When leaving the house in the morning, the two pretty pigeons (the other ones are stupid because they shit everywhere and they are incredibly dumb ;-) were looking for a new place to rent for this year's nest making and egg-laying. They kind of failed miserably last year. The birds in our garden are really showing off the term "bird brain" sometimes.I can however only love them as they are truly innocent and don't screw up like humans do.
We put on a new lock yesterday which increased the quality of our lives by 500%. It was getting extremely aggravating having to put the lock on because it was not co-operating at all anymore.
At my work, someone is turning off the lights in the toilet all the time. I think I know who it is. The lights are fluorescent tube lamps and I always thought you had to leave those on because turning them off and on again costs so much energy.
I present you with three links as proof that this believe is utter crap. The high energy consumption on start up lasts less than a second. Leaving the light on for 2 seconds already uses more power than restarting the light.
So, if you want to save energy, turn your fluorescent lamps OFF if you're not using them!
Links:
- General info on how fluorescent lights work on Wikipedia
- Explanation 1 on Ask a scientist
- Explanation 2 on South Australia Government's site (PDF, text at bottom)
- Explanation 3 on Consumer Energy Center
I will turn the lights off from now on as well AND tell my colleagues about it :-)
We put on a new lock yesterday which increased the quality of our lives by 500%. It was getting extremely aggravating having to put the lock on because it was not co-operating at all anymore.
At my work, someone is turning off the lights in the toilet all the time. I think I know who it is. The lights are fluorescent tube lamps and I always thought you had to leave those on because turning them off and on again costs so much energy.B U L L S H I T !
I present you with three links as proof that this believe is utter crap. The high energy consumption on start up lasts less than a second. Leaving the light on for 2 seconds already uses more power than restarting the light.
So, if you want to save energy, turn your fluorescent lamps OFF if you're not using them!
Links:
- General info on how fluorescent lights work on Wikipedia
- Explanation 1 on Ask a scientist
- Explanation 2 on South Australia Government's site (PDF, text at bottom)
- Explanation 3 on Consumer Energy Center
I will turn the lights off from now on as well AND tell my colleagues about it :-)
3 comments:
In season 4 episode 69 of Mythbusters they did the test with a.o. fluorescent lamps.
Through numerous tests, the MythBusters calculated that the power surge from turning on a light would only consume as much power as leaving it on for a fraction of a second (except for fluorescent tube lights; the startup consumed about 23 seconds worth of power). Furthermore, the wear and tear of turning the light on and off repeatedly did not reduce the bulb's total life expectancy enough to offset the increased electricity usage. Therefore, it is far more economical to turn a light off rather than leaving it on.
So here they have 23 seconds instead of a 2 second period. It still makes sense to turn off the FL if you're going away for more than 23 seconds, though.
@ Kees: I dunno where they get their numbers from. It depends a lot on the tubes I think.
I am glad to know this. I tend to leave the overhead fluorescent lights on in the kitchen several hours in the morning before I shut them off.
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