A wired house, consumes less electricity?

[Pengwuino]

A wired house, consumes less electricity!

I have an awesome idea... possibly the greatest idea man kind has ever had in the history of the universe... greater then Einstein's E=mc^2... greater then the McRib... greater then sliced bread...

Ok i hope i didn't overhype my idea, but here goes!

What if you could wire up an entire house's lighting system? Just the ceiling and wall lights (since lamps couldn't really be part of this system) and outdoor lights all rigged to panels upstairs and downstairs. It would be great if I could walk upstairs, wonder if i turned all the lights out, and just check a panel! Plus its great for saving energy, the panel probably wouldn't take more then a few watts of power since all you could need is an LED for each light. With this, you'll never have to worry about having a ceiling light on downstairs taking 50-200watts of power (even with CF our ceiling lights still take up 45 watts each). I'm sure this is possible because we have a light that has 2 switches (one upstairs, one downstairs, its a staircase light) and that could easily be converted into a microchip type setup. Doesn't this sound awesome :D I should be an inventor/genius!

Penguin Power!

 

[Ivan Seeking]

A great idea indeed! Unfortunately...
http://www.smarthome.com/prodindex.asp?catid=1

 

[Pengwuino]

But can those tell you if your light is on? I love that store :D I never buy anything though...

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

I think that things of this sort do exist. They are usually built into nicer homes.

 

[tribdog]

I think I'd rather pay the expense of leaving a light on downstairs every once in a while than pay to have my house rewired.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Smart homes went high tech long ago. You can have as much as you are willing to pay.

 

[Pengwuino]

I think I'd rather pay the expense of leaving a light on downstairs every once in a while than pay to have my house rewired.

What kind of environmentalator are you :grumpy: :grumpy: :grumpy:

 

[Pengwuino]

Time to calculate how much money one would lose in CA if they accidently left... 6 lights on a night (probably what we do every night).

Hmm, $.10 a night with CF bulbs

 

[tribdog]

the kind who is sitting here online, tv on and every single light in the house blazing brightly.
the kind who replaces those wimpy 40watt bulbs with 100s.
the kind who drives down the road with the ac on and the windows down.
the kind who doesn't recycle because it is too much work to remember which color garbage can my pop cans go into

 

[Ivan Seeking]

If you check the link you will see that its all X10 and other wireless technologies now. We use this for security and other functions here at our home. You can control lights and other appliances for a few dollars per device. Even the wireless cameras are cheap.

 

[tribdog]

x10 gives you brain tumors

 

[Pengwuino]

x10 gives you brain tumors

You're giving me a brain tumor :grumpy:

 

[tribdog]

okay so it doesn't give you a tumor. it does make your testicles sore though

 

[Pengwuino]

okay so it doesn't give you a tumor. it does make your testicles sore though

it sure does

 

[tribdog]

Id rather have the tumor

 

[hitssquad]

Compact fluorescents vs efficient lights

(even with CF our ceiling lights still take up 45 watts each).

Compact fluorescent lights are not very efficient. Try T5 and Super T8.

google.com/search?q=%22super+t8%22+efficient

 

[Pengwuino]

Compact fluorescent lights are not very efficient. Try T5 and Super T8.
google.com/search?q=%22super+t8%22+efficient

I don't live in an office

 

[tribdog]

you do when you are there

 

[hitssquad]

I don't live in an office.

Linear fluorescent luminaires can be installed anywhere. T5 linear tubes come in lengths as short as 6 inches.
bulbbarn.com/main.aspx?pagefrom=0&sgrp=3-27&bbaff=168999

 

[Pengwuino]

I'm not buying until they have a bulb-setup. I'm still waiting for CF's to start mass-producing the bulb-enclosed type. I know Ikea sells some but id burn down a store before i bought from one.

 

[tribdog]

Linear fluorescent luminaires can be installed anywhere. T5 linear tubes come in lengths as short as 6 inches.

so does pengwuino

 

[Pengwuino]

so does pengwuino

waddle waddle

 

[ShawnD]

Doesn't matter how efficient fluorescent bulbs are, they hurt my eyes. They also tend to make people look very tired and a lot uglier than they really are. May be great for a room you don't plan to be comfortable in, such as a garage or your laundry room, but they don't belong in my bedroom or the room with the TV.

*edit
yes even the ones that fit into normal bulb sockets. You can put whatever kind of coating on the outside you want but that never changes the fact that it's a fluorescent bulb.

 

[hitssquad]

Improving fluorescent lights with electronic ballasts and rare-earth phosphors

fluorescent bulbs [...] hurt my eyes.

Because of the flicker or because of the color? The flicker has been addressed by way of high-frequency electronic ballasts.
http://energyoutlet.com/res/lighting/t8.html

Electronic ballasts offer lots of advantages, such as no flicker, less heat, much less noise

Color has also been addressed in newer tubes by using rare-earth phosphors. Look for tubes that have high CRI ratings and low color-temperature ratings:

T8 and T5 lamps achieve both improved color rendering and high efficacy by employing rare-earth phosphors. The correlated color temperature (CCT) and color rendering index (CRI) of the lamps is controlled by varying the selection of phosphors. Like T12 lamps, T8 lamps are available in a variety of color temperatures, including warm (3000 K), neutral (3500 K), cool (4100 K), and very cool (5000 K). “Full Spectrum” lamps are typically 5000K or higher, and emit 10 to 20% of their output in the form of UV light. The CRI of T8 and T5 lamps can be specified from 70 to as high as the mid-90’s. Every lamp manufacturer has a product coding system denoting CRI, which may require a catalog to decipher. For great lighting quality, specify a CRI of at least 80.

