandescant bulbs is about 1,500 hours, so you'll use about 6 bulbs per year if you leave them turned on all the time. For your pumphouse heating, the biggest inefficiency comes from the need to have enough instantaneous heating rate for the coldest one or two really cold nights, but most of the time you're using 60 W when 25 or 30 W would be enough, even in winter. A thermostat to turn the "heater" off when it's not needed likely would reduce the energy consumed to about 10% - or less - of what you're using with an unregulated heater on all the time (or at least on all winter).

A small heater, with fan and thermostat, set to as low a temperature as possible, probably would actually pay for itself in fairly short order in your pump house. Most such units run to 900 W - 1,500 W, but a thermostat would allow it to run only when actually necessary. Of course you lose the convenience of being able to look out the back door to see if there's light coming out the cracks to know that it's still working.

The thermal tapes made for wrapping the pipes under your mobile home are a compromise. They generally operate at a fairly low power level, but some incorporate a "thermister" that changes resistance in response to tape temperature and reduces the power level as the tape warms up. Even without the thermister, the change in resistivity¹ as the metal heater wires warm will "regulate" the power level so that you get more current at low temps and somewhat less when the tape/room is warmer.

¹ Your light bulb works somewhat the same. A 60 W bulb at 120 V must have a current of 0.5 Amps, or a "hot" resistance of 240 Ohms. A cold (room temp) 60 W bulb typically has a filament resistance of about 12 to 14 Ohms, meaning that the initial current to start heating up the filament is about 20 Amps, and the "turn on" power level is about 240 W (but ony for a tiny fraction of a second).

Using your light bulb to heat the pump house is a matter of putting in some heat and hoping it's enough. Patching the cracks won't make any real difference, since you'll still leave the light on all winter. If you should decide to use a thermostat control, reducing air leaks is very important if you want to minimize the actual power requirement to keep the shack warm. Most of the heat loss in typical structures is from warm air leaking out and cold air, that must be heated, leaking in to replace it.

While your incandescant light bulbs will contribute heat to warming the house in winter, you're unlikely to change bulbs repeatedly as the seasons change². My recollection of Vancouver Island and vicinity is that the heating season is pretty mild, and if you're using electric heat the "30% for lighting" is probably a fair estimate. Changing from 60 W incandescants to 14 W fluorescents should save you 75% of that 30%, or about 22% of your overall annual electric consumption - if you're a "typical user" (which is somewhat doubtful). If you're using fuel oil or natural gas for water heating, the percentage might double, but of course that's a bigger percent of a much smaller electric bill. I'll note that while fluorescents claim a much longer life than incandescant bulbs, the claims are somewhat exaggerated. They do last longer, but not as much longer as claimed (3 to 4x, but not 10x). In my area, recently, the fluorescent replacements for incandescant bulbs have dropped to about 2x in price, if you get them in bulk from a discounter (Costco in your area?), and do last at least 3x as long as incandescants.

² If you happen to use air conditioning, each extra WH of heat dumped into your house when the air conditioner is running generally requires very roughly 2.5 WH of additional consumption in the AC to pump it out.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Energy Effiency
From: Gurney
Date: 07 Oct 06 - 03:07 AM

I've had the same thought as Metchosin, but as I see it, the bulbs are mostly heating the ceiling, where I rarely go, unless someone upsets me. Baseboard LIGHTING might work.....
Downlights are popular here. Stupid things let expensive heat out into the roof-space.
When I was a lad, my father made bed-heaters (No electric blankets in those days, for the likes of us, anyway) from 1'cube buscuit tins with a 100W bulb inside. Lovely. Came in handy if we had to work outside at night, too. Take the lid off, light and reflector.
No mug, my dad.

Subject: RE: BS: Energy Effiency
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 07 Oct 06 - 03:33 AM

Gurney -

The cute little antique desk I used as a high school kid has a rather large charred spot on the bottom drawer, because I used to use a 100W light bulb between my knees to keep the toes warm while I homeworked deep into the night.

