Press & Media

Give Energy-Saving Products a Second Chance if Needed

September 15, 2002
Column No. 02-33

We recently put compact fluorescent light bulbs in several lamps in our home, and they’re doing a great job. How come I waited so long to do this? We finally found bulbs in a local hardware store that would fit into some lamps that we’ve had for years.

That’s the problem with many new technologies, and it’s nice to report that given time, most of them work out the kinks. For years, I’ve been telling people about the benefits of CFLs (compact fluorescent lamps) and how they save so much money and energy. But I haven’t been able to use them myself in some of our fixtures because the ones I’ve found have been so tall that they didn’t fit under the lampshade harps. Happily, I can now report that there are some new bulbs that fit just great.

Don’t give up on technologies if you’ve had some bad experiences or couldn’t get things to work the way you want them. For example, there are some great water flow restrictors that you can buy very cheaply that cut down on the flow of water in your shower and sinks. They’ll save lots of money in water costs, as well as reducing the energy used to heat water that is often wasted. I’ve talked to lots of people, though, who went out back in the ‘70s and bought some of those cheap little flow restrictors that looked like big washers and put them in their showers, reducing the water flow to a trickle. They quickly took them out and haven’t tried any water-saving devices since. They don’t know about the new products that work so well now that you often don’t even realize they’ve been installed.

I also know people who bought solar-powered lights for their garden or yard back in the ‘80s and absolutely hated them. They say there was so little light that they did a lousy job, and the ripped them out after a very short trial period. Many of these people don’t even want to hear about the advances in this technology that have given us many new products that give bright light, all night long if needed. But those products are available today and are easy to install and use absolutely no electricity, making them not only affordable but safe around water, children and pets.

I think solar water heating might fall into the same category as these other products. Back in the late '70s, President Carter signed into law a bill giving a 40 percent tax credit to people who bought solar water heaters, and thousands of them were sold before the credit expired at the end of 1985. Only problem is that many companies jumped into the solar market to make a quick buck, and lots of those systems failed very quickly, never delivering the water or energy savings that were promised. A lot of these memories continue to haunt the solar water heating industry today, even though tremendous technological advances and new components have given us the high-quality systems sold today that can be huge energy savers while working to expectations.

So give some of the energy-saving products a chance. I sure like my new CFLs. They use only a quarter of the electricity that incandescent bulbs do, so my energy bill ought to go down. They last seven times longer than incandescents, so I won’t be replacing them often, making them especially good in porch lights and other fixtures that are used a great deal and can be hard to reach when bulbs burn out. Like so many other products in the marketplace today, energy-saving ones are being developed all the time. Unlike most of these other products, though, energy-saving ones pay back their cost by lowering your monthly power bill

 

Written by Ken Sheinkopf
E-mail: sheinkopf@fsec.ucf.edu

NOTE TO EDITORS: Ken Sheinkopf is Associate Director of the Florida Solar Energy Center. For more information on energy efficiency and renewable energy, visit the Center’s web site at www.fsec.ucf.edu.