By Chris Walton 18/6/09
Reviewing your homes lighting is an easy way to save money and to reduce your greenhouse gas emissions.
Most homes are fitted with energy sucking light fittings and light bulbs which can be simply replaced with energy efficient versions.
The Incandescent Truth
The old traditional light fittings use a lot of power with standard bulbs ranging from 60 – 100Watts. New efficient bulbs can get down to 8Watts – an incredible saving that over many light fittings in your home will add up to tonnes of CO2 and many free lunches over time.
Our Living Laboratory Home at The Ecovillage at Currumbin, with all of its lights on both inside and out uses only 275Watts – that is just 3 of the old style light bulbs! This has been simply achieved by using compact fluorescent and LED fittings throughout. Compact fluorescent bulbs – you have all seen these by now, the standard old light bulb base with squiggly spaghetti like compact fluorescent tubes. They come in all sorts of sizes and colours to replace the standard old bulb – warm and homely to crisp, bright and business like. They are now available everywhere and with bulbs generally ranging from 4 – 14Watt with a saving of around 80% of energy. These bulbs are touted to last from 8000 to 10000 hours many times that of a standard old bulb. At $4 to $10 each they are a much more cost effective long term option.
Halogens from Hell !
About 20 years ago the first halogen lights appeared mostly for commercial usage, they then invaded our homes turning our lounge and bedrooms into bright retail showrooms. The do produce a great light, but because they are spotlight focused you need many of them with 6 to 10 required in a standard room. At 30 – 50Watts per bulb and another 20% for the transformers if they are 12Volt, this lighting option is very expensive on the pocket and the environment. Spotlights also perforate your ceiling venting all the rooms warm in winter. As they use a lot of energy they also are very hot and heat rooms up. They can be replaced with off the shelf LED’s which are coming onto the market for this purpose.
Lite Lights
Like our waistlines, we should be watching the number of lights we use. Most homes are “over lit” – bring out the sunglasses! It is funny that when we want a special evening we turn the lights down low and create warm, intimate lighting. Get rid of the 14 bulbs and “task light” work and doing places like the kitchen and office desk and save energy and cost by putting fewer light fittings that create a warm ambience.
Stress and illness such as chronic fatigue syndromes are now being linked to too much light at night time.
Dark Sky Policy
Many municipalities in the USA and Europe have Dark Sky Policies – as does our own Ecovillage. This is where light sources are shaded so that there is no glare created by direct line of sight to bulbs. The objects in and around your home become lit and accentuated without the occupants and our neighbours continually blinded.
The outside 100Watt BBQ spotlight can be simply replaced with a 20Watt version which are much brighter.
The Australian Government is fazing out incandescent light globes so you will need to do this from the end of 2009.
Take a room by room inventory on your lighting fixtures and see how much you actually do use and how much you can save.
If you replace 12 incandescent lights with compact fluorescents you will save around 1 tonne of carbon dioxide each year and around $150 off your electric bill!
Lastly, it is not buildings that use energy it’s the residents – so turn off your lights when you aren’t using them and bank the savings – or spend them!
Make the most of natural lighting by clever design or installing sky lights and solar tubes.
Swap the standard 50Watt halogens down to 20Watt halogens for lower wattage models or better still LED which are now becoming available for this purpose. Put isolators above the recessed down lights to stop the heat loss.
Put movement and daylight sensors on outdoor lights. Use multiple switches rather than one turning on 6 at once.
About 10 times the life of the standard incandescent, LED’s have a life span of about 35000 to 50000 hours which makes them good value.
If you have the old large fluro dual tubes take one out – you probably don’t need the second one. Install energy efficient smaller T5 fluorescent fittings.
De lamping is a simple way to reduce costs. Get rid of or don’t use lights unless they are absolutely necessary.
This could be up to $300 to $500 in savings.
Gold Coast Bulletin Column #2 – 27/6/09
