From: Michael Lorrey (retroman@together.net)
Date: Tue Nov 24 1998 - 16:02:39 MST
Hal Finney wrote:
> Long-lasting bulbs already exist on the market.
>
> I've lived in my house for five years, and in all that time none of
> the lightbulbs in our family room have burned out. We spend all our
> evenings in that room, and the lights are on from sunset until about
> 11 PM, every night.
>
> That's probably 10,000+ hours on those bulbs. There are 8 bulbs in
> recessed ceiling fixtures, of the floodlight type, and all of them
> are still going strong. I wish I knew where the former owner bought
> them (and when he did!).
They are either compact fluorescent light bulbs, or low voltage halogen
light bulbs. Both are relatively long lived, at 15,000-30,000 hours.
You can buy them for anywhere from $5.00 up to $20.00 depending on
wattage and life. You can buy them at most lighting stores these days,
as well as most mega hardware stores like Eagle, Home Base, etc. If you
can't find a place that sells them, contact the conservation office at
your electric utility. They usually can point you to a local supplier. A
cheap way to make normal incandescent bulbs last a long time is to buy
bulbs made for 130-135 volts, and run them on your 110-120 volt wiring.
Since they are burning at 90% or less of capacity, you can increase the
life of the bulb by as much as ten times. However, you will burn more
energy for the amount of light you do produce than you would with a
shorter life normal voltage bulb, so there is a trade off....
Mike Lorrey
>
>
> Hal
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 14:49:51 MST