Sorry for the Bad Bradbury reference...
Today I continued my quest for electric power savings. First, I read the meter, hoping to see a big reduction even over last month and was disappointed. Depending on whether or not I count today in the math, I either show a reduction in daily kilowatt usage of 0.7% (not counting today) or 4.9% if I do count today. Since I did this about 9 a.m., I suspect the former is a more accurate figure.
I'd hoped for much better.
I my garage, (This Land) I'd installed three 8-foot fluorescent fixtures shortly after we moved in, two on the workshop side and one on the office side. I wired the one on the office side in series with an existing 4-foot fixture that's right over my desk. The short fixture worked weakly for a few days then never lit up again. Bad ballast, maybe? As the other lights are plenty bright, and I actually prefer it out, I never worried about it.
But was it drawing power?
So today I did a little experiment. I timed one spin of the dial on the meter with the lights off. 43 seconds. I timed it again with the lights on. 22 seconds. The garage lights speed the dial up by 21 seconds.
Then I unwired the old fixture and timed it again with the lights on. 31 seconds. This time the lights only speeded the dial by 12 seconds.
Now, as Diane was up and there were lights on upstairs and I can't be absolutely certain that exactly the sames lights were on or off upstairs when I did my experiment, I know these results could be meaningless. I did not control for all variables. (I could throw all the breakers but the garage light circuit, but Diane probably wouldn't appreciate it...)
But I think the same lights were on upstairs all three times, so I think my results might well matter. What the hell, if there are any savings at all from unwiring a light fixture that produced no light it's a good thing.
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4 comments:
Okay, so not totally scientific ... but, probably still a good move to unwire the light. Even if you don't have big savings again, at least you didn't just one good month and then shot right back up!
Good detective work, I'd say! We have a couple of floor lamps that can't take CFLs (horrible flicker) - one of the 150-watt bulbs just burned out and instead of replacing it we figure we should get a new floor lamp that accepts CFLs. I know if we get rid of those 2 floor lamps it's going to save us another chunk of change.
It's funny, this quest to use as little electricity as possible.
It is. It's funny the retraining I'm making myself do. For instance, our bathrooms have two light switches. The one closest to the door turns on three-bulb fixtures over the sink. The one away from the door turns on a single-bulb overhead fixture. It's habit to turn on the closest one, but I've been trying to retrain myself to use the single-bulb fixture when possible. Will it make a difference? Who knows. But it can't hurt, right?
Exactly! Now we try not to turn on the vanity lights over the sink (not CFL) unless we're actually doing makeup or shaving (I'll leave you all to wonder which of us does which), but after 13 years and 11 months of turning on ALL the bathroom lights, it's a hard habit to break.
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