Loisteputkilamput

Minuutti, jolloin sähköä jo säästyy. Siis jos vessassa käyt, ja puolen minuutin päästä menet takaisin, ei valoa kannata sammuttaa. Jos käyntikerta yli minuutin, niin sähkönkulutuksen kannalta kannattaa sammuttaa. Hehkulampussa aika taisi olla noin muutama sekuntti.

Tietysti valojen jatkuva sammuttelu kuluttaa sytytintä, mutta toisaalta ei se lamppu kauaa kestä jatkuvaakaan päällä oloa. Eli tiivistettynä, kannattaa sammuttaa jos mielii säästää sähköä ja rahaa.

Lights On or Off
Myth: You save on energy bills by leaving lights on. Some people believe that the energy to turn on lights exceeds savings of turning lights off.

They talked to Mark Reisfelt, manager of the Independent Electric Supply where they purchased their light bulbs. He felt that it was best to turn the lights off.

To test the myth, they needed to measure energy usage during startup, maintenance (steady state), and shutdown.

For steady state energy consumption, they turned on several different types of bulbs for 60 minutes and measured their consumption using a Kill A Watt: * Incandescent 90 Wh * Compact Fluorescent (CFL): 10 Wh * Halogen: 70 Wh * Metal halide 60 Wh * LED: 1 Wh * Fluorescent: 10 Wh

For startup energy consumption, Grant hooked up an inductive current loop to a computer and measured the amount of energy used when the turned on the bulbs. With an inductive current loop, you run a wire through the center, which induces a current in the loop. This current is then measured by a digital sampling oscilloscope.

Based on the amount of energy consumed turning on the bulb, they were able calculated how long the bulb would have to be turned off in order to make it worth the energy savings, i.e. "It's best to turn off the bulb if you are leaving the room for":

•Incandescent: 0.36 seconds
•CFL: 0.015 seconds
•Halogen: .51 seconds
•LED: 1.28 seconds
•Fluorescent: 23.3 seconds
In other words, its almost always best to turn the bulb off. Even the 23 seconds for the fluorescent lights isn't very long, and the rest of the times are pretty much blinks of an eye.

Bulb Longevity
They tested one final element of this myth: frequently turning lights on and off decreases their life span, thus leading to greater costs. Grant setup a timer and relay to turn the bulbs on and off repeatedly every 2 minutes. After six weeks, only the LED bulb was still working. Based on this test, they extrapolated that it would take five years of ordinary usage to cause the bulbs to burn out.

* busted *

Side-note: 105-year bulb
Grant and Kari visited the Livermore/Pleasanton Fire Department to view their light bulb that has been burning for 105 years. It has a carbon filament that is much thicker than modern bulbs and also burns much cooler/darker. You can check on the light using the bulb's webcam.