I'm standing in aisle in the big blue box store, looking at the picked over shelves of light bulbs.
"Now what?" I ask myself.
A few years ago, I wrote about the no-brainer policy adopted by the federal government to ban incandescent light bulbs as energy-inefficient enemies of the environment. I had long been a convert to energy-efficient lighting, and seen the results in my power bill. I even installed motion sensors for the bathroom and laundry room lighting this past year.
Except this week, I was also seeing the results in my pocketbook, and it was not to the positive.
Less than a month ago, I bought a box of four 23-watt (100-watt incandescent equivalent) compact fluorescents from the same big box store to replace all the conventional bulbs in our stairway ceiling fan light fixture. The second last of four had finally burnt out, so they needed to be replaced. Not an easy task, it turns out, even with an extension ladder. It involved contortions that are not generally deemed safe by OH&S inspectors. But I had put in these new bulbs, with the ones with long lives promised on the box, with the satisfaction that I would not need to risk life nor limb for at least a few years.
When my wife got home, she was duly blinded by the lights. What she didn't notice is that they took three minutes to actually brighten up after being turned on.
Last Friday, the third of the four bulbs went out.
These bulbs cost about $2.50 each. I was not impressed.
Still, that's a lot less than the $7 a bulb I paid when we first made a big switch to compact fluorescents in our old house about eight years ago. Those bulbs, from that mammoth big box store that requires memberships, promised lives of seven years per bulb. We didn't get a third of that.
Yes, we did see definite savings on the power bill, but the capital costs have been noticeable as well.
I say "capital costs" somewhat in jest, because when you're paying $7 a bulb, you expect the bloody things to work, and last.
The next lighting technology is supposed to be LEDs. They may have taken over flashlights by storm, but house usage has not yet caught up.
At my recommendation, Mom put some in her house to replace high-energy usage halogen lights. The result was what I would call a "hollow light", at best. These very pricey bulbs were less than useless. A candle may have been more effective. A coal-oil lamp surely was brighter. They were in the neighbourhood of $20 a bulb.
My basement is lit with eight pot lights and three track lights, most of which are on dimmers. Dimmable compact fluorescents of this style are atrociously expensive - around $15+ a bulb from what I've seen. I really don't feel like spending $150 or more on light bulbs for my basement, especially with the poor longevity track record I've had. That's three-quarters of my power bill for a month. I may just forego the ability to dim the lights and put in three $1.50 single pole light switches instead.
Now we're looking the 2012 incandescent bulb ban in the face, and the supposed energy efficient replacements have been, in my experience: pricey, ineffective, and prone to early burn out. In short, they have not been all they're cracked up to be.
In my heart, I want to stay as energy efficient as possible. But in the end, I reached for some of the last boxes of 60 watt, Thomas Edison-styled incandescent bulbs on the shelf. They only cost about 32 cents a bulb. Hopefully I won't break my neck replacing my good-for-nothing compact fluorescents in the stairwell.
Brian Zinchuk is editor of Pipeline News. He can be reached at brian.zinchuk@sasktel.net
