Tuesday, March 3, 2009

5 Years? I Think Not

A couple of years ago I replaced all my light bulbs with those CFL jobs. Not because they're eco friendly, but because they're supposed to save you money on your energy bill and last five years. Well, I've yet to see any savings and I just had one go out on me after only two years. Which, no matter how you look at it, is awesome. I haven't had to buy light bulbs for two years, but if they say five it should last five.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Are those the ones you're supposed to call the Hazmat Team before you throw them out? :-p

Unknown said...

"Not because they're eco friendly"
heaven forbid you lift a finger in favour of planet Earth
... even if those lights did turn out to have some pretty scary compounds in them.
nah, you can admit it, it's OK to do something for the environment provided that your primary motivation is being tight with money... it doesn't instantly make you a liberal - no one's going find out out your secret Al Gore crush
- we understand, you spent extra money on freaky lights in hope that you'd be saving money somehow by spending lots more of it.

"Well, I've yet to see any savings"
two years using 11watts per light rather than 75watts?
While I have no idea what that would save me in energy costs, if I was hung up on how old my light globes were, I reckon I would have 'crunched the numbers' on power costs
(along with being obsessed with invisible germs, and making sure none of the different types food on my plate were touching).

Oh, just a quick question... how often were you buying light globes before?

Christopher Lee said...

M*A: it's if they break you need to call the hazmat team. There's supposed to be some type of chemical in those bulbs that's dangerous. Some say leave the house and call emergency and some say it's not that bad. I don't know which it is.

R: You're good. You managed to take a simple post about a light bulb going out before the manufacture said it would and turn out one of your long winded posts in which you say a lot but say nothing. It's not being tight with money, it's called being poor and not having a lot of it so I need to economize so I don't loose my home. Aren't you progressives, or what ever you call yourselves down under, supposed to be on the side of the poor? Also, I don't know how often I was buying bulbs before. It's not like I ever looked at a calendar and said "Ok, I bought some new bulbs today. Let me get my calculator out, being that I'm a dumb American and can't add, to see when I bought them last. Oh, two weeks ago."

Unknown said...

Lighten up!
(apologies for the bad pun)
It was just a bit fun. OK, so it seems that 'tight' might have been a poor choice of words, but it should be obvious that it was not a serious criticism (suggesting you had a secret crush on Al Gore should have given that away) - merely light hearted fun (urg, more bad puns) on the that idea that you are keeping score with light bulb manufacturers.
"It's not like I ever looked at a calendar and said "Ok, I bought some new bulbs today" - it was what I was getting at, a light globe goes out and you're saying 'damn, I only bought that two years ago!'

...the 'dumb american' bit, those are your words and perception, it's not helpful. As I've explained before, I don't paint america as country full of stupid people, although america does seem to pride itself on making the 'exporting idiots' an art form, with 'celebrities' who are famous for being famous being thrust upon the world like a plague by media monopolies - that is my objection with america.

As for me, I'm not sure that 'progressive' is a label that fits any better 'conservative' - I'm really not on anyone's side, I don't have that luxury.
While you continue to try and fit me into one of those 'identities' you are going to have the wrong idea about me. So while 'liberals' and 'progressives' might have some paternalistic and patronising love of the poor, I don't indulge in such Marxist vanities.
If you have a house to lose then I don't think there is much you can tell me about being poor...
however I don't let conventional economic measures influence me if I can avoid it.