I remember seeing lots of stoplights in that condition in the winters years ago. Now, in my area anyway, they all have far better “hoods” around the lights to prevent this condition. The new “hoods” seem to work really well. They’re also acquiring shields around the periphery of the stoplight units as well, to reduce the “sun blindness” that occurs when the sun is right behind the light unit.
I’m not db but I have an opinion on that. NO.
Whenever you use a resource that is common to everyone, you are subject to limitations for the greater good. Just like watering restrictions…
Ooof, that sounds pretty Marxist to me. Is there a resource that is not common to everyone? That is the argument for lots of things like helmets, health insurance, and so on. Pretty hard to argue against that when big brother knows best.
At any rate my own confusing view is that I suspected some like Walmart were positioning themselves to profit from the ban by locking in Chinese manufacturing. Don’t know but sure seemed like it but maybe it was just the wacko EU again. I don’t know how many light bulbs I’ve got in the house but at least 100. So I bought a gross of both 60 and 100 watt. Since then I spent maybe $500 going to LEDs for some can lights, 60 and 100 watt bulbs, that are used most of the time. I recently bought $375 worth of LED lights for the garage to replace 11 100 watt bulbs.
So I’m into an investment close to a thousand bucks for light bulbs for heaven’s sake and still a couple thou to go I suspect. I like them and the price is coming down, but I’m not sure I’m going to live long enough to break even on them. I think the gov should stay out of it and if power companies or others care to push the cause with rebates and so on that’s fine, but the long arm of DC should stay out of it. Better products that make sense will win the day with out the gov’s help.
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Bing, I used to feel the same way. If you can afford it, why shouldn’t you be able to do it? Then I hung around some people that had more money than brains and did exactly as they pleased. Wasting anything and everything because they could. Then I started to think about it a little differently after that. Heck, I have a private well. I can afford to leave it run non-stop until the well runs dry. Then just punch a new, deeper hole. But what about my neighbors? Same with gasoline. Who cares if my truck gets 0.5 mpg if I can afford the gas, I’ll do as I please. But we do impact others with these choices. For energy conservation, it makes sense if we can stave off infrastructure changes to support an ever growing demand by doing some things that reduce waste. Yes, the new lamps cost more. But they last longer and use less energy…probably a wash in the grand scheme of things…
Yes I believe in conservation and shared responsibility for the overall good but there are limits and I don’t like unelected people telling me what to do. As a student of organization, I know the trend is to keep growing and growing unless checked.
Since you mentioned leaving the water running, its interesting to me that California is so gung ho on air quality issues but when it comes to their water shortages, they are content to let the crop and livestock farmers use the majority of the limited water resources. Never understood why they should be leaders in milk production at their own peril when there are areas of the country, such as Wisconsin, in a far better position and no water shortage. You have to look through the hype to get to the real politics of the issue I guess.
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" . . . the new lamps cost more. But they last longer . . ."
I can’t completely agree with that
Remember those CFL bullbs from a few years ago . . . the ones that were supposed to last longer?
Well, I’ve found that to definitely NOT be the case
I’m hoping these newer LED bulbs will actually last longer than incandescent
Found EXactly the same thing @db4690 The CFL’s were horrible in every way. Poor light color, long warm up and short lives. It took a few years for LED’s decrease prices and increase availability for me to buy those.
Just a comment about the whole inefficient incandescent argument - Yes, they use more energy to produce light. The byproduct of that inefficiency is heat. When I lived in Ohio that byproduct was exactly what I wanted. Winters are dark, I used the lights much more, I got heat from those lights my furnace did not have to provide. When I switched to CFL’s, that heat now had to come from my furnace. Did I really use less energy?? Did I reduce CO2??
Now I am in Florida. Excess heat from incandescent bulbs must be extracted by my AC. With LED’s, that AC load is decreased and so is my overall energy usage. Perfect scenario for CFL’s and LED’s and I have changed nearly all the lights in my home.
So is this whole mandate driven by California Greens that never need heat? Very likely. Overall, heating is a much higher user of energy. 10 outside to 70 degrees inside versus 95 degrees outside to 70 degrees inside. 60 degrees of heating versus 25 degrees of cooling. To me, it makes sense to use incandescent bulbs in cold climates.
The move to try to push people toward fluorescent and/or LED bulbs always puzzled me anyway. Fluorescent lamps contain mercury vapor. In a single lamp the amount is insignificant, but there are 250 million homes out there, each with perhaps 20 or more bulbs if half of us switched out bulbs to fluorescent, there’d be 2.5 billion bulbs out there containing mercury vapor. Fluorescent bulbs are supposed to be disposed of IAW hazmat requirements, but if only 20% got thrown in the trash that would mean 500 million bulbs releasing mercury vapor… and I seriously doubt if 80% of the users would dispose of them properly.
In short, it would seem to make more sense for an environmentally concerned agency to ban fluorescent bulbs in home use ratings than incandescent bulbs. But, I guess when your goal is to pander to a special interest group logic becomes irrelevant. 
