Henry Rifle Forums

Another thread got me thinking about lighting. My electric bill is too high and I want to reduce it. I have new Energy Star appliances coming and that will help. My biggest consumption will be from lighting. To combat PTSD I turn on almost every light in the house thinking lights are not big consumers like electric heating and motors.

This morning I went around adding up all the lighting wattage and was shocked! First I added it up using tungsten and it was more that 4,000 watts I could be consuming. Halogen was lightly better. Then I added everything up if I used LED everywhere. I could illuminate the house for about 500 watts. Currently I have all three types so my actual usage is somewhere in between.

The problem I have with LEDs is they flicker even with the correct dimmer if I install them in old fixtures. LEDs bought in their old special fixture don’t seem to flicker. So now what do I do? Some of my fixtures are antiques and can not be duplicated.

This Art Deco chandelier is from the 1930’s.

Gene, I have changed out all light bulbs in my house & shop with
LEDs. Some fixtures as well. There are more efficient for sure.
They can be sensitive to voltage. In you antique fixtures, you might check the electrical contacts, to see if they are clean. A little sandpaper can brighten them up. Switches could also have the same issue.
4000 watts will show up on your bill as 4 kilowatts.of course, every little bit helps, 4K isn't all that much off the bill.
Plus LEDs give a better light.

Leave the Chandelier as is and change as many of the others as you can. My 5th wheel is all led and I love it

LED is the way to go, they last a very long time also. 90% of electrical issues are from poor ground, the money your using it may be worth having an electrician inspect your house, it only hurt$ once and can save bookoo bucks in the long run

The chandelier already has an LED in it. It is a major headache to change the bulb up that high so I went with a long lasting bulb. It flickers sometimes but a quick adjustment stops it.

Other LED lights or circuits or whatever flickers far to much. Halogen and tungsten on the same circuits do not. The comment about not a clean contact is something I suspected in one circuit. Trying to find the weak spot hasn’t been easy as I haven’t found it yet.

Tungsten is by far the best lighting in my opinion. The track lighting is tungsten and the downlighting is LED. This is on high and the LED burns at 3000 and the tungsten burns at 2700. Then on low the LED still burns at 3000 but the tungsten is much lower and warmer. This is a natural occurrence back from the cave days. I ordered some new fixtures for the laundry room and they are LED. They will be new installed and not replacements. The current Halogen lights will remain in place as accent lights.

we've replaced all of the OEM standard filament bulbs in our camper with LED's .... in doing so what we've learned is they give off more light while burning less current .... granted, ours are 12V but I tend to believe the same would be true for 110's

90% of our home lighting is LED and the rest florescent. Switiching to LED lighting saved us a bunch of money off of our electric bill. The remaining florescent lighting will be replaced with LED once the florescents go bad and need to be replaced since I want to get our money's worth from what we spent on the florescent fixtures and bulbs. I have LED kits already purchased and in hand for when the replacement time comes.

JEBar wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 12, 2021 3:32 pm

we've replaced all of the OEM standard filament bulbs in our camper with LED's .... in doing so what we've learned is the give off more light while burning less current .... granted, ours are 12V but I tend to believe the same would be true for 110's

LEDs use about 10% of the energy as tungsten. They burn cooler also. A concern here in the summer.

rugrat wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 12, 2021 3:44 pm

90% of our home lighting is LED and the rest florescent. Switiching to LED lighting saved us a bunch of money off of our electric bill. The remaining florescent lighting will be replaced with LED once the florescents go bad and need to be replaced since I want to get our money's worth from what we spent on the florescent fixtures and bulbs. I have LED kits already purchased and in hand for when the replacement time comes.

Im hoping to get to 90% in the next month. Also thinking of replacing the garage lights. Currently only about half the tubes work.

Well before I retired the company owner changed over all the shop florescent lights to led lights in the shop. It made a huge difference in the shop as far as brightness goes.

I've got almost all of my lighting changed to led. Have a lot of outdoor lighting and if they were not led's I know I would be overloading one of my outdoor 20amp circuits.

