# Time calculation for payback



## alterego

we use on average 590 Kilo Watt hours per month,

Our average electric bill is between 70 and 150 dollars depending on the month of the year.

We have gas stove, gas water heater, electric dryer, well pump, big ass flat TV, and all the typical electronics.

We have 8 light bulbs in basement they are old style 100 watt incandescent

Wanting to replace with 12 watt 60 equivalent LED bulbs I just checked today they are 26 dollars each.

Upstairs we have 13 little 25 watt incandescent bulbs in bathroom vanities, you can buy 2 watt to 25 watt LED they are 7.89 each

Upstairs we have 12 60 watt incandescent bulbs, I found that 12 watt LED bulbs will make 60 watts once again they 26 dollars each

8 of the bulbs have already been replaced with compact florescent bulbs, these are 13 watt bulbs, LED are 12 watt it does not make sense to replace them.

So to replace
8 at 26 equals $208
13 at 7.89 equals $102.57
12 at 26 equals $312
Sub Totals --- $622.57
Sales tax 37.36
Total equals --$659.93

If 25 % of the electric bill is for lights and the average monthly bill is $110 per month *.25 equals 27.5 dollars per month for lights.

The small bulbs are 2 watt to 25 watt so they use 8% of the power of the incandescent
The large bulbs are 12 w to 60 so they are 20 % of the power on the incandescent

Average would be 14% of previous consumption so my multiplier is .86 of $27.5 per month so $23.65 potential monthly savings,

$659.93 divided by $23.65 equals 27.90 months for cost return, 

IS IT WORTH IT????


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## Ripon

I would say yes, but I would shop around on bulb, wait for deals, and do them over a year at $50 a month or so. 

You seem engaged in the math so now add up how often those lights are on. Watt x hrs a day = kilowatt hrs a month and you can see if your 25% projection is off or right...at least be closer. 

Also what are your utility rates? Here in beloved CA most of us get (x) kilowatt hours at a very affordable rate. Cross over tier one and the rate goes up a tad, but cross into tier three and WALLOP you get a doubled rate. Now for those of us in tier plans if a few bulbs knocked us down to tier 2 again it could save us .30/33 cents a kilowatt hour. 

If a 100 watt bulb is on 3 hrs a day for 30 days it's 9 klwhrs or could be $2.70 a month, but an LED at 15 watts is 1.35 ish klwhrs at $.2 due to a lower tier and you save $30 a year on one bulb.


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## alterego

A little looking on the internet for the most energy efficient bulb shows that the Phillips L is the most efficient but they are 50 dollars per bulb to get down to 9.5 watt usage Phillips. From the Silvania as advertised 12.5 watt, that I found for $26 dollars per bulb at Menards, almost twice as much for a 2.5 watt efficiency gain.

Last month was 791 KWH total electric bill was 116.47 $121.13 with tax. So .15313 per KWH.

I am unsure of how much is spent on lighting.

I am mostly interested in getting down to a point where I can run the house on solar power, that is the entire point in this exercise.


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## GTGallop

I say YES because if you ever run a generator or car-battery and an inverter, then you basically get light for FREE with out a huge draw. So in the future if you have a choice between lights or a fridge, then you can have both.


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## Prepadoodle

LED bulbs last 20-25 years or more. What will electricity cost 20 years from now? That $100 electric bill might be $300 or $400 or even more. 

Don't forget regular incandescent bulbs don't last that long. How many replacement bulbs will you buy in the next 20 years? How much will they cost?

Yeah, it's usually worth doing.

Buy them online and at least save the sales tax.


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## Prepadoodle

10W LED Bulb, Equal to Brightness of 60W Incandescent Bulb $10.88 www.lightingever.com


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## Montana Rancher

My feedback is the "high efficiencty" florescent bulbs don't have a very long life expectancy!

Yes if you put that 100w bulb in using 12watts a hour and turn it on and off it fails within a year, no shinola they are really bad for lasting the thousands of hours they are rated for.

IMO stay with the regular bulbs, if you turn them on and off they last longer and will use less power compared to their cost.

Plus if you read the blogs the old bulbs are a lot more earth friendly since they have no mercury in them.

P.S. I prefer the 32 watt florescent tube fixtures (which are either 2 or 4 tubes per fixture) They are cheaper to replace, last for thousands of hours and don't have the problems the modern day floresents have.


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## alterego

I have performed a mental assessment of the lights that are used the most in consideration to those that are old style incandescent. 

I will buy a small group of bulbs right now, three for the light over the kitchen table, this one gets used most, and then replace as I go.

My main thing is consumption, I really need to harp on my wife about unnecessary consumption.

