Electricity here costs 50 cents per kilowatt hour.
We run fluorescent lights because of that. It's saves a lot of power
over incandescent, but the lighting is not as warm. As a result
sometimes for a special treat, we turn on the 2 incandescent lamps we
have and turn off the fluor. lighting just to feel sane for a while.
We run at least 8 fluor. tubes (short ones not long ones), 12 hours a
day around the house as security lighting.
I have been introduced to an in country supplier of LED tubes. To
install them, you have to remove the starter, and plug in the bulb.
That's in.
Now in the U.S. you're probably saying 'what is a starter?' Our
fluorescents don't have those, but elsewhere in the world they do. It's
what causes the ARC spark that gets the light to power up, and it gets
the juice from the ballast inside.
THESE LED tubes will save us money on electricity. But there is more.
PROS:
-they are instant on. No more flickering at 2am when you're up to use
the bathroom and the fluor. lights strobe blink you to death while they
come on.
-less UV rays
-cost less to operate
CON:
-the light takes some getting used to (not hard)
-the bulb costs ten times as much as a normal fluor. bulb.
I tend not to adopt early LED technology because I find that they LED's
tend to fail not long after manufacture if they're going to fail. When
a friend asks me about the light I always say 'it's 10,000 times
brighter than the sun' which is totally untrue, but to many LED light is
still mystical and magical and so I tend not to bog down the
conversation with facts when no one is actually seeking them.
BUT... here we go.
Gonna get geeky here with some math.
Fluor bulbs come in 2 sizes here.
long = 40watts
short = 20watts
They cost about $2 and 4$ respectively not counting starters which are
around fifty cents.
ONE 20 watt bulb burning for 12 hours is (20W x12) = 290watt hours in a
single day. In a month that's around 7200watt hours, or 7.2
Kilowatt/hrs. At $.50 per kilowatt/hr that's $3.60
$3.60 per bulb, per month is what I'm currently paying in electricity.
AND that doesn't count any of my inside lights. EACH time you turn on a
fluor tube, the ballast has to kick up the voltage and burns 1/2
kilowatt hour. So simply turning it on twice is 1 KWHour.
Right now my son is walking around counting all of our light bulbs....
so I'm making an assumption that we have around 20 bulbs.
that is around $72 per month, if we assume the on/offing equals the same
as the security lights being on straight for 12 hours. But it's a huge
assumption.
At the cost of $22.95 per LED tube, which burns exactly HALF the
wattage, plus has no ballast on/off time used.... PLUS is instant on so
no strobe effect...
we save 1/2 of that.. which is:
$36 p/month.
To fully equip my house with these LED tubes, that will cost me $459.
They are rated to last 50,000 hours which is ten times that of the
normal fluor tubes, and since they cost ten times as much, I figure the
price in bulb replacement over time, will be about even, so I won't
factor that in.
Which means, if I take the total install cost, of $459 and divide it by
the savings per month of $36, in 12.75 months, I'll be at the break even
point.
ASSUMING the cost of electricity doesn't change (which it will most
likely increase over time).
So, assuming that the bulbs last at least a year and a month, we'll have
made an installation change that takes moments to do per light, and
continue to save money.
BUT, that isn't the value add. It's just the economics of the thing.
The value add is the instant on, for us. We absolutely hate the
flickering strobe effect.
And the value add for the rest of the community is that we run on
emergency generators which are nearly maxed out. By decreasing our
power consumption, we save ourselves money, and save the entire
community money and effort on the generator upkeep.
It's a smart choice.
Now all I have to do is wait until we get some more in stock....
I'll be installing 2 around the house and seeing if the family can
adjust to the new light.
-chad
