[Mika]

OH, JUST ONE MORE THING


Inspired by this thread, I replaced my living room lamp (60W incandescent, not enough power there) with a 18 W CFL. Now I'm starting to have ideas of replacing the lamp shader and the fixture to get three of those there. Need moar light! That would make about 3100 lumens of total. I wonder if could get even more!  

[pecenipicek]

get a diffuser then too? we have a 3-lamp fixture that accepts 3 100W incadescents, with a diffuser and.. bleh. the fluo lamps dont really work well there.


probably would work better if they werent piddly 11W-13W fluo's ("equivalent of 100W incadescent my sweet sweet ass"). need to get stronger ones.

[Mika]

A clear 60 W incandescent lamp in that shader provided slightly less illumination power than this 1000 lumen CFL. By the way, 18 W CFL is said to be equivalent of 100 W incandescent here.

I think that the problem is, they measure power from a whole sphere around the lamp, and especially the fluorescent will emit in all directions, power going towards the ceiling doesn't count that much in my books. The thing is that the fluorescent lamp already has a diffuser. Doesn't make sense from optical perspective to put another diffuser there.

I'm really thinking of putting three 18 W CFLs up there, need to get into a lighting fixture store next week to see what's on the shelf. Actually, the fixture is rated for 80W so in principle I could have even four!

EDIT: I'm starting to feel like Lumpy in that Happy Tree Friends episode!

[pecenipicek]

A clear 60 W incandescent lamp in that shader provided slightly less illumination power than this 1000 lumen CFL. By the way, 18 W CFL is said to be equivalent of 100 W incandescent here.

different countries, differnet standards i guess. i should check the lumen rating tho...

I think that the problem is, they measure power from a whole sphere around the lamp, and especially the fluorescent will emit in all directions, power going towards the ceiling doesn't count that much in my books. The thing is that the fluorescent lamp already has a diffuser. Doesn't make sense from optical perspective to put another diffuser there.

True that. But without a diffuser it sorta hurts to look at them. not so much when the incadescents are up there, but they dont really last long, since its 3 100W ones. Tend to burn out rather quickly, with one outright blowing up from the heat. Thank god that the diffusing glass is almost a centimeter thick.

I'm really thinking of putting three 18 W CFLs up there, need to get into a lighting fixture store next week to see what's on the shelf. Actually, the fixture is rated for 80W so in principle I could have even four!

EDIT: I'm starting to feel like Lumpy in that Happy Tree Friends episode!

you can stick as many as you feel comfy with. Take care not to take a fixture thats a bit too tight for the ballast part to fit. (had a few of fixtures with that problem -.-)



also, as a side note, i will take this opportunity to show my utter hatred for bayonet mount halogen "reflector-style" bulbs. fragile crap and the mounts are almost always a bit too bendy from the heat. had a few come apart in my hands. bad cuts those.

[S-99]

But insulation will help tremendously. I'm continuously surprised when I read about the lack of insulation in Alaska. It strikes me as really odd. I would have thought people appreciated warm houses in Northern latitudes.

In my case, you did not read about a lack of insulation. I have enough insulation. I'm cutting corners to get more insulation for free so i can double up on it (even if that means corogated cardboard).

Yeah, but I would expect that people would realize that the insulation buys them time when the heating goes down. The another positive factor in the equation is the significant reduction of cold draughts inside the house. Finns hate having cold houses.

What i already explained and how nuke put it together so much more beatifully. Another thing to consider here is that cost of living in alaska is higher in alaska than the rest of the 49 states. $40 a month for electricity for turning on the lights when i go into a room and turn them off when i leave, a desktop computer, and microwave use is fantastic for up here in alaska. Part of the problem is that the electric company where i'm at burns gas to create electricity. Which got me interested in another thing, but i decided it wasn't that great.

Getting a gasoline generator and running it 24/7 would yield similar results based on the price for fuel ($3.63 a gallon for gasoline) up here (the 24/7 thing to simulate being provided power 24/7 from the electric company).

The increase in cost for electricity in winter is due to the above ground water line. It has heat tape running along it for 70 feet. The heat tape gets plugged in during winter to keep the water line from freezing (of course the water line is insulated too). I'd bury the water line, but i really don't want to have to chop down 10 trees which would let me dig a 7 foot deep trench 70 feet long (not to mention getting more copper pipe, and restructuring the well shed 70 feet away from the house). I also like the idea that i don't need to unbury the water line if something goes wrong with it. These trees that i mention are not the standing dead trees that equals pre-seasoned wood i mentioned earlier (my backyard is a forest). I'm really trying to offset my costs for winter by reducing electricity usage where i can. The next thing to go is the water softener. When it's all out of salt pellets, it gets unplugged

[Mars]

Only about the same cost of living as New England or California, supposedly.

[S-99]

Perhaps that; i don't have any knowledge of california or new england living. High cost is definitely seen during winter when people need to stay warm at negative temperatures. Another factor of high cost of living here is that it's remote. I'm not trying to portray alaska as being a special ideal of living cost in the whole world of course, these however are two of the main reasons of why there is higher cost of living though. If alaska was not remote, then it would only involve cost of living during winter.

