Just coverted the whole house to CFL's

[Sherman A1]

and really happy with the brighter lighting for the less bucks. Now wondering about Tankless Water Heaters. Anyone have any experience with them? Any downside beyond initial costs?

Thanks!

:hi:

[Gabi Hayes]

1. how covert is it if you go on the tubes and tell everybody?

http://atschool.eduweb.co.uk/meldreth/textandinfo/web/web1.html

[Sherman A1]

5. Huh?

[Gabi Hayes]

7. lookit your title!

[Sherman A1]

10. LOL!

You are right - I cn't spEll

[Gabi Hayes]

I is a very careful reader.

[Sherman A1]

19. I see

great educationism here and I be in awful.

[Joanne98]

2. How much did it cost?

[Sherman A1]

4. About $45.00 for all the current fixtures

2 bathroom (2 light fixtures), 2 ceiling fan (4 light fixtures), some basement lights, hall and a floor lamp.

[Joanne98]

12. That's not bad.

[Sherman A1]

16. I didn't think so myself

Checked Home Depot and then went to Lowe's - they had some multi packs of 6 - 60watt for about $10.00 and a 3 pack of 100watt for about the same.

[TommyO]

3. Congratulations on the switch.

I'm migrating to CFLs where ever it makes sense in my house (and that's in most rooms). I'm using Insteon (think X-10 but way better) for home control, and need dimmable fluorescents in many locations - they're harder to get a hold of, and definitely pricier than standard CFLs.

[GreenPartyVoter]

6. You did not put any in 3-way sockets I hope?

[Sherman A1]

8. No

did some research ahead of the switch.

[GreenPartyVoter]

13. Cool. I ask cuz someone else here posted a warning after finding

out the hard way what happens when you do that.

I have those bulbs in almost all my light sockets now. Am very pleased with the switch.

[truth2power]

18. What happens? n/t

[GreenPartyVoter]

20. Sparks and a meltdown, if I recall correctly. I don't have a star anymore so

can't search for you. :^(

[truth2power]

38. I don't have a star, either anymore, but

I was just wondering. I put one in a three way socket close to a year ago. No problems so far. It's a table lamp with a three way switch.

If it does ever become a problem, I wonder if I can rewire the lamp, as I don't want to get rid of it.

[GreenPartyVoter]

40. I hear you can buy Cfs that are 3-way.so don't worry abt rewiring

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

42. As long as the base contacts

are only hitting the "ground" threads and one of the inner contacts, you should be fine. If it works now, it should work for the life of the bulb.

They sell 3-ways? I'll have to look for those bulbs. I wonder if anyone sells 3-ways with the "mogul" base?

[Sherman A1]

21. nothing good!

All I really read was Don't Do It.... Must be bad Karma.

[tammywammy]

9. My brother said

for his house, it would be around $1500 for the tankless water heater, including the installation. Some wiring and plumbing has to be done for the tankless water heater.

[Warpy]

11. I considered them here in my house

but NM water is deep aquifer water and hard as a rock. Mineral deposits would kill the unit within about 5 years and the replacement cost is very high.

Even water softening systems only prolong the life of them by 3 or 4 years, from what I've been told.

Standard water heaters last about 10.

[magellan]

28. Thanks for that info, Warpy

We want to change our water heater and I was interested when someone mentioned going tankless. Our water is aquifer/hard here in C. FL too so I'll be sure to check that out before we decide.

What would I do without DU! :)

edited: fingers can't keep up with brain

[lligrd]

14. I've Been Looking In To Tankless Water Heaters Too

There are a lot more choices for them now and some are pretty inexpensive. Still have some more research to do before I take the plunge but I am determined to do it.

[Sherman A1]

32. I have been poking around the net for the last few days

and there is the Tax Credit for 2007 to help, just don't know if the install and other expenses are more than I want to go this year.....

[Name removed]

15. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[rox63]

17. Do flat panels use less energy? n/t

[Name removed]

27. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Sherman A1]

30. A reason

to convince my Wife that I need a new computer? Probably won't work, but worth a try?????

[Kutjara]

22. Remember to dispose of them properly when they blow.

CFLs contain small amounts of mercury, so they should be put in the appropriate toxic dumpster at the recycling center. Or take them to your nearest IKEA or other retailer that runs a recycling program for CFLs. No point having clean energy, then poisoning the ground.

[Sherman A1]

24. Agreed

[Ian David]

26. The amount of Mercury in CF bulbs is less than what's released by the extra coal required...

to power a comparable incandescent bulb over its lifetime.

Still, it's a good idea.

[Kutjara]

29. Absolutely.

It's still worth doing, though, especially if CFLs catch on like we hope they will (actually, I hope LEDs catch on more. They're even more efficient and even longer lasting - though they're currently relatively expensive). The more of them that are in circulation, the greater the potential hazard if they're all chucked into landfills. Anything we can do to keep mercury out of the foodchain is worth doing.

