Comments on: Green Lighting 101: Your Guide to Energy Efficient Interior Lighting

By: Bill486

Bill486 — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 01:06:49 +0000

Great effort for efficiency!!

By: lkohan

lkohan — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 20:14:54 +0000

I find your article informative, but I would like to add a couple of comments about your information on natural day-lighting. Heliostats are a mainly a commercial “concentrator” technology used for heating as well as lighting and are usually mounted on flat roofs.

A major, and highly affordable natural day-lighting technology which you did not mention are solar tubes (aka tubular skylights, solar pipes, sun pipes, etc.). A solar tube uses a clear dome that passes sunlight through highly a reflective tube that then diffuses the natural light into a space. They resemble round ceiling-mounted light fixtures (with no switch), and are great used in hallways, closets, bathrooms, kitchens, etc. They are inexpensive (on the order of a few hundred dollars or less), and do not alter your roof structurally, since they fit between the attic rafters. While this technology has been around for about 20 years, it only improves, and comes down in price. Solar tubes are a great way to bring in natural light to areas where windows are not feasible. It’s hard to walk by these and ignore the impulse to turn off a light switch.

By: greenlivingguy

greenlivingguy — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 16:36:36 +0000

Hello all. My first comment on this site. Yeah!! Anyway, for further reference, please consider checking out my book Green Lighting with McGraw-Hill. As it says on the site and book:
Flip the switch to energy-efficient lighting

This do-it-yourself guide makes it easy to upgrade residential and commercial lighting to reduce costs and environmental impact while maintaining or even improving the quality of the lighting. Filled with step-by-step instructions, Green Lighting shows you how to save money and energy with light-emitting diodes (LEDs), compact fluorescent lighting (CFL), solar lights, windows, skylights, fixtures, controls, and other bright ideas. Methods for calculating return on investment, plus recommended sources for energy-efficient products, are included in this practical resource. Thanks!!!

By: joppe

joppe — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 08:02:58 +0000

“a 23 watt CFL can produce about 100 watts of light”

no, it can’t. i presume you meant to say “about the same amount of light as a 100 watt incandecent”

By: solidapollo

solidapollo — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 19:39:02 +0000

“Why do the LED bulbs I have in my light fixtures at home glow at night even with the light switch turned off? Am I wasting electricity or is there something wrong someplace?”

The reason they still shine is the following:

1. You have a dimmer in the wall.
2. You have a timed switch, like timed switches in bathrooms.
3. If the answer is NO to number 1 and 2 it is because the phosphur in the LEDs is still excited and it take a couple of minutes to loose the “excitment”.

solidapollo.com

By: solidapollo

solidapollo — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 19:36:22 +0000

Hi Pierre F:

That is because you have not seen good quality LED lightbulbs. Light is exactly like incandescent, you can even notice the difference.

Solidapollo.com

By: Pierre F. Lherisson

Pierre F. Lherisson — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 21:36:43 +0000

I still prefers the 100 watts incandescent light bulbs for reading because they are much brighter

By: AGAPETUS

AGAPETUS — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 17:13:56 +0000

Why do the LED bulbs I have in my light fixtures at home glow at night even with the light switch turned off? Am I wasting electricity or is there something wrong someplace?

By: DORGD

DORGD — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 19:19:49 +0000

guess what you have to do if you break one in your home??? 3 pages of instructions because they contain MERCURY!!! http://epa.gov/cfl/cflcleanup.pdf But don’t eat fish with mercury in them but go ahead and put these all over hour home!

By: itz4me515

itz4me515 — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 19:10:09 +0000

Why didn’t you cover cold cathode lighting?

By: solidapollo

solidapollo — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 18:31:12 +0000

LED Lighting has more uses than you can imagine. For example, LED are being installed in carpets.

Look here to see what I mean: http://www.solidapollo.com/blog/?p=190

SolidApollo

By: Charly

Charly — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 00:22:59 +0000

Hello! I saw this LED lamp first in a documentary called “Buy, discard, buy”, it shows how lamps and many other products are designed to fail in a determined time of use, wich is called “planned obsolence”. I let all of you here the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QosF0b0i2f0

(it’s in spanish, didn’t found it in english)

By: kdalnation

kdalnation — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 19:08:00 +0000

Great article! I had no idea how much I didn’t know about green lighting. Time to get my home up to par.

By: Andrew Michler

Andrew Michler — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 18:28:15 +0000

Living off grid lighting take up 40% of my energy budget- LEDs are going to make a huge difference.

By: David Brodeur

David Brodeur — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 18:22:25 +0000

A great guide for the lighting newbies out there, I can’t wait for those OLEDs to become more commonplace!

By: Rebecca Paul

Rebecca Paul — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 18:12:57 +0000

This article is great! I’ve definitely found myself lost from time to time when it comes to eco friendly lighting. This post is informative and easy to understand. Excellent work.

By: Kestrel Jenkins

Kestrel Jenkins — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 18:09:10 +0000

brilliant post. the explanations of lighting terms help clarify some of the specifics i was a bit fuzzy about. history aspects are super interesting as well.

By: Jessica Dailey

Jessica Dailey — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 18:08:43 +0000

The OLEDs look really cool — seems like they would be perfect for street lights!

By: Diane Pham

Diane Pham — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 18:05:07 +0000

thanks for this post dan! this is great guide for people who are looking to change out their bulbs and don’t know what their choices are!

By: Jasmin Malik Chua

Jasmin Malik Chua — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 18:04:37 +0000

This is infinitely helpful—thank you!