[Nuke]

down in the southeast and south central regions things aren't so bad. right now out biggest expense is food. rent and utilities here are practically nothing. not sure about oil, but it cant be too bad since its included in the rent. from what i remember about anchorage everything was cheap. juneau wasnt bad, the most expensive thing there was the rent. most people dont realize how big alaska is. in isolated places and places cut off by the elements most of the year, i can see why it can get expensive.

last time i went out to point agassiz for a week, i stayed in my sister's half finished house. it has insulation but hasnt had drywall installed yet and the floor isnt sealed. its heated by a wood stove, and i think i used a hundred pounds of wood while i was there. but the temperature inside was quite comfortable (and we had a few storms blow through and a couple cold nights). considering its a 3 story house, id say somewhere in about 1800-2400 square feet, i was rather impressed. with drywall and another layer or two of flooring and it will be perfect. and if thats not enough they can run space heaters off the genny during the day.

[QuantumDelta]

You could probably mine your blood stream for a surprising amount of plastic too just so you know :<

[S-99]

My new task is stapling up the vapor barrier that was half assed. It was literally stapled up just to drape all along the walls and something similar for the ceilling. ROFL, ****ing losers built this place. I've already stopped two drafts i detected with my bare feet. So it's going good. The ceilling will be fun as hell without a ladder though I want my air seal dammit.

I also discovered that the ceilling is one foot shorter than the floor. It's such a well done mistake it's not detectable by my eyes. Good thing for measuring tape.

[Nuke]

reminds me of all the work i put into somones house in juneau. that place was a mess. whoever built that cut so many corners it was insane. nothing was square. not one wall was plumb. we essentially build a new fame on the inside against all the walls and ceilings, put in insulation, foamboard and drywall. a couple years before that we peeled all the siding and put 1" foam, new plywood, tyvek and some siding. i figure the walls are now a foot thick, which is overkill for juneau. but he claims his fuel bill is 1/5th what it was.

[S-99]

I bet the fuel bill was 1/5th what it was with those sexy walls
I only have the outside osb, r19 fiberglass insulation, and vapor barrier. Stapling this **** down and putting cardboard up is essential. Idk how much that'll reduce the fuel bill, but i'll see in the future the further i go on this project. My room mate is helping me by supplying huge sections of double corrogated cardboard for now. It's his place, not mine actually. He has a job, i do too (but it doesn't provide enough work), so i have a lot of free time. I expressed how badly i want to work on this place while he's gone. So he said ok.

[Nuke]

it did have the unfortunate side effect of being very claustrophobic. hallways ended up being very narrow, ceilings were only 7 feet with rafters in some places that were pretty low. im 6'4" so in some places i had to duck, and i was always walking into light fixtures because the bulbs were just out of my field of view but far enough down where i could run into them. he also switched form fuel oil to diesel, because it was somewhat cheaper (and he could fuel his truck from the gas tank). he said that he wanted to replace it with a wood stove at some point. he claimed he could get a bunch of palettes for free, bust em up and burn them. the idea seems laughable after seeing how much wood a stove could burn up in a week.

[Bob-san]

it did have the unfortunate side effect of being very claustrophobic. hallways ended up being very narrow, ceilings were only 7 feet with rafters in some places that were pretty low. im 6'4" so in some places i had to duck, and i was always walking into light fixtures because the bulbs were just out of my field of view but far enough down where i could run into them. he also switched form fuel oil to diesel, because it was somewhat cheaper (and he could fuel his truck from the gas tank). he said that he wanted to replace it with a wood stove at some point. he claimed he could get a bunch of palettes for free, bust em up and burn them. the idea seems laughable after seeing how much wood a stove could burn up in a week.

From personal experience, it's a lot of wood. I guess the more difficult part would be preparing the wood for winter. In Vermont, we took down quite a few trees and then used a chainsaw to cut large sections. We'd then dry the wood (stacked between trees) and eventually have to transport it to just outside the house. The house was horribly insulated, though. It was used more as a vacation house than a 24/7/365 residence.

[S-99]

Coincidentally is the first day i start burning wood. I also got a new stove. I have one a small stove with catalyst. But, i would destroy the catalyst if i burned anything with color ink, glue, and certain chemicals. That wrote off a lot of stuff i could burn lest i want to destroy the stove. Got a new simpler one that doesn't have a catalyst, much easier to operate too. Heats the place just fine too.

Got one of these used free, it's only a year old.

This place isn't very big, so it does just fine. Need to stoke it once every 3.5 hours. I prefer 4, but the small size sort of dictates this. It's close enough. More than good enough to offload fuel oil usage with wood in order to start a significant reserve of fuel oil.

In nukes case for that one guy's place, yeah switching to wood is only good if it's free. Free and easily maintainable is usually what wants to be fulfilled next. How much did it cost in fuel oil for it after it became claustrophobic? As far as fuel oil goes, when there's none to be purchased, we just buy diesel around here. The toyostove burns it all the same, although fuel oil is much preferred instead.