[Ian David]

23. That's too bad. The price on solid-state LED bulbs just dropped to $1.50 for 1000 lumens

They're 100 times more energy efficient and last 20 years.


I'm kidding.

Heh heh.

[Sherman A1]

25. Well,

Fiddle Sticks!

:bounce:

[Elwood P Dowd]

31. I did it 3-4 years ago and have only replaced one bulb.

Hard to believe I haven't purchased a light bulb in that many years. I still have two of the three spares.

[William Bloode]

33. Ya know what yer really gonna love?

Extreme decrease in the amount of bulbs you have to change. I switched a few years ago, and not for energy savings really. My change was because i got tired of changing light bulbs every time i turned around. I had learned through my use of them for growing pot how long they last. 1 of 10 bulbs might last less than 4-5yrs.

Congrats, hope you enjoy.

[Bjornsdotter]

34. Tankless water heaters

I looked into having it installed in my home and I was advised against it for 2 reasons. First because of the area where I live, Il/Wis border. I was told that it gets too cold here and that the water may not be as hot as I would like in the winter and because I have a huge iron issue here.

However, the people I spoke with said that if you live further south the tankless heaters are great.

Cheers

[Sherman A1]

35. Thanks

It does get cold here (St. Louis) as well, but nothing like what you get every year.

[Xithras]

36. I'm still looking for one small enough to replace an A15 bulb.

Standard bulb is A19 size, and excepting a few places where the florescents don't work properly (fridge, oven, sealed recessed light in my shower, etc), I've already replaced all of my A19 bulbs with CFL's. I still have a number of fixtures (three wall sconces, two bed sconces, a ceiling fan, and two small lamps) that only take the smaller A15 bulb. If I can find someone that makes one of those in CFL, I can go "all flourescent" :(

Anyone seen any?

[Xithras]

37. About the tankless thing.

I looked into it when we did our home renovation and decided against it for now. The problem was efficiency. If you have children in the house and use a lot of hot water, tankless solutions aren't the best idea. The units end up running constantly to keep up, which causes them to burn more gas or electricity than a standard hot water heater.

Where tankless units make sense is in situations where you aren't using a lot of hot water in the first place. If you aren't a big hot water user, you're wasting energy by keeping that large tank hot all of the time. An older, retired person living alone or with a spouse, for instance, really doesn't need to be keeping a 60 gallon hot water heater at 120 degrees all day. Replacing it with a tankless unit makes sense. The person would see a real cost savings, and the unit would eventually pay for itself. Of course, an older person in that situation could also save money by removing their existing hot water heater and installing a much smaller one. Again, it really depends on the situation.

I have five people living in my house full time, and one more (mother in law) who spends most of the day there. A tankless heater wouldn't make sense for me simply because it would be running all day.

As my plumbing contractor explained, gallon for gallon, tankless hot water heaters actually use more energy than traditional models (tankless units require more heat because they must heat the water much faster). Because they only heat the water you use, however, they DO save a lot of people money. If you're using hot water all day long nearly as fast as the unit can make it, the tankless unit will actually increase your gas or electric bill. We did look at one Bosch high efficiency unit that would have worked for our home without really impacting our bill one way or the other, but it was insanely expensive.

My suggestion is to find a reputable local company and have them do the audit. Anyone who knows what they're doing will look at the size of your home, the age and number of people in the home, and provide you with an estimate of the amount of hot water you need to have available. Once you have that, you should be able to decide what the right solution for you is.

FWIW, my dad and stepmom have one at their home in Oregon. It works very well for them, but they don't mind working around its quirks. On one hand, it's very nice to be able to spend an hour in the shower without worrying about running out of hot water. On the other hand, they cannot run two hot water taps at the same time. They probably bought too small a unit, but it cannot keep up if they need to run hot water into a sink while the washing machine or dishwasher are running. They've adapted to it well, but it's definitely an odd quirk. A larger unit would fix that problem, but it's hard to get past the sticker shock on the bigger models.

[Sherman A1]

39. Thanks

That is the information for which I was looking. In our case it's just two of us and we work different shifts so hot water isn't a hugh issue, but we have a small water heater now, so we have to stage our showers at this point anyway. Sounds as if we might be better off just keeping what we have and looking at another project. The upfront cost would take a considerable time to recoup with this system based upon out situation, it appears.

[mod mom]

41. We've had a tankless water heater for about 4 year.

Make sure you REALLY insulate the exhaust pipe hot (hubbies says it gets several hundred degrees) with fire safing/mineral board.) We got the larger model (170 btu model) which can handle 2 majors appliances/showers at once. Our only issue has been a little time lag, but overall we have been very happy.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

43. Do CFL's work with dimmer switches?

I'm still running incandescents in those.

[Poiuyt]

44. You can buy dimmable CFl's, but they are more expensive

http://www.bulbs.com/Dimmable/results.aspx

I doubt you would ever recoup the savings