Even a 60W bulb (or smaller) can start a fire quite easily if placed too close to something flammable, so caution is advised.

We typically leave lights on when away from the house, for safety, and it's taken me years to (I think) train everyone to NEVER LEAVE A LAMP turned on. The pets can't knock over a ceiling fixture - except under quite unusual circumstances - but any "self standing" device could be tipped during one of their political rallies or religious ceremonies, which they seem to hold quite regularly in our absence.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Energy Effiency
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 07 Oct 06 - 12:59 PM

No, I was sitting next to a 40 watt bulb, CH.

Do they make 400 watt bulbs? I don't think I've ever seen anything more than a 150 watt myself.

Subject: RE: BS: Energy Effiency
From: GUEST,Bee
Date: 07 Oct 06 - 01:20 PM

There are usually better ways to heat small spaces than light bulbs. When we moved into our present home, the water pump was installed in the crawl space under the house. I must have cleared 200 used lightbulbs out of there - the former owners used them to keep the pump from freezing in winter. We built an insulated box around the pump and put in a small electric heater. We've had to turn it on once in 11 years.

Subject: RE: BS: Energy Effiency
From: Metchosin
Date: 07 Oct 06 - 02:16 PM

Thanks JohnInKansas, I thought you would come up with numbers.

Using your figures, I manage to keep my 66 square foot well insulated shed serviceable during the winter months here, using roughly 235.4 KW based on our current cost of $.06/KWH which works out to about $14.12 Cdn (12.53 US). For the time the heat is needed, it works out to about $2.82Cdn a month, plus taxes and the cost of the light bulb. I still think I will continue to use the incandescent light, because I like the idea of an untended bulb more than a 750W untended space heater.

Even during a cold snap the 60 watt bulb keeps my latex paint from freezing, perhaps because it is up on the top shelf. LOL. Of course, we're probably not typical, as our winters are usually milder than other areas of Canada and this is not a standard uninsulated garden shed.

As far as overhead incandescent bulbs overheating the ceiling area while leaving the rest of the room too cold, I don't know if this is totally releavent but years ago, when we installed electric heat, the recommended heater size and placement was provided by our local power company as a customer service.

As part of our house is 1 1/2 story with a loft open to the downstairs, the utility company recommended that we split the heating load between the downstairs and upstairs, approximately 2/3 to 1/3 respectively, as the most efficient method of heating the whole space. The separate blanket of warm air above on a separate thermostat, meant that the heaters downstairs, in theory, only heated the main floor area.

Which probably means I should stick a 15W incandescent bulb in the ceiling of my shed for the paint and a 40W incandescent bulb at floor level so the tools are comfy.

This would also imply that with using electric heat, that any incandescent lighting when they are turned on in the ceiling area of a couple of rooms in my house, only means that the basebord heaters in those rooms don't have to do quite as much work, as they normally would in an unlit room.

Because I am willing to do my small part to try to reduce our demand where financially feasible, in those rooms, I intend to see if we can find some sort of task oriented track lighting that uses LEDs. It won't make a hill of beans of difference during the winter, regarding our power consumption, but it will somewhat in the summer when heat is not a requirement.

Now if I can only convince myself that it is wise to spend a grand to replace our very old upright freezer which heats our basement storage room both summer and winter with so far, very clean hydro electric power.....with a new energy efficient model manufacured in Asia by stoking the coal fires over there.......not to mention the energy required to move and recycle the damned old thing...

Subject: RE: BS: Energy Effiency
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 07 Oct 06 - 02:27 PM

Heating a small space with a light bulb?

Where do you people live? 1880?????

Subject: RE: BS: Energy Effiency
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 07 Oct 06 - 02:34 PM

Dick, I have tried "hand tests".

My observation is that the area of ceiling about a foot in diameter above the lamps which are about 1 foot below is noticably warmer than the rest of the ceiling and than the surrounding air.