 

[zoobyshoe]

"...at least 80." I'll make a note.

 

[ShawnD]

Because of the flicker or because of the color?

It's the color among other things.

Fluorescent lights never seem to cast shadows.
When I'm in a school or office building, there are no shadows anywhere. The light is coming from directly above me, just like every other kind of light, but there's no shadow. Because of this lack of contrast, I can't see things worth crap. Instead of comparing light against no light which would give excellent definition (notice how black and white photos are very defined), I'm comparing white against blue, or white against yellow, or white against off-white. How can anybody see anything other than black against white? It makes everything blurry. In a hallway with fluorescent lighting I can't see peoples faces from more than 5 feet away. Outside in the sunlight, or next to a huge fire (at night), I can very clearly see faces at least 20 feet away.

Fluorescent lighting gives a lack of depth perception.
With a lack of resolution comes a lack of depth perception. How can you tell how far away something is when it's blurry? Have a nearsited friend with a prescription of at least 5 take off their glasses, then you try to throw them a tennis ball from 20 feet away. Can they catch it? They most likely didn't catch it, because they had no perception of how far away the ball was, because the ball had no resolution to it. Lack of contrast and resolution lead to lack of depth perception.

It's basically all caused by the fluorescent lights giving off whitish light. White light makes things appear their real color, so you'll see more colors but they'll blend (blur) together. Tinted light, such as the light from incandescent bulbs, puts everything towards more of a greyscale with fewer colors, but everything appears very well defined.
I would much rather have definition over color.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Shawn, I think you may have some condition that greatly exaggerates the differences between fluorescent light and other kinds. It doesn't render anything blurry for me.

If I specifically pay attention to it, it seems more "artificial" than other kinds, but I have none of the problems you have with the shadows and contrast, and everything seems perfectly sharp. Colors just seem slightly different. Not really enough to mention.

 

[Evo]

We had a master lighting control in my parents house back in the late fifties. My dad put up a switch next to the master bedroom that controlled all the lights in the house. There was a dial where you could select the room and then turn off the light to that room. My mom could turn off lights in other rooms from that switch. There wasn't a panel where you could see which lights were on, but that has been available for some time now.

 

[ShawnD]

Shawn, I think you may have some condition that greatly exaggerates the differences between fluorescent light and other kinds. It doesn't render anything blurry for me.
If I specifically pay attention to it, it seems more "artificial" than other kinds, but I have none of the problems you have with the shadows and contrast, and everything seems perfectly sharp. Colors just seem slightly different. Not really enough to mention.

The shadows thing may be just me, but the blurriness isn't. Blue light scatters 16x as much as red light does; that's a bad thing and it makes seeing more difficult.
The reason fluorescent lighting seems artificial is because blue light, in a sense, isn't natural. Why is the sky blue? Because blue light scatters in the atmosphere. The light that reaches the ground still has some blue in it, but the amount has been greatly reduced.

 

[zoobyshoe]

The shadows thing may be just me, but the blurriness isn't. Blue light scatters 16x as much as red light does; that's a bad thing and it makes seeing more difficult.
The reason fluorescent lighting seems artificial is because blue light, in a sense, isn't natural. Why is the sky blue? Because blue light scatters in the atmosphere. The light that reaches the ground still has some blue in it, but the amount has been greatly reduced.

Natural or not, it doesn't produce any blurriness for me. Everything looks as sharp to me under florescent light as it does under other light. I don't think the effect it has on you is universal to all people. I've never had anything I could describe as a "problem" with fluorescent light, despite being able to tell the difference between it and other kinds. I have, though, heard many, many accounts of people who have various kinds of unpleasant experiences with it, and won't use it if they don't have to.

 

[Danger]

Is it just me, or does anyone else here look to see if a light's on or off before leaving? That's like those women (you know who you are) who ***** about falling into the toilet because a guy left the seat up.

 

[ShawnD]

Nah, only the older generation does that. The younger ones like me are brainwashed early on to turn everything off before leaving the room. It's like second nature. I love it .

 

[Pengwuino]

Nah, only the older generation does that. The younger ones like me are brainwashed early on to turn everything off before leaving the room. It's like second nature. I love it .

I guess I am impervious to brainwashing based on how much crap is left on downstairs. It really helps on those nights where you accidently fall asleep on a couch or something for a few hours and wake up at 3am and hav eno idea what is going on. Going upstairs groggy and stupified as hell wouldn't be that bad if you just had one panel that you could just slap to turn everything off instead of hopin gto have hte presence of mind to turn everything off on your way up.

 

[Moonbear]

I don't really understand the difficulty of turning off the lights in each room as you exit it.

I have similar trouble as ShawnD with things not looking right under fluorescent lighting. Everything looks dim to me...maybe it's a lack of contrast, I don't know, but I don't like dim lighting. I don't like those incandescent lightbulbs that make everything look blue either. I don't notice any flicker except on ones that are going bad, but then it drives me bonkers.

 

[Danger]

I wonder if ShawnD's and Moonbear's problem might be a form of colour-blindness. Fluorescent lighting has a somewhat different spectrum from incandescent. Maybe something's missing that decreases their observed luminosity.