We have a ceiling fan in each main room one in each bedroom, she will leave these on 24 7 365 if I do not argue with her regularly.

The weather has cooled considerable this week so the air conditioner is off. It is not winter so the cow tank water heater is not running.

Do any of you guys have a solar setup, where you can tell me how many panels you have, and how many watts each they are, and how much it all costs, there are a few other posts on here and I will troll those as well.


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## HuntingHawk

Self contained flouresent from Dollar General or anyother dollar store. Its the route I went to about 10 years ago. They cost alittle more then condesent but last longer & use less power.

I have a small solar system that powers my storm shelter. It is four 80watt & two 90watt panels. A 30amp controller. Three 125AH deep cycle batteries. A few things in the storm shelter are 12VDC like lights & fans. 2,000watt inverter to power 120VAC items. During outages I use a gas generator to run the well pump but that is only for a few minutes (about 15-20 each morning) so don't use a lot of fuel for it. My system will run the 10,000BTU air conditioner but its a hard drain on it. About $1,600 invested into the solar system.


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## PalmettoTree

27 months is a little long. Most companies want something less than 18 to 24 months. I'd say overall yes it was worth it.

In 2009 I went through and upgraded our heat and AC changed the lights and hot water heaters at each end of the house. I tracked the bills and the payback was just over a year.


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## hayden

Just that you have become aware of all the lights and fans and how much power they use is a step forward. I never paid that much attention to all that until I got my first solar panels. I used to leave my desktop pc on 24/7 and some days never used it at all. With it's 250 watt power supply that is a kilowatt hour every 4 hours/ 6 kwh every day/ 180 kwh per month. I only turn that pc on now if I need to print something. My laptop uses much less power and I don't leave it plugged in all the time. Unplug your cell phone chargers when not in use. I don't know if I'll ever save enough on my electric bill to pay off my solar panels and batteries and grid tie inverters or my inverters for making 120 volts from the batteries but I will have power when all my neighbors have none. After I turned off the pc my monthly usage was about 330 kwh per month. My last bill it was down to 220 kwh. I'm so cheap I leave some of my blinds open to use my neighbors lights to light my path to the bathroom lol.


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## GTGallop

alterego said:


> I have performed a mental assessment of the lights that are used the most in consideration to those that are old style incandescent.
> 
> I will buy a small group of bulbs right now, three for the light over the kitchen table, this one gets used most, and then replace as I go.
> 
> My main thing is consumption, I really need to harp on my wife about unnecessary consumption.
> 
> We have a ceiling fan in each main room one in each bedroom, she will leave these on 24 7 365 if I do not argue with her regularly.
> 
> The weather has cooled considerable this week so the air conditioner is off. It is not winter so the cow tank water heater is not running.
> 
> Do any of you guys have a solar setup, where you can tell me how many panels you have, and how many watts each they are, and how much it all costs, there are a few other posts on here and I will troll those as well.


Sounds like you need this or a similar product.
Lutron Maestro 2 Amp Single Pole Occupancy Sensing Switch - White-MS-OPS2H-WH at The Home Depot

Or these
Leviton 500-Watt 60-Minute Timer-R62-6161T-1LW at The Home Depot

I noticed people in my house like to turn on the bathroom fan and leave for work. That means a bath fan runs all day (waste of energy) and because it doesn't have a 24hour duty cycle it is a fire hazard and shaves YEARS off the life of the fan. It also pumps out 180 CFM or my highly cleaned and filtered air-conditioned air and blows it straight out the house. Lets see... If We are gone for 10 hours, that 600 minutes at 180 CFM thats 108,000 cubic feet of air. Or enough to fill a 2,000 square foot home 5 times. Think about how hard the AC has to run to recoup that. And where does the replacement air come from? It comes from outside the envelope, leaking in any nooks, cracks, and crannies in your house. Any part not sealed up is pulling in hot dirty air.

So if you like your lights, but they stay on tooooo much, then maybe the solution is a switch that limits operation to when you are in the room, or for a specific time.

They also make these programmable ones for exterior lights. They have a randomizer feature that turns them on and off at odd intervals so people watching your house don't know what your schedule really is. It's a little bit of counter intelligence.
Honeywell Econo Switch 7 Day Programmable Timer Switch for Lights and Motors-RPLS730B1000/U at The Home Depot


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## alterego

Well I have never gotten so excited about light bulbs, we had a heck of a time finding bulbs for the lights in the bathroom ceilings,
We went to 
Menards, Walmart, Home Depot, and finally Lowe's is where we found the right type, we bought some US made 3M LED 's at Menards for 18 something each, went to Walmart and they were over 27 each. I am glad the we found the ones at Menards first. Very happy they are made in USA. They are 13.5 watt bulbs that create 60 watt equivalent. Two placed in the ceiling fan in the living room seem bright but it is hard to tell.

