CFL's - are they suitable for university accomodation?

Yorky

For someone staying in halls of residence sharing with two others and paying the electric bill, is it worth buying CFL's for the year? They work out at about €15 which is €5 per person. Any thoughts on this?

10-10-20

It depends on how much you use them.
Payback can be calculated by working out the time for the replacement bulb to use 1kw, versus the previous bulb...

For example, a 9w CFL will use 1kw (1000w or 1 unit) in 111hrs, while a standard 100w will use 1kw in 10 hours.

Then, do the maths on the price of electricity and the price of the CFL and work out if your projected use of the bulb over the year will save you money.

I THINK a unit is ~23c.

Stoner

Roughly a drop from a 60W bulb to a 9Watt bulb will save a little over 1 cent per hour of use (assuming that the light is not being constantly switched on and off as start up currents on CFLs are relatively high)

Quick calc, back of an envelope jobby, if you had the light on for 4 hours a day (constantly), for 7 days a weeks you'd save approx 40 cent a week.

ircoha

Yorky wrote:

For someone staying in halls of residence sharing with two others and paying the electric bill, is it worth buying CFL's for the year? They work out at about €15 which is €5 per person. Any thoughts on this?

put them in. keep the ones u are replacing and switch them back at the end of year.

Depending on what u are studying, 3 of u may not be enough to change the bulbs:D

10-10-20

Q. How many students does it take to change a light bulb?

A. One to hold the bulb and ninety-nine to drink enough to make the room spin...

Mellor

buy them, end off
At the end of the year take them out,
the additional cost of CFLs is cancel out by the increased lifetime imo,
the savings on elec are then direct savings,