Lighting is one of the best ways you can save money. It’s cheap to buy, easy to install, and the savings will be seen in the first month. Now that it’s becoming mainstream, it’s even cool and politically correct to install CFL’s. As the future goes on, CFL’s will become cheaper, more efficient and safer.
I’ll present some simple situations on how much money you can save by using CFL’s. But first some estimations.
Average number of lights in a house: 30
Most common lightbulb used: Incandescent (The use of CFL’s is growing)
Energy Cost: .075$/kWh
That should do. Now say at any given time of the day, on average, you have 10, 60W lightbulbs on. How much would this cost?
The calculation goes like this:
((# of lights)*(Wattage*.001[to get kW]) *(# of Hours on))*(Price per kWh)= Cost
So lets try this example. Say you use 10 60W incandescent lightbulbs at any given time of the day (on average), for 6 hours for 1 month.
10(# of lights)*60(Watts)*.001*6(hours) x 30(days)*.075= 8.10$
Not to much for a months worth of lighting.
Now lets try with a 13 W CFL, which is equivalent to a 60W incandescent.
10(# of lights)*13(Watts)*.001*6(hours) x 30(days)*.075= 1.76$
Well that’s a big difference right there. 8.10-1.76= 6.34$ in savings for 10 lightbulbs.
Now the price for 10 light bulbs, if bought in bulk can be 2$ a bulb but most likely you’ll find them at around 3$/light bulb. So to get those 10 light bulbs it would cost you 30$. Now your in the hole for the first month, but wait just less then 5 months and after that you are saving money for the next 6 and a half years. Plus you don’t have to buy another light bulb during that whole time!
