19 Nov, 2009, David Haley wrote in the 41st comment:
Votes: 0
Brinson said:
The savings becomes less as bulb number in house increase

Why? Presumably the savings are per-bulb, not per-household, assuming equal usage of all bulbs (and that you would use CFLs and incandescent bulbs the same way).
19 Nov, 2009, Brinson wrote in the 42nd comment:
Votes: 0
The equation involves the power savings overcoming initial expenditure of the bulbs. If you spend $2 on the bulb rather than $.50, then you have to use enough power to save $1.50. If you have 10 bulbs in your house, then the difference is $15. If you run your lights for 5 minutes a day, its obviously not going to result in as much saving as someone who runs them 24 hours a day. At 5 minutes, it would actually be a loss. But I don't think that's likely to be anyone's case. Any reasonable situation results in savings, though different amounts depending.
19 Nov, 2009, David Haley wrote in the 43rd comment:
Votes: 0
That doesn't explain why the savings isn't per-bulb; in fact you seem to have just argued that things scale linearly with the number of bulbs. Now you're talking about the total time that lights are left on. I'm still not sure why having more bulbs will change the savings per-bulb. (Obviously as the number of bulbs go up, you're spending more money, but the amount saved per bulb per switch from incandescent to CFL should remain constant per bulb and scale linearly as you add bulbs.)
19 Nov, 2009, Brinson wrote in the 44th comment:
Votes: 0
Both formulas are linear, for CFL and for normal.

The linear formulas have different slopes, therefore the difference in any two arbitrary values does not correlate in a linear fashion.

Basically, while they both are linear, the plot of one minus the other would not be linear, because the difference changes.

y = Cost of Normal Per Year - Cost of CFL per Year

And each one is Cost of Electricity + Cost of Bulb.

Basically (((365xNORMALWATTSxHOURS)/1000 * NORMALBULBS * ELECTRICCOST) + (NORMALPRICE * NORMALBULBS)) - (((365*CFLWATTSxHOURS)/1000 * CFLBULBS * ELECTRICCOST) + (CFLPRICE * CFLBULBS)) is how its entered into excell, with my shit in caps as cells. That's not a copy and paste, might be a mistake somewhere in my typing, but its how I'm calculating.
19 Nov, 2009, David Haley wrote in the 45th comment:
Votes: 0
Brinson said:
Basically, while they both are linear, the plot of one minus the other would not be linear, because the difference changes.

This is, well, mathematically incorrect.

Let E1 and E2 be two linear equations for lines in the plane. Therefore,
E1 is of the form: y = m1 * x + c1
and
E2 is of the form: y = m2 * x + c2

If we take the difference, E2 - E1, we end up with:

y = (m2*x + c2) - (m1*x + c1)

which is:

y = (m2 - m1) * x + (c2 - c1)

which is the form of a linear equation.

When you have two lines, even with different slopes, you can easily compute the (linear) slope of their difference: it is given above as m2 - m1 (in other words, the slope of the difference is the difference of the slopes).

The point of all this is simply to state that the savings per bulb will not diminish as you add more bulbs, because the price per hour remains constant per bulb and therefore the difference in price per bulb will also remain constant.
19 Nov, 2009, Brinson wrote in the 46th comment:
Votes: 0
I'll use an example

y = 5x + 3

y = 9x + 2

y = (5x + 3) - (9x + 2)

I'll sample random points for Y, 0, 1, 2 , 3.


X|Y
0|1
1|-3
2|-7
3|-11

Obviously, the relationship is not linear, which can be seen easily be graphing the points. Don't know the theory behind it, not a mathematician. I'm an econ major, I know just enough math to suffice for my applications and models, and I know in this one, the result is not linear.

Edit:
Bah, I got up to early. Sorry. Yes, tge equation is linear. What it is not, however, is a slope of 1, which means that the difference changes at different levels. That's what I meant all along, but just rolled out of bed and had a hard time voicing it.
19 Nov, 2009, David Haley wrote in the 47th comment:
Votes: 0
That relationship is perfectly linear, with a slope of -4 and an offset of 1. You can see that each increment of x drops y by 4, with y at 1 when x is at 0. Perhaps you're not using 'linear' in the mathematical sense.
19 Nov, 2009, Brinson wrote in the 48th comment:
Votes: 0
David Haley said:
That relationship is perfectly linear, with a slope of -4 and an offset of 1. You can see that each increment of x drops y by 4, with y at 1 when x is at 0. Perhaps you're not using 'linear' in the mathematical sense.


You're right that its linear. I editted my post. What I meant was that the difference between Y changes at a different rate than X, which is a linear equation with a slope not equal to 1. This results in different savings rates at different usage rates. And, at certain usage rates, Y becomes negative.
19 Nov, 2009, Runter wrote in the 49th comment:
Votes: 0
Mudder said:
We should all be clear: Turning light bulbs on and off limiting the life of a bulb is not limited to CFL. In fact I didn't actually know it applied to CFLs until now. It definitely shortens the life of incandescent bulbs though. It's actually what causes them to wear out in the first place.

