'Tis the Season to be ... Miserly?

Who feel Bob River’s 12 Pains of Christmas should be the new National Anthem? Your wife is driving you crazy with her nagging about decorating the outside of the house, wanting the decorations for the inside of the house out of the garage and you know right then, there goes your weekend of relaxing with a beer and watching the game.

You just know the lights are going to be a tangled jumbled up mass of wires, broken or burned out bulbs. The decorations are going to be the very bottom box of that leaning tower terror in the farthest dustiest corner of the garage. Careful now... make sure that groan you are dying to make does not come out, or you will be assaulted with a scathing lecture so ferocious you will wish you had just said “yes dear” no matter how much it killed  you.

Now while I can’t do much about the leaning tower of terror; I can offer a solution to the lights. Not only can get you out of detangle, bulb checking detail, I can make you look like a rocket scientist, environmentalist, illustrious designer and all around good guy.

Here’s the thing, you know those lights you inherited from your Grandma and your wife’s Grandma and your next door neighbours Grandmas not to mention the ones you picked up at Value Village because they were cheap? They are not going to cut it anymore. So there, I have put an end to the torture of detangling, bulb checking chore in one felled swoop.

Before you get all defensive, allow me to rationalize this for you. Incandescent lights, (Grandma’s inheritance) they are electricity suckers. That is not an understatement either. L.E.D lights (Light Emitting Diodes told you I could make you look like a rocket scientist) are the way to go. These are a great way to update your look, give the old nest curb appeal, join the Green Revolution, and get you out of light detangling detail.

There there now, I know you’re picturing your hard earned cash with wings right about now, but check out these statistics and I am sure that you will have no choice but agree, it’s time to move on up.

Let’s compare Incandescent to L.E.D

(*In Ontario, the average cost of Electricity is $0.625 per KWH)

http://www.oeb.gov.on.ca/OEB/For+Consumers/Understanding+Your+Bill+Rates+and+Prices/Electricity+Prices+in+Ontario

Incandescent

The traditional outdoor larger light that you outline the house in is a C9 bulb.

C9: 7watts per bulb

Kilowatt conversion: 0.007 KW / bulb

Cost per hour: $0.044* per bulb per hour

So, if you had 100 of these old C9 bulbs (4 strands of 25 lights) on your home,

100 Light bulbs: 0.007 KW/ bulb x 100 bulbs= 0.7KW x $0.625/KWH= $4.38/ hour

The average homeowner leaves the lights on for 6 hours those 100 lights will cost: $26.28 per night.

L.E.D.

The same size C9 bulb in L.E.D. factors out like this.

C9: 0.08 watts per bulb

Kilowatt conversion: 0.00008 / bulb

Cost per bulb: $0.0005* per bulb per hour

100 bulbs: 0.00008 KW/ bulb x 100 bulbs= 0.008KW x $0.625/KWH= $.50 per hour

The average homeowner leaves the lights on for 6 hours those 100 lights will cost: $3.00 per night for a savings of $23.28 per night, those lights have paid for themselves in 1 night.

Are you convinced? I was, while the initial cost is definitely more than the incandescent, in the end, it saves a ton of electricity, making you an environmentalist. With all the neat shapes and colours that L.E.D. lights have to offer, you have just become an illustrious designer, and this year, there will be no lights to untangle and test, just do not forget to recycle the empty boxes.

published 2 years ago

cookie67

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