We replaced the three bulbs in the light over the kitchen table as well with 2 watt 25 equivalent bulbs, total of 75 watts, equivalent lumens. We were hoping for something like 3.5 or 5 watt LED to produce the same as 100 watts of light (I should be doing my comparison in lumens but I do not know the numbers) 

These little thread end bulbs were hard to find any thing over 25 watt equivalent.

So we spent a couple hundred bucks, this leaves 8 bulbs in the basement to be replaced, these get used very little so they will be last, then the flood lights on the eves of the house (8)and over the porch (5) the ones over the porch get used significantly in the winter time.

So for todays changes

4 100watt bulbs changed out for 4 4.8 watt LED bulbs 380.8 watts saved during operation in bathroom ceiling lights

2 60 watt bulbs changed out for 2 13.5 watt LED bulbs 93 watts saved during operation Living room ceiling fan

3 40 watt accent bulbs changed out for 3 2 watt LED bulbs 114 watts saved during operation Kitchen light over table.

640 watts previous to 52.2 watts now is 91.8 % less consumption, that is a big savings in my mind, we gave up on some lumens at the kitchen table though.


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## StarPD45

hayden said:


> I'm so cheap I leave some of my blinds open to use my neighbors lights to light my path to the bathroom lol.


LOL. And I thought I was cheap.  Besides, no neighbors are that close.

I have several of the small LED night lights around the house. They come on at dark and go off in the light.
They aren't enough to ruin your night vision, but let you keep from tripping over things.


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## alterego

Light Emitting Diode Disappointment.

Well my wife is a little disappointed in the amount of light we are getting from a few of the lights now that we are on the cheap, especially the lights in the bathroom.

I notice it as well, but damn 12 watts


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## GTGallop

Hang in there - That technology is still advancing. Look at what we had for lights 20 years ago. What will we have 20 years from now?

I know a lady that put dimmable LEDs in her kitchen. She took out the 4 can lights (think 1983) and had the holes covered. Then she added back 8 TINY LEDs on gimbals (like an eyeball socket) over a larger area. I don't know what wattage she went with but it is a pretty light and very useful. They dim well too with a pure sinewave dimmer. Since this was a total light fixture change out and part of a remodel I know she spent some bucks to get that but it does look really clean - like 8 diamonds in the ceiling.


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## alterego

An unexpected quick pay back by un related energy savings. 

I was a little miffed at our electric bill for the month of July this year, our electric bill for July was $121.13

Because of my new found cheap bastard, as my wife described, light bulbs and hate for paying propane and electric bills we went and bought the above in this post described LED lights. 

I went on a "turn shit off" tantrum for a month and only ran the necessities, in stead of letting the wife run all the ceiling fans etc 24/7. One thing that played well into this was the weather was consistently cooler causing less need for the air conditioning, which is now back on with the heat.

Our August electric bill came a couple of days ago, and the KW usage was down to 435 from 1102 last month so this bill was 66.93 down from 121.13, I know this is not all from changing out a few bulbs, but damn I feel vindicated.

PS LED bulbs are on sale at Menards this week for 7.99, I highly suggest you go get some, and unplug some stuff. 

As many have said on this forum, the best thing you can do is reduce consumption.


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## Mic

alterego said:


> As many have said on this forum, the best thing you can do is reduce consumption.


I have started doing this with water consumption, but haven't really gone after electricity yet.

As a side note, I've been watching "Extreme Cheapskates" on the DIY channel. I see some of you folks are doing many of the things they do in the show (turning off computer/unplugging chargers/etc). They have gone out of their way to find the folks that are weird as hell, but it's nice to find some ideas from them.


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## alterego

I Am Using This Thread As A Memo. 
We Have Been Operating Under The Premise That Repulse Replace The Incandecent Bulbs As They Burn Out. But They Are Not Burning Out So We Took Maters In Our Own Hands. MyNineteen Year Old Comes Home Late And The Wife Leaves The Porch Light On For Her. Those Bulbs Were Five Sixty Five Watt Parr Thirty. We Found 11.9 Watt Replacements Today For Seventeen Bucks Each. That's 82 Percent Less Electric.


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## alterego

Another wild hair today brought on by a conversation with a solar install professional. I have an appointment Saturday to go discuss a solar system to run our entire house. So I was motivated to replace the eight which turned out to be nine bulbs I still need to buy one. As I miss counted.
Any way eight bulbs out one 40 one 60 and six one hundred incandescent bulbs a total of 700 watts of consumption with six 60 watt equivalent 9 consumption and two 17 consumption 100 equivalent. That's. 12.5 % of what we took out. I waited to replace these until last because they are only on two or three times a day for an average of 5 minites.


