Every Light an Energy Saver

I have recently renovated my Brisbane house and being an eco-geek took the opportunity to make my lighting as energy efficient as I could afford and live with. Here is what I found and some tips if you are looking at the same thing.

A graduated scale for efficiency is here but this is heavily effected by cycle period and the fixture. You generally need more downlights than open bulbs. Some colours are more or less efficient. Frosted covers impact brightness.

I have avoided conventional dimmers as although they are very efficient in themselves, they make a halogen or conventional light bulb even more inefficient than normal. 50% brightness still uses 80% power due to the way filament bulbs work. They also don’t work with most fluorescent lighting.

I mostly stuck with Compact Fluorescent Lamps (CFL’s) and conventional Round Flouros.

These are the lights I reviewed here. I think they are great, a reflecting CFL downlight in a normal package. Warmup time is fine. As they are downlights I have to run a few, but it is a large area. They are broken into 4 banks, letting me light where I need. The colour is very white, working very well with my yellow walls to make the house feel bright. 18 in total use 270W compared to the 900W halogen bulbs would use.
The kids room light is used when we put them to bed. It’s a 5w Megaman CFL. Warmup time is very noticeable.
The TV room and lounge have a few up-lights for when soft reading lighting is needed. They are much more pleasant than the fluorescent Oysters on the ceiling. The bulb is a 7W CFL from Ikea. Warmup time is very noticeable.
In the toilet, pantry and my study I have gone for the newer high efficiency T5 circular electronic flourescent tubes in an oyster fitting. They start instantly flicker free, but are more expensive to buy.
The mirror light in the bathroom is a flouro in a suitable fitting.
Although not high efficiency, these angled IXL 275W heat lamps (4 of) are far more efficient in winter than a bar or fan heater. They provide instant radiant heat rather than having to heat the entire room.
These T9 Oysters are used in the parts of the house with lower ceilings. I would like to put electronic ballasts in them, but have hard a hard time finding some. Dimming on some would be nice. Megaman does one, but I can’t find a supplier in Australia.
My front door sensor uses a conventional 13w CFL. Nothing fancy here. It’s several years old and the cycling hasn’t hurt it a bit.
The one spot I haven’t managed to replace yet. They are 12V 20W AC bulbs with a driver circuit that wont energize with LED’s. I have to re-wire the rangehood, and that will void the warranty.
The sensor lights in the carport are just cheap linear fluorescent tubes. The short start cycles don’t seem to be hurting them. I tried an electronic starter, but they still flicker on startup. Another place for electronic ballasts.

That only leaves the Microwave, Oven and Fridge with incandescent bulbs. It’s defiantly do-able and pays for itself very quickly.

It is worth mentioning light Colour. I did a friends house with them and made the mistake of using the same colour bulbs as my house (Daylight – 5000K). It looked awful and very blue. Small cosy houses should use “Warm White”. Large open spaces, especially with yellow paint, benefit from “Daylight”.

Reading and bedside lamps are much more pleasant as “Warm White”.

Wikipedia References

1. Incandescent Bulbs
2. Fluorescent Bulbs
3. Compact Fluorescent Bulbs