Quix: Not to sound like a jerk… But $3 a bulb is nothing, especially when it will actually save you money. I've never had a CFL wear out yet, I replaced all of mine two years ago.


It applies more to CFLs than incandescents. In fact, you can bring the life of a CFL down to near the same life as an incandescent by doing certain things. Turning it on and off constantly is one of the key contributing factors.
19 Nov, 2009, Scandum wrote in the 50th comment:
Votes: 0
If you have a closet light you're probably better off going incandescent, especially since CFLs take a minute to reach full luminance.

Regardless, I think we should bring political discussion back, it was a lot more entertaining than people going back and forth over freaking light bulbs.
19 Nov, 2009, David Haley wrote in the 51st comment:
Votes: 0
You're welcome to spend your time reading threads more relevant to your interests, Scandum, and ignore the ones that bore you.
19 Nov, 2009, quixadhal wrote in the 52nd comment:
Votes: 0
*sings*
Roxanne…. you don't have to put on the red light.
Those days are over, you don't have to SELL your body to the night!



Hey, where's Crat? He missed his 50.
19 Nov, 2009, Fizban wrote in the 53rd comment:
Votes: 0
Scandum said:
If you have a closet light you're probably better off going incandescent, especially since CFLs take a minute to reach full luminance.

Regardless, I think we should bring political discussion back, it was a lot more entertaining than people going back and forth over freaking light bulbs.


Wait, I thought it ended up that they were allowed, but only in the one specific forum?
19 Nov, 2009, Runter wrote in the 54th comment:
Votes: 0
Fizban said:
Scandum said:
If you have a closet light you're probably better off going incandescent, especially since CFLs take a minute to reach full luminance.

Regardless, I think we should bring political discussion back, it was a lot more entertaining than people going back and forth over freaking light bulbs.


Wait, I thought it ended up that they were allowed, but only in the one specific forum?



Yes, but some people want public spectacles. Not really discussion.
19 Nov, 2009, Mudder wrote in the 55th comment:
Votes: 0
Scandum said:
If you have a closet light you're probably better off going incandescent, especially since CFLs take a minute to reach full luminance.

When was the last time you purchased a CFL? They are indistinguishable from an incandescent in both looks and in time to turn on. Yes, older versions produced a harsher light, hummed, and even took awhile to turn on. Those are older versions.

In other countries, namely New Zealand, they are indeed slightly behind. However in USA at least, you will find difficulty in finding a CFL that doesn't immediately produce peak light within seconds, just like an incandescent.

I will give you, however, that the larger more heavy duty CFLs, do tend to take longer to turn on than "normal" bulb replacements. However how many of those do you have in the first place? (And I haven't been CFL shopping in a year, so this may have also been improved)
19 Nov, 2009, Tyche wrote in the 56th comment:
Votes: 0
Scandum said:
Regardless, I think we should bring political discussion back, it was a lot more entertaining than people going back and forth over freaking light bulbs.


Well start one then over in the controversial topics section.
If it's interesting enough I'll flame ya. ;-P

Anything about 0bamao would be a good time.
20 Nov, 2009, Scandum wrote in the 57th comment:
Votes: 0
Mudder said:
When was the last time you purchased a CFL? They are indistinguishable from an incandescent in both looks and in time to turn on. Yes, older versions produced a harsher light, hummed, and even took awhile to turn on. Those are older versions.

Not too long ago, and I still observe a gradual increase in brightness, especially in my 150 watt equivalent bulb. I saw some LED lamps recently, and had to do some math to figure out they were only 15 watt equivalents, so I guess it'll be a while for that technology to take over. I did some quick googling and Australia will ban the incandescent bulb in 2010, and the US in 2014.

Tyche said:
Well start one then over in the controversial topics section.
If it's interesting enough I'll flame ya. ;-P

Anything about 0bamao would be a good time.

Probably easier to take it elsewhere.
20 Nov, 2009, Koron wrote in the 58th comment:
Votes: 0
My CFLs take something like two thirds of a second to turn on, at which point they provide pretty damn adequate lighting. I bought my box of them around a year ago, and I've only had one go out in a house that was in all likelihood wired by an epileptic monkey. If I'm paying a little bit more per bulb, it's still worth the price for avoiding the hassle of disassembling light fixtures every month, because that's about how often it feels like I have to replace the Edison standard.

And on the subject of LED bulbs, I am eagerly awaiting their rise in popularity. I have the completely unscientific belief that they'll make me have to replace bulbs even less and that excites me.
20 Nov, 2009, Tyche wrote in the 59th comment:
Votes: 0
Scandum said:
I did some quick googling and Australia will ban the incandescent bulb in 2010, and the US in 2014.


I had no idea there was a ban. That's just plain stupid. Now I'm going to have to buy a bunch and hide them with my ammo.
20 Nov, 2009, David Haley wrote in the 60th comment:
Votes: 0
I don't think it's actually a ban of all incandescent bulbs, but rather a requirement of luminosity per watt of some sort. There are newer tech incandescent bulbs that meet the new standards, as I understand it, and as I alluded to earlier things are improving "as we speak".
40.0/66