The governments’ (local, state, federal) one-size-fits-all approach is very frustrating and sometimes counterproductive or devastating ($15/hour minimum wage, for example).
My former residence used fuel oil for the furnace. When outside temperatures dropped below -20 or -30, the fuel would gel and I would hear the furnace begin an on/off cycle. I’d place a 100w bulb at the tank spigot and it provided enough heat to solve the problem.
CSA
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You could do the same thing more effectively using heat tape wrapped around the pipe.
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“You could do the same thing more effectively using heat tape wrapped around the pipe.”
Thanks, I’m aware of that. I’ve used them. I should have explained. Some heat tapes draw quite a bit of juice (they heat a larger area (linear) than what I needed), I didn’t have one in an emergency, and I lived 20 miles from civilization and closed stores.
The first time I had the problem was about 2:00 a.m. and I was in bed and needed sleep before a 6:00 a.m. departure for work. The house was quite small and cooling fast. Think fast! I already had a trouble light, 100w bulb, and a cord. I was quite thankful that it worked.
CSA
Our community recycles flourescent and cfl bulbs, alkaline batteries not, any other battery yes.
Agree, the one-size-fits-all mentality from government is very frustrating and why local control is so very important. $15 and hour in San Francisco is a pittance but pretty darn good wages in Troy, Ohio.
In an HVAC class I took many moons ago, the reference for 1 adult in the room was equivalent to a 120 watt incandescent light bulb. AC loads included people, animals (2 watts for my lazy cats, I’d guess) and all the lighting and electrical loads likely to be used at peak. Not inconsequential but key to not oversizing AC units so they effectively de-humidify.
CSA, let me know if you need a couple 100 watt bulbs. I’ve got 12 dozen new ones and a bunch of used ones. I suspect I’m not going to need them as the years go on. I used to have 9 200 watt bulbs in the garage so thought I was really conserving when I went to 100 watt ones. Now with the 9 LEDs at 2400 lumans each, I can see again. I like a lot of light in the garage. I agree that heat tape really takes the juice compared to a light bulb.
Yeah sure everyone takes the CFLs for recycling but the problem is who actually takes them down for recycling? How many are dropped or burn up and are just thrown in the trash with the mercury still in them? Most hotels are loaded with them here and all over Europe. They never should have been marketed in my view and I’m glad to see the LEDs taking their place. Terrible light and an environmental hazard for the next gen to deal with.
I have a 15 ft run of heat cable that consumes less than 60 watts. It heats my ejector pump line that exits above grade and runs for 5 ft before diving down to the dry well feed lines. It is tie-wrapped to the underside of the pipe and pipe is covered by round pipe insulation. It keeps that line from freezing all winter and IT’S OUTSIDE where it gets to -10 below zero around these parts…
The cable is an improved design that has the same impedance no matter how long it is. It does not need a thermostat to control power consumption so it has no risk of fire if the cable shorts out.
I just bought a 4 ft LED bar for the kid’s playroom. It’s almost too bright at 4300k and only draws 48W!
I have functioning CFLs that are more than six years old. They were worth the extra expense, because they have lasted more than four times as long as an incandescent bulb.
I no longer have a single incandescent bulb in the house, and am replacing the CFL’s with LED bulbs as they fail.
Well, ok, I still have an incandescent somewhere in a drawer, it comes in handy when you need to dry out a drowned cell phone and a string of incandescent Christmas lights comes in handy to keep outdoor faucets from freezing. I just put the lights around the pipe and then put a bucket over them and plug them in, no worries, don’t need to let the water drip or anything like that. Good enough for any hard freeze that Texas weather throws at you.
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Just replaced 100w of incandescents with 12w of leds, payout in 9 months. Easy decision.
Waiting for the 8 year CFL in the garage to go…still waiting…
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My CFL bulbs have lasted 3-4 years tops
Some don’t even last that long
Not much improvement over incandescent, if you ask me
Higher price AND short lifespan, offset by slightly lower energy usage
2 negatives and 1 positive
Not exactly a win-win situation, if you ask me
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There is something else that these government bozos did not think of when they forced this energy efficiency crap down our throats, and that is power utility companies are going to raise rates in order to turn a profit since less electricity is being used. So what is the point of mandating all this energy efficiency stuff if the government does not impose a law against power companies that it be illegal to raise rates?
Just look at what Duke Power is doing to make the same profits!! The are raising rates to ridiculous levels. So in the end, you will not save any money at all! After all, power utility is a BUSINESS that needs profits not dropping down.
The same is true for gasoline. If all cars suddenly had 100 MPG with a 20 gallon gas tank, then gas will cost $9/gallon just so oil companies can keep the same profits (assuming rate of $2.25/gallon) every week that you go to get gas for a 27 MPG car if you traveled 540 miles every week. Or they will pay off the car companies to only install 5.4 gallon gas tanks, so you still have to get gas just as often as a car with a 20 gallon tank that has 27 MPG.