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light bulbs from Con Ed — Brooklynian

light bulbs from Con Ed

dojoji
dojoji
edited November -1 in Prospect Heights
Has anyone gotten the free light bulb exchange from ConEd? The guy is here right now--on a ladder--changing all my lightbulbs for me. They are called CFL (flourescent) and they work fine and light the room in the same way that regular bulbs do. So I'm not complaining--and if my electric bill goes down then I'll be REALLY excited.

He says it saves 75% on enerygy from the lights.

Funny story--he says brooklyn residents are holding out because they do not trust Con Ed. LOL They expect it to take 4 years for brooklyn residents to fully convert.

Comments

  • sweet tea
    sweet tea
    i relented and let one of these guys replace some of my bulbs....enh.

    i didn't do the lamps or the kitchen overhead because i hate the quality of light from the CFLs. yeah, they're better than they were 15 years ago when my dad first started buying them from our neighbor with the solar roof, but they're not that much better. i find the light ugly and depressing.

    i did replace:

    - the entry way light that we only use as something to leave on when we're out of the house and don't want to come home to the dark. very happy with that decision. no need to use a lot of power for something we barely see.

    - the overheads in the office and bedroom, which i use sometimes when i need a lot of light, but not when i'm sitting around reading or otherwise want ambiance. those are fine as CFLs.

    - the bathroom lights, including the vanity lights, since they use a zillion watts as regular bulbs and i'm not in need of a warm, happy glow in the bathroom. the vanity lights are awful. they are coil lights in a spherical cover. they take a hundred years to warm up, so it's pretty grim in there in the mornings. i can live with it, i guess, but i don't like it at all.

    i'm glad i didn't replace any of the others. i live in fear of these bulbs being mandated by law. i try to be a good greenie, but this is my limit. plus, there is the little problem of disposing of the mercury in these -- maybe that's less of a concern than the mercury released by power plants; i'm not an expert.

    luckily, my apartment gets great sun all day, so at least i'm only using lamps at night.
  • doctorj
    doctorj
    Yes, they're supposed to release less mercury than incandescent bulbs because the amount of mercury in a CFL is less than the amount of extra mercury in the coal burnt to power the several incandescents.

    We got the whole place done, and after a few days, got used to it and wouldn't go back. And when one of them blew, we called the place and a guy came out and changed it.

    A little factoid about mercury emissions: in Europe their standards have become so strict, and power plants so clean, that the largest source is now from crematoria. From people's amalgam fillings. Apparently, this has created renewed interest in the process of rendering (boiling down to the equivalent of ashes using hot potassium hydroxide).
  • lydiabrunch
    lydiabrunch
    Re: the quality of light from compact fluorescents. Surely someone has made a light fixture that diffuses and/or tints the light a bit, right? But unfortunately I don't know who. I mean, that seems like a gaping hole in the market. If anyone knows of such an animal, I'd love to hear about it.

    That said, I already use CFLs throughout my apartment and they don't bug me. They bug my SO, though, hence my (admittedly half-assed) search for a fixture to ameliorate the issue.
  • sweet tea
    sweet tea
    LydiaBrunch wrote: Re: the quality of light from compact fluorescents. Surely someone has made a light fixture that diffuses and/or tints the light a bit, right? But unfortunately I don't know who. I mean, that seems like a gaping hole in the market. If anyone knows of such an animal, I'd love to hear about it.

    That said, I already use CFLs throughout my apartment and they don't bug me. They bug my SO, though, hence my (admittedly half-assed) search for a fixture to ameliorate the issue.
    some are better than others in this regard, but there's only so much that tinting can do, since the wavelengths at which CFLs produce the most light are different from those of incandescent bulbs. there was a nyt article recently comparing various ones: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/10/garden/10lighting.html?fta=y
  • jayce
    jayce
    LydiaBrunch wrote: Re: the quality of light from compact fluorescents. Surely someone has made a light fixture that diffuses and/or tints the light a bit, right? But unfortunately I don't know who. I mean, that seems like a gaping hole in the market. If anyone knows of such an animal, I'd love to hear about it.

    That said, I already use CFLs throughout my apartment and they don't bug me. They bug my SO, though, hence my (admittedly half-assed) search for a fixture to ameliorate the issue.
    LydiaBrunch, I was on a quest for the same thing and stumbled upon this site: http://www.environmentallights.com/. haven't ordered from them yet, but they had a few things there that I liked... namely full spectrum environmentally friendly lights (I was addicted to the Reveal bulbs before), environmentally friendly lights on dimmers (those are almost impossible to find... dimmable CFLs), and crazy weird shapes and sizes like Candelabra bulbs. One of these days I will get around to actually placing an order.... But maybe it will help you in the interim.
  • sir_eccles
    sir_eccles
    Anyone know what brand and wattage ConEd are giving away?

    Unlike old fashioned bulbs which are generally the same no matter what brand, I think CFLs can be very dependant on brand. Each brand seems to give slightly different tints to the light even when they say they are the same color temperature. I'm still looking for a nice low wattage (40W equivalent) for the apartment. It can be worth trying different brands until you find one that suits your purpose but it is time consuming.
  • lydiabrunch
    lydiabrunch
    Cool - I'll look into those sites. Thanks!
  • dojoji
    dojoji
    sir_eccles wrote: Anyone know what brand and wattage ConEd are giving away?

    Unlike old fashioned bulbs which are generally the same no matter what brand, I think CFLs can be very dependant on brand. Each brand seems to give slightly different tints to the light even when they say they are the same color temperature. I'm still looking for a nice low wattage (40W equivalent) for the apartment. It can be worth trying different brands until you find one that suits your purpose but it is time consuming.
    Don't know the brand but they have all different wattages to match what you had before. They used really bright bulbs over my bathroom vanity--which i LOVE. And dim bulbs in my living room lamp, etc.

    One thing i did NOT like was the replacement for some accent lighting I had that needs to be a clear bulb. I'm putting that one right back. It used to cast beautiful shadows from a vase full of pussy willow branches.
  • halfpint
    halfpint
    How can one go about requesting this from ConEd. My roommate deals with our electric bill but is there an online request or do we need to call? Or is it a special program being offered to some customers. I read about something like that a while ago.

    Thanks!
  • sweet tea
    sweet tea
    it isn't coned per se (at least, our guy wasn't); it's a local nonprofit that has coned's blessing.

    i think it had some very generic name, like brooklyn lighting project.
  • doctorj
    doctorj
    Brooklyn Free Lighting Project, 1-866-364-8269

    http://www.brooklynian.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=382437&sid=669115faa64ecd2c7a127e59149fb651
  • vanilla
    vanilla
    they let you decide per bulb the wattage.

    one interesting thing is that our bulbs used to blow out ALL THE TIME - but with the con-ed bulbs it's been almost a year and no blow outs.
  • madman
    madman
    The great thing about compact flourescents, besides energy savings, is just how long they last. I have CFL canister floods throughout my apt for about 16 months now and have only had 1 burn out (out of about 14) during that time.

    Also, the full-spectrum CFLs are great if you get the blues in the darker months.
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