So today I was at the grocery store and remembered I had to pick up some light bulbs…  I’ve been staring at these CFL (Compact Florescent Light) bulbs for months now wondering if I should be buying them. 

I’ve heard they save money, but I’m not the type to believe labels, I’d rather do the research myself.  I bought 4 60watt 1,000 hour bulbs for $0.88 CAD ($0.22/bulb), and 6 13watt CFL 10,000 hour (which equals 60watt incandescent) for $13.99 CAD ($2.33/bulb).  At this price ratio, you don’t save buying the CFL bulbs – based on just bulb price.  Mind you the regular bulbs were on sale 50% off and the CFL  bulbs were full price. 

The longevity of the CFL bulbs is 10,000 hours is approx 4.57 years of usage (at 6 hours a day), so if you know your going to be in the same house for a while just the fact of saving you from replacing bulbs it’s worth it.  

So what about electricity costs?  Going by the same math before (and a electricity price of $0.06CAD/kWh) we have:

Regular bulb:

1 60watt light bulb – 1 years (6 hours a day) = 131.4 kWh * ($0.06CAD) = $7.88

CFL Bulb:

1 13 watt light bulb (equal to a regular 60 watt)  1 year (6 hours a day) = 28.47kWh * ($0.06CAD) = $1.71

So per year with 1 bulb you’d be saving $6.17 CAD.  Multiply by 10 bulbs and your saving over $60/year.

So now that I’ve done the math, I think I’ll have to buy some more. 

Now, comparing the look (which one do you think is the CFL and which is the incandescent?):

Really when I replaced them I couldn’t tell the difference…  I’m not sure if this is due to the light fixture or not.  The one on the left is the incandescent bulb and the one on the right is the CFL bulb.  Both light bulbs are called “soft white”.

The down side to using these bulbs:

So in conclusion, I’ll definitely be using more of these bulbs in the future.  Whether you save $288 CAD dollars with 6 bulbs I’m not convinced about that, but I believe you can save $200 CAD with 6 bulbs.  Anywhere I can hide the look of the bulb, I’ll be using them.

Have/Will you made the switch, and have you noticed the difference on your bills?

Eric

Finally our family room is feeling a little more finished.  I fixed up the switch plates so they fit perfectly and I installed all the cove trim on the wood beams.  Having the trim up makes the beams so slick, I love the perfect line it makes on the ceiling.

Check out the pictures:

In this picture you’ll notice I cut the trim on a 45 degree angle to match them up.  If I didn’t you would be able to notice the seam very easily.  After each cut you have to stain the end of the wood as well, this will help hide any imperfections of your cuts.

As you can see there are a few nail marks.  I can cover these up with wood filler and just stain over them with a Q-Tip.  I’m not sure I’ll do this though, as without a picture & Flash you don’t even notice them.

I still can’t get over how good it looks, this took me probably 8 hours on Sunday – which isn’t too bad since I had to make all the cuts in the basement and it was my first time doing this.  It was even my first time using my Mitre Saw that Angela bought me for Christmas.

I ran into a couple issues along the way.  First was my cuts with the Mitre Saw, the wood kept fraying at the end.

This was because I was using a 40 tooth blade, instead of a 60.  Once I made the change it rarely happened.  Second of all was I have a single bevel mitre saw.  What this means is it doesn’t tilt both ways.  This isn’t too much of an issue, it just means more mental rotation in your head.  As you can see sometimes I had to cut the wood from the back (and with cove trim it can be a little tricky).

On other thing with the mitre saw I would look into is how to calibrate it (or make sure it is giving you exact angles.  My saw clicks into place, and a few joints didn’t align up the way I thought they should.  Now this could be because the beams are fake beams and they weren’t constructed perfectly square.  I did notice that when you turn one way it doesn’t go to the highest value of angle, but if you turn it the opposite way it goes past the scale.  So hopefully this is just a faulty design and I didn’t cut 43 degree angles everywhere.

Oh did I mention I went on a shopping spree…  Canadian Tire had some good deals this week, and I stopped at Home Depot for some paint supplies.

The 2 vises were 50% off!  Can’t go wrong with that, now all I need to do is get a work bench to use them with…  The holesaw set (16 pcs) was $40 CAD, regular $120.  And the tool belt was $15 CAD from $25.  I don’t know about the quality of this tool belt but it seems alright.  If your doing any project that requires a good day of work, I would recommend that you get one of these.  I didn’t use it yet, but I found myself going up and down the stairs probably at least 15 times just to grab my pencil that I kept forgetting behind – and that is just the pencil – never mind about the tape measure…

Let me know what you think, if you have any tips I’d love to hear them.

Eric