Breezy Benefits

Fresh laundry on the newly installed clothesline

Today was a beautiful, atypically warm, breezy April day that felt more like June as the temps climbed to the 90s.  It was the perfect day to hang out some laundry and let the sun and breeze dry the clothes naturally...

...but there was one small problem...my clothesline had been taken down in the the wake of Hurricane Irene this past August for fear of tree damage (the tree it was attached to is dead) http://alacartegreen.blogspot.com/search/label/Hurricane.  But never fear, hubby to the rescue!

Besides being a warm April Day, we also had a holiday celebrating Patriot's Day in MA, and the Boston Marathon.  For those of you who live outside of MA, Patriot's Day is a state holiday commemorating the anniversary of the Battle of Lexington and Concord and the start of the Revolutionary War.  With hubby home for the holiday, he agreed to reinstall the clothesline in a new tree and after some effort, sweat, and thankfully no swears or injuries from tree climbing, the clothesline is back up!  It didn't take long for me to get the fresh load of laundry up on the line and take advantage of saving some energy.

For more information about the benefits of clotheslines and the energy savings, please check out:
http://alacartegreen.blogspot.com/2010/06/c-is-for-clothesline.html
and
http://alacartegreen.blogspot.com/2010/07/e-is-for-electricity-and-energy.html

How much energy is conserved by switching to CFLs?

Regular bulbs, also called incandescent bulbs, glow when a tiny coil of wire is heated by electricity.  Energy-saving light bulbs, usually called compact flourescent bulbs or CFLs, produce light when electricity runs through mercury and gases inside of a spiral-shaped bulb.  For comparison sake, the cost for one regular 75 watt bulb is about 50 cents, and each bulb produces 1,200 lumens, while a CFL that also produces 1,200 lumens costs as little as $2.53.

So why would you pay approximately 5 times more for a CFL bulb?  Well the cost of energy used to light a regular bulb for 4 hours per day, in one year is $9.30, and the cost for the same time period and usage for a CFL is $2.50, a difference of $6.80 for just one light bulb.  Additionally, the regular bulb uses 75 watts of energy, while the CFL uses a mere 20 watts of energy, yet they both produce the same amount of light!  Another major benefit of the CFL is that it produces10,000 hours of light, while a regular bulb produces only 1,000 hour of light.

So back to the original question...

How much energy is conserved by switching to CFLs (comparing 75 watt regular bulb which is equivalent to a 20 watt CFL bulb, each producing 1,200 lumens of light)?  55 watts of energy are conserved by using a CFL bulb. 

If you replace one regular 75 watt bulb with a 20 watt CFL bulb, how much money is saved on energy costs in a year? $6.80 per year in energy savings per light bulb will be realized by making the switch.

How many regular bulbs would it take to light a lamp for the same amount of hours as one CFL bulb?  It would take 10 regular bulbs, at  50 cents a piece, or $5.00 for 10 regular bulbs, and the one CFL bulb that produces the same amount of hours, can be found for as low as $2.53-$4.00 per bulb.

Why do regular lightbulbs use so much energy as compared to CFLs?  Regular bulbs are making light and heat, and the heat is wasted. 

So what are the pros and cons of regular bulbs vs. CFLs?
One disadvantage of CFLs is that they take time to warm up to full brightness, and regular bulbs are at full brightness within a second, and only some CFLs are labeled for dimming control..  Another issue is that CFLs contain small amounts of mercury as vapor inside each bulb.  However, the retail price of the CFL includes an amount to pay for recycling, and manufacturers and importers have an obligation to collect and recycle CFLs.  The Home Depot stepped up and became the first retailer to make CFL recycling options widely available at it's stores, and collection bins are easily accessible.  Many other retailers also provide recycle centers for CFLs.  According to Wikipedia, the first step of processing CFLs involves crushing the bulbs in a machine that uses negative pressure ventilation and a mercury-absorbing filter to contain mercury vapor. The crushed glass and metal is stored in drums, ready for shipping to recycling factories.  Conversely, regular light bulbs can not be recycled.

On the bright side :) 
CFLs can be recycled.  The mercury inside the bulbs can be recovered and kept out of landfills.  Using CFLs results in energy savings of $6.80 per bulb.  CFLs last 9,000 hours longer than regular bulbs.  CFLs save 55 watts of energy.

So here's to a brighter future with energy savings and lower electric bills with CFLs :)  


Sources:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_fluorescent_lamp, November 18, 2010.

Picking Low Lying Fruit

Low Lying Fruit

To quote my favorite green guru, Ed Begley Jr., we picked some "low lying fruit"!  No, not the edible kind, but the kind that will save energy AND money.  Our low lying fruit was the front door lights.   

Every time I'd notice the front lights were ON during the day, I'd cringe.  I knew we were wasting energy and money....ggrrrrr.  The dawn to dusk feature on the motion sensitive front lights was not working, and we ended up leaving the lights on to ensure no one got hurt walking up to the door in the dark.  But, then we'd forget to turn them off, they'd end up being on all night, and many, many times they would not get turned off at all since we don't typically go out that door. 

The electric eye had been broken for some time, and we'd attempted adding a new photo-electric eye, but that didn't work, probably because of the special wiring involved with the motion sensitive part as well as the integrated electric-eye.  We felt so frustrated and confused when the new eye didn't work that we decide to sleep on it before taking any more steps.  But out of sight, IS out of mind and time marched on, and it didn't get fixed. 

I think it was a trip to Lowes that jogged my memory about the lights, and we discussed replacing the fixture completely, and even bought one light figuring we could just replace the one, and move another from around back.  Turns out the one out back also had a busted electic eye!  Hmmm now we began to think that the integrated electric eye was doomed to break, and re-thought our original plan.  We ultimately decided that throwing the lights into the landfill and spending money on two new lamps wasn't the best option either.  

Luckily hubby, being the genius he is, was able to re-wire the existing lights to enable the new electric eye to work!  So we picked the "low lying fruit", and in this situation with a broken fixture, were able to use the two new electric eyes that we thought weren't going to work in our lights, saved the two light fixtures from the landfill, and best of all, are saving electricity DAILY!  I'm so lucky that hubby is such a handyman!!!!

CFLs - Day 15

So slowly as incandescent light bulbs burn out, we've been replacing them with CFLs. I know people worry about the mercury in them, but since I am returning them to the hardware store, they should be properly disposed of. I wonder how much energy and money we have saved so far as we are changing over to CFLs?

Outlets , small changes, big results - Day 11

The holes in your electrical outlets let cold air seep into the house. I purchased some outlet insulation gaskets (Frost King, $1.98 for a package of 6) to prevent the cold from leaking in. They are easy to install; turn off power to the outlet, remove the outlet covers, insert the pad underneath, and replace the outlet cover. These will make a difference since we will conserve energy and loose less heat. You can also, put insulating plugs in all outlets that aren’t in use.