Energy efficiency of CFLs

fluppet

Everyone seems to be promoting using CFLs (compact fluorescent light bulbs) instead of the usual tungsten filament (incandescent) bulbs in order to save energy. Surely incandescent bulbs release almost 100% of the electricity they consume as either light or heat, so if I converted my light bulbs to CFLs I would just have to turn-up the heating by the exact difference in energy comsumption between CFLs and incandescent bulbs, giving a net saving of zero?

stereo_steve

Thats how I see it! Of course during the summer you won't want your heat to be on....

Michael Collins

But you don't need heating in the summer?

Professor_Fink

The usual tungsten filament bulbs also emit large amounts of electromagnetic radiation _outside_ the visible range. This is essentially all wasted energy.

Michael Collins

Ah dammit I failed to read stereo_steve's reply properly. However Professor_Fink is indeed correct.

Also since people by and large won't turn their central heating thermostat down, it's still superflous heat - and watt per watt more expensive than burning the oil locally.

Hopefully in the near future LEDs will provide a decent amount of lumens to be a viable energy friendly alternative to incandescent bulbs while not giving out the harsh, horribe, horribe light the flourescents do...

Capt'n Midnight

You could wear night vision goggles and save a whole lot on lighting

Incandescent bulbs emit Infra-Red , say 50% of which goes to up the ceiling
a lot of heat is given off by convection and most of that goes up to the ceiling too

so no you aren't loosing a lot of heat unless you have great insulation or a way of mixing the air so ceiling heat isn't wasted.