Save some on power bills using led's but since our rate here is only 2.7¢@ kWh it's not a lot.

As soon as we go green Im sure you guys in Wash will be savin money then.

All LED's here as it was part of my home solar package. The LED shop lights are the way to go for a lot of light in the shop for pennies to run them.
My electric bill has been just the meter fee...7.99 a month since April 2020 and total electric except the natural Gas central heat.
Now I will have a larger bill for this month due to the winter season daylight reduction. Things will start to swing the other way now.

BigAl52 wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 12, 2021 6:11 pm

As soon as we go green Im sure you guys in Wash will be savin money then.

Most of Washington's rates are closer to the national average at about $.10 per kWh. Wenatchee is in one of the 3 counties that have PUD's (non-profit) that own their own dams on the Columbia.

dave77 wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 12, 2021 8:12 pm

BigAl52 wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 12, 2021 6:11 pm

As soon as we go green Im sure you guys in Wash will be savin money then.

Most of Washington's rates are closer to the national average at about $.10 per kWh. Wenatchee is in one of the 3 counties that have PUD's (non-profit) that own their own dams on the Columbia.

I will be getting about $300 in rebates from Puget Sound Energy (PSE). Most will be from buying new Energy Star appliances and the rest from LED lighting.

All 18 of my downlights are LED as well as all major fixed lighting. Only a few accent lights aren’t switched over.

I went from 4,000 watts to about 500 if I turned them all on at once.

fortyshooter wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 12, 2021 7:43 pm

All LED's here as it was part of my home solar package. The LED shop lights are the way to go for a lot of light in the shop for pennies to run them.
My electric bill has been just the meter fee...7.99 a month since April 2020 and total electric except the natural Gas central heat.
Now I will have a larger bill for this month due to the winter season daylight reduction. Things will start to swing the other way now.

Nice home!

fortyshooter wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 12, 2021 7:43 pm

All LED's here as it was part of my home solar package.

are your solar panels mounted directly on top of your home's shingles .. .. back when Jimmy Carter was president we installed the panels on our roof that heated water .... they worked fine for a long time but eventually had to be removed when we had to replace the shingles

Yesterday I replaced a a halogen bulb with an LED and to my amazement the flickering LEDs stopped flickering. I think the halogen lights conflict with the LEDs. Long story short is now only one of the two circuits that flickered is still flickering. I still have a few more LEDs to install to get to the 500 watts as noted above.

My next two big consumers that I can control is the clothes dryer and dishwasher. The dryer is being replaced by a 2 in 1 high-efficiency washer/dryer. The dishwasher needs to be ran full and not half full. The problem is it takes too long to fill it and it stinks if I wait too long.

Thanks to all that pointed out my rates aren’t all that high and I can get my bill under control. I guess $300 a month isn’t all that bad for electricity and natural gas.

JEBar wrote: ↑

Sat Feb 13, 2021 1:44 pm

fortyshooter wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 12, 2021 7:43 pm

All LED's here as it was part of my home solar package.

are your solar panels mounted directly on top of your home's shingles .. .. back when Jimmy Carter was president we installed the panels on our roof that heated water .... they worked fine for a long time but eventually had to be removed when we had to replace the shingles

They are mounted on an aluminum rack system with a good size air gap between the panels and the roof. My roof is about 10 years old and down the road when it needs replacing the panels will have to be removed. If you have enough open space without tree shade you can field mount them.

Sir Henry wrote: ↑

Sat Feb 13, 2021 1:09 pm

fortyshooter wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 12, 2021 7:43 pm

All LED's here as it was part of my home solar package. The LED shop lights are the way to go for a lot of light in the shop for pennies to run them.
My electric bill has been just the meter fee...7.99 a month since April 2020 and total electric except the natural Gas central heat.
Now I will have a larger bill for this month due to the winter season daylight reduction. Things will start to swing the other way now.

Nice home!

Thanks! It was built in 1962 as were many others in the neighborhood.