Energy saving bulbs question?

Question

I have a pear shaped warm white CFL (Compact fluro light) it is 11w =60w

how come when i turn of the lamp and touch the light it is quite warm to touch...i thought the lights were supposed to be energy efficient.?

also is it better to leave them on or to keep switching them on and off when you are not in the room.

thanks.

Answer 1

Let me start off by saying we (my family and I) live 100% off of the grid and are completely self-sufficient with a 0% Carbon footprint. I believe this is the first step anyone can make “help the environment”. Once you convert your own life style to a greener more eco friendly route, you can start helping others.

Compact fluorescent light bulbs, right now, are more " eco-wise" then anything else most consumers can get a hold of (ie. incandescent) and currently save over 2000 times their own weight in greenhouse gases.

But since my house is completely on solar / wind and we REALLY need to watch usage, every light is fitted with s***w type (typical 110v lamp socket style) LED bulbs. They emit the same luminosity (typically 45) but at only 1watt rather then a 45w compact or 10w CFL. However they usually cost twice as much as CFLs which is twice as much (or more) as compacts. Still LEDs would be the way to go by far.

As for the second part of your question...

Mercury IS the lesser of the evils, without getting toooo elaborate discussing specifics (ie. which burns ozone faster, other layer's besides ozone, disposing locations, methods, wind conditions, etc), one needs less mercury gas then most others, to obtain the same luminosity in a vacuum because of mercury's longer agitated spectral wavelength. Mercury's wavelength is more blue which is a longer more "luminous" or brighter light to say sodium, which is a more light orange or shorter less bright (red being the shortest) wavelength. so you'd need more sodium or other, in the tube or more electricity to the tube, to create the same luminosity as mercury.

so mercury wins out only because the sheer volume needed is less then the others.

Hope this helped, feel free to contact me personally if you have any questions if you’d like assistance in making your first self sufficient steps, I’m willing to walk you step by step threw the process. I’ve written several how-to DIY guides available at  www agua-luna com on the subject. I also offer online and on-site workshops, seminars and internships to help others help the environment.

Dan Martin

Alterative Energy / Sustainable Consultant, Living 100% on Alternative & Author of How One Simple Yet Incredibly Powerful Resource Is Transforming The Lives of Regular People From All Over The World... Instantly Elevating Their Income & Lowering Their Debt, While Saving The Environment by Using FREE ENERGY... All With Just One Click of A Mouse...For more info Visit:  

www AGUA-LUNA com

Stop Global Warming!!!

Answer 2

I don't really know if they should be warm or not...hey this gave me a great idea! we should convert flash lights into lightbulbs! because they only take baterries! I nkow I am so smart but florecent lights do technickly catch on fire but don't let as much toxic air go into the air. And yes, keep switching the lights on and off!

Answer 3

At present I an having a high failure rate ,it might be as high as 30%...

Answer 4

incandescent bulbs are heaters with light as a by-product.  

CFL's are basically a less severe version of the same thing, where a 4x increase in efficiency is dampered by a negligible basis to improve upon.

there's a public service announcement in my community that says 15 seconds will cover the start-up draw of a CFL, so we should turn lights off, although, this isn't accounting for blub wear (which is nonetheless negligible compared to the cost of the energy to power it).

Answer 5

Like you I thought they should be cool to touch but I just touched 2 different lights and both were hot, However with the old style globes if you touched them you would burn your fingers the ones I just touched are very warm but didn't burn like the old ones would have.

Turn off your lights when not in use, that way you won't waste power on lighting a empty room.

Answer 6

CFL - carbon Flouroscent Lamps is the biggest marketing gimmick...and a successful one. Will anyone please explain how do we get rid of the mercury and mercury fuimes, which these CFLs have. Mercury is more dangerous to humans and environment than anything else...

Answer 7

CFLs and Incandescents work by two completely different processes. Incandescents use electricity to heat up a filament which in turn produces light. In a CFL, the heat produced is a byproduct of the excitement of gas particles within the CFL which are used to emit light. For comparison, in incandescents 90% of the input energy is transmitted as heat, while only about 30% in the case of an CFL.

CFLs are more efficient by nature, producing a lot less heat and using about a 1/4 of the energy of an incandescent bulb to produce the same amount of light.

As for your next question, CFL manufacturers recommend only using cfls in fixtures that you may leave on for extended periods, say 15 minutes at a time, as frequently turning them on and off can shorten their life.

Answer 8

Turning the light off ALWAYS saves electricity. The average cost of residential electricity is 9.86¢/kWh (kilowatt hour). A KWH is 1000watts. If you ran this 11w light bulb for one hour, it would cost you approx one penny. So, if you forgot to turn off this light for an entire 24hr day, it would cost you about twenty-five cents.

Answer 9

because when light is heat right? get th picture. all light is warm in some way, some warmer than others..

keep swiching them on and off. even though the are better for earth they STILL use some sorse of power...just less

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