Subject: RE: BS: Energy Effiency
From: Don Firth
Date: 07 Oct 06 - 02:40 PM

In 1972-73, I was working at a radio station in the Tri-Cities in eastern Washington (just down the pike from the Hanford Nuclear Reservation) where it can get pretty freakin' cold on winter nights. My car was sitting in a car port, and although it was thoroughly winterized, I had one helluva time starting it in the mornings. Often it just wouldn't start at all, and I had to call a cab to get to the station. Bummer! Later in the day, after it had warmed up some, it would start without a protest.

The station manager had live in the area for years, and he made a suggestion. I'm no mechanic, but according to him, there is something like a flexible diaphragm that has to do with the carburetor. When it gets real cold, it gets stiff and won't flex, and the engine gets no gas (some folks may know what I'm talking about, even if I don't). Following his suggestion, I bought one of those small lamps, complete with a 100 watt bulb, that you can clamp onto something, plugged it into an extension cord, ran the extension cord out under the door to the car port, clamped the lamp to the engine right next to the carburetor, turned it on, then lowered the hood but didn't latch it, and threw a tarp over the whole shebang.

The light kept the diaphragm warm enough to stay flexible and the following morning, the car started, no problem.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Energy Effiency
From: gnu
Date: 07 Oct 06 - 02:45 PM

CH. It's a simple concept. Read the posts above. Or, did you blow a fuse in your main panel?

You have a bad week or what? Piss and moan and crap... piss and moan and crap. Jaysus, man. Lighten up.

Subject: RE: BS: Energy Effiency
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 07 Oct 06 - 05:36 PM

Guest John-
The cheapest way to even out temperatures if the air near the ceiling is noticeably warmer than the air down below is with a fan; it doen't make much difference what kind of a fan you use, nor whether you blow up or down. Just miking the air works fine. And fans draw so little current that you can ignore their consumption; whatever slight amount it is contributes to heating the room anyway. Ceiling fans work well and don't get underfoot.

Subject: RE: BS: Energy Effiency
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 07 Oct 06 - 06:43 PM

Having the bulb closer to where the heat and light is needed, like on a desk lamp, is maybe simpler.

Subject: RE: BS: Energy Efficiency
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 07 Oct 06 - 09:40 PM

My ceiling fans are reversible - there is a tiny switch on the body.

However, I found that most of the time, I prefer the air directed upwards - in winter it is the manufacturer's recommended 'mixing method', and in summer, I just find it more comfortable with the air not blasting directly onto me - also it removes heat from the ceiling and allows it to be vented out the windows in the daytime.

If the ceiling is cooler at night, you get less radiated heat downwards into the room, and the inside of the house feels cooler - ceiling insulation helps here too, but unless you have the "reflective" type, the insulation just "lags" or stores the heat, which then seeps out at night.

he best trick to manage heat in my Queenslander with an insulated roof is to watch the relative inside and outside temps- and open or close windows to drive the heat in the desired direction - like a pump.

Incidentally, I have a corrugated iron roof - and got it repainted (it needed it!) with a new type of heat reflective paint - and I had it done in white,instead of the 'traditional red'. I also had a 'whirlybird' ceiling roof space vent fan installed too.

Now the temp in the roof space, which used to exceed 60 deg C, is never any greater than 1 deg C more than the temp of the outside air - you can put your hand on the inside of the iron! - and I have far less heat hassles in Summer - external air temps of up to 40 deg C here are not uncommon - With the windows shut, I can easily get a good 5 deg C reduction in inside air temp during most of the day - then you have to open them as the external air temp drops.

There is sufficient 'heat lag' storage such that a week of high nighttime temps (usually caused by cloud and lack of breeze) will gradually pump the internal temp higher - only air conditioning would battle that, but I can't afford it.

In Winter, you just reverse the process - shut up after peak day temp, and open when you wake up.