Standard bulbs compared to CLI

Cabaal

I noticed the standard light bulbs seem to all have a D energy rating and CLI bulbs have a A rating, I've started a plan of replacing all my lights with CLI's over the coming weeks/months.

I'm trying to cut down on electricity costs in the home but the girlfriend thinks its nuts to pay so much for CLI's...well to a certain extent anyway

Can anyone explain what kind of savings I can expect if I were to replace lets say 7+ 60W D rated bulbs with the eqivelent CLI's if lets say the lights were on on average 5-6 hours a day?
I know its going to be small but would be nice to know.

atilladehun

I bought 3 energy saving bulbs in Maplin for €5 i think last week. or was it nine. proably 9 but i remember being astounded as 3 were the same price as 1. anyway they were in a basket away from the rest of the bulbs at the end of the asile nearest the door. In blanchardstown. That should save a few squids i think. It only the old school tubey ones in bright white though. Shes probably making you get the lovely softone expensive ones right? dont know what the pay back is to be honest though. some of them have 15 year warrenty but they're much more expensive.

Cabaal

atilladehun wrote:

Shes probably making you get the lovely softone expensive ones right? dont know what the pay back is to be honest though. some of them have 15 year warrenty but they're much more expensive.

Actually I'm getting the softtone one's, I find the light is less harsh from them, plus I like the way they start off dim and get brighter

Keeks

There can be a substantial saving made by more to CFL bulbs. Lets try and use a little maths to work it out (now my brains hasn't fully woken up yet so this could be wrong)

Lets make a few assumptions first:
An ordinary bulb of 60w cost a €1
An equivilent CFL bulb of same brightness but uses 12w cost €10
A CFL bulb last 8-10 times longer than an ordinary bulb
An Ordinary bulb last 1000 hours so a CFL bulb would last at least 8000 hours

Now these are only assumptions made to give an example. These will vary from bulb to bulb and from supplier to supplier.

So an Ordinary bulb in it lifetime use:
1000 hours x 60w = 60,000w or 60kw

That costs at todays price (excl vat)
60kw x €0.122 = €7.32

To last as long as the CFL bulb you will need 8 so the total cost is:
8 x €7.32 + €8 (Cost of the 8 bulbs) = €66.56

The CFL bulb in it liftime use:
8000 hours x 12w = 96,000w = 96 kW

The Cost of electricty is:
96 x €0.122 = €11.712

The total cost is €21.712

A saving of €44.85 per bulb used.

That seems like a lot, but if you were using the light for 5-6 hours a day it would equate to 1800-2200 hours. Using the above example it would save you a tenner a year

deisemum

A friend had the CFL bulbs and I didn't think much of them. I felt the light was very dim, I like bright light in the living areas and the dim light would drive me bonkers. That's just me.

xonencentral

I use the softtones all over my house and I haven't had one blow yet even the bathroom which goes on and off all the time.

The one thing I did notice however is that I put 2 of the squigly cheaps outside in my "outside sealed lights" way back because the regular bulbs were blowing every few weeks, and I bought some of the bargain basment ones for 3 euros.

One of them blew within 6 months and I could only get a Phillips replacement at short notice, 7.99 at the time but when I put it in, it was twice as bright as the bargain basement one, (both were 16 watts) but the light value was obviously different. I have since found out that light output and watts have nothing to do with each other.

But thumbs up for the Phillips softtones, really nice on the eye and the 16 watt (100 watt equiv) are extremely bright:cool: .

Cabaal

Keeks thanks for doing the maths

MorningStar

Actually I think the maths may be misleading but I am open to correction on this. CLI bulbs are effectively florescent tubes bent around and therefore use capacitors. I vaguely remember that in electronics that we worked out how using a florescent tube is fine but the initial switching on consumes more power as the capacitor builds up. Once you switch the light off the capacitor discharges and switching it back on uses a lot of power again.
I think this is where the switching on a light uses an hour of electricity was being said by people.As CLI are basically the same AFAIK maybe the same applies.
CLI have really poor colour rendering so they are not suitbale for many places. The light rating of a bulb and colour rendering are the important things to look at. CLI are really only suitable for places where they are left on (time element of light) and colour rendering is not important.

If anybody can tell me for sure about the switching on and off I would be gratefull.

Anybody know the rating on halogin lights too?