We don’t realize how much the lighting in our homes affects our everyday lives—until a lamp blows out and we’re left stumbling in the dark, or we notice how strange we look under an old fluorescent light. Good lighting is so important to how we view our lives and our homes that we don’t like accepting substitutes for that beautiful, incandescent amber glow. The warm tones remind us of cozy fireplaces, so we continue to pay the cheap price at the checkout, not realizing that the money we think we’re saving is catching up to us on our electric bills. It’s time to stop the unnecessary drain on funds as well as the drain on resources.
“If you have a hundred lights in your home, incandescents actually increase your air conditioning load. If you change them out with compact fluorescents, it can really make a difference,” says Carl Seville, owner of Seville Consulting, which incorporates green-building practices and EarthCraft renovations.
Make it compact
Right now, compact fluorescents (CFLs) are one of the most accessible ways to lower electricity bills. CFLs take up the same surface area as traditional bulbs, with the fluorescent tubing twisted into the bulb socket. Energy-Star-qualified CFLs use 66 percent less energy than standard incandescents and last four to 10 times longer. The bulbs give off the same amount of light (lumens) as incandescents but have lower wattage (energy used); therefore, if you want the equivalent of a 60-watt incandescent bulb, look for a CFL with an 800-lumen rating.
If you’re hesitant to use anything fluorescent, understand that today’s options for consumers have none of the awful buzzing and blinking of 20 years ago, and companies are making CFLs that have more of that familiar amber glow. “Using a warm color temperature (close to the 2,700 degrees Kelvin of an incandescent) and an electronic dimmable ballast that doesn’t hum or flicker makes all the difference,” says Randall Whitehead, author of seven books on residential and commercial lighting theory. You can use screw-based CFL bulbs in bedside lamps, energy-efficient fans, closets and pendant lighting.
In a study conducted by the Lighting Research Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York, with two sources of fluorescent and incandescent lighting sources in use but hidden at an energy-efficient show house, 90 percent of the participants surveyed said they would want the fluorescent lighting in their own homes. The majority also said the lighting made people look good. How’s that for a blind study?
Get the LED out
As we become more accepting of CFLs and other lighting sources, such as LEDs (light-emitting diodes, a semi-conductor), research into efficiency and color display of both is accelerating at the same rate as computer research has since the advent of silicon, another revolutionary semiconductor.
In the 1960s, inventors at Texas Instruments and General Electric developed red, blue and green LEDs, which have been widely used in airplanes, stoplights and other industrial lighting. It was not until more recently that Shuji Nakamura, now a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, made white and blue LED lighting efficient enough that it would appeal to homeowners. In September, he will accept the 2006 Millennium Technology Prize, a Finnish award for significant quality-of-life inventions.
Currently, another researcher at the Lighting Research Center is working on a method that will make high-efficiency white LEDs up to the equivalent of 85 lumens per watt, which should be available to consumers in about two years. In the next 10 years, LEDs will become more efficient than CFLs. In the meantime, LEDs are still four times more efficient than incandescents. Currently, LED lighting costs $20 or more per light, but each one lasts from 50,000 to 100,000 hours, making them ideal for outdoor lighting and under-counter lighting. Companies such as Philips and Sylvania, as well as other research firms, are developing LEDs that operate by touch and fit into traditional lamps and pendant lighting.
On the horizon
While you wait for technology to catch up with your pocketbook, consider compensating your indoor lighting with daylighting, which is the use of sunlight in the home. In his energy-efficient EarthCraft House, Seville put a medium-sized skylight directly over his home’s open staircase, eliminating the need for artificial light during the day and cutting down on the use at night. He saves even more in the summer, when the sun isn’t fully down until 9 p.m.
While energy efficiency is top priority, daylighting your home for overall health isn’t a bad idea, either, according to Dan Russell, a consultant with Georgia Solar Lighting and Solatube, a patented version of solar tubing that harnesses sunlight from the roof through a highly reflective design. “We have statistics supporting increased productivity in the workplace, increased math and reading scores in schools by 7-21 percent, higher sales in retail outlets using natural daylight, less employee turnover, and the list goes on,” Russell says.
While buying energy-efficient bulbs or installing skylights in your home may seem like pricey options right now, remember that over time they will help you save money and the environment. |