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## 8301

Great article on light bulb options (almost a little too detailed) this month on Renewable Energy & Efficiency Technologies | Home Power Magazine It's almost always cheaper to maximize efficiency by reducing consumption than to produce the power using solar. Having said that I've rarely found that the little florescent bulbs last half as long as they claim so I tend to run a mixed bag of bulb types. LED is the most efficient but super expensive. The really cheap led bulbs tend to not hold up well.

While I have a 490 watt solar system with 320 amp hr 12v battery reserve (three 106 amp hour batteries) that I built for $3/watt including a good MPPT charge controller and a good sine wave inverter included in that $3 a watt price it will still take me many years before I pay for it using the money saved on my power bill. Including a battery backup increased my cost substantially. Having said that a grid tie only system without batteries (won't work when the grid goes down) makes more sense economically but as I said before they don't work at all if the grid goes down.

Something to consider is the new charge controller/inverter SMA Sunny Boy 5000 TL US 22 Grid Tie Inverter or similar Sunny Boy model which can still produce 1500 watts 120AC 60hz while the sun shines (with the grid down) allowing you to charge a battery bank using a large car charger and a separate inverter. I'll probably use something like this if I spend some serious cash to enlarge my solar system because of the higher efficiency a grid tie only system has and how rarely the grid actually goes down.


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## Suntzu

I have been thinking about this a lot over the past few months after buying a new house late 2014. The amount of power consumption in this house is staggering, the chandelier in the entryway has 22 60-watt bulbs, or 1.3 KW/H just for one chandelier, around the house, I have over a dozen outdoor 100-watt flood lights, downstairs 86 more lights, upstairs another 50... Before committing to a couple thousand dollar upgrade

I made this excel spreadsheet.








The price per bulb is high, but those are the bulbs I like.
My conclusion is I'll let them burn out slowly, and replace them with LED, while transitioning the new LEDs to the most used areas of the house, and moving the incandescent to the least used areas. 
LEDs are getting cheaper every year, so waiting for the price to drop, or a good sale will pay off for lights rarely on.

Dropbox link for excel file if you want to throw your own values in.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/zmcoo4my1vaezsy/LED bulbs.xlsx?dl=0


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## kevincali

I once got my light bill down to $15.85 one month. I used cfl's, switched to LED's, and didn't go any lower. I have had a LOT of company lately, so I'm sure that's what it is. 

My house is about to get lonely again (just me) and I'm gonna see if I can get the bill down to $16 again 

I say it's worth it. Even on bulbs/fixtures that don't get used a LOT, why not try to make it as cheap as possible to use when it IS on?

2 years for a roi? Could be longer


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## alterego

It pays to do the math. Lumens divided by operating watts. The higher the number the more light per watt. These were the best at Menards today.


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## alterego

March 26, 2014Cree First to Break 300 Lumens-Per-Watt Barrier

Continues to Push the Boundaries of LED Performance

DURHAM, NC*-- Cree, Inc. (Nasdaq: CREE) records another significant LED milestone with the demonstration of 303 lumens per watt from a white, high-power LED. Reaching the landmark achievement much faster than previously believed possible, this result surpasses*Cree’s previous R&D industry-best of 276 lumens per watt announced just over a year ago.


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## 8301

alterego said:


> March 26, 2014Cree First to Break 300 Lumens-Per-Watt Barrier
> 
> Continues to Push the Boundaries of LED Performance
> 
> DURHAM, NC*-- Cree, Inc. (Nasdaq: CREE) records another significant LED milestone with the demonstration of 303 lumens per watt from a white, high-power LED. Reaching the landmark achievement much faster than previously believed possible, this result surpasses*Cree's previous R&D industry-best of 276 lumens per watt announced just over a year ago.


While I don't know much about the newest CREE type bulbs Cree bulbs made 2 years ago are very bad about loosing luminescence after a few hours. About half of them would loose half their brightness after 10-20 hrs. After several Redline flashlights got very dim after 10-20 hrs of use I researched them and their CREE bulbs.


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## alterego

FoolAmI said:


> While I don't know much about the newest CREE type bulbs Cree bulbs made 2 years ago are very bad about loosing luminescence after a few hours. About half of them would loose half their brightness after 10-20 hrs. After several Redline flashlights got very dim after 10-20 hrs of use I researched them and their CREE bulbs.


that sucks. I am sorry to read that you got took. I have high hopes for the technology.


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## alterego

So the whole point in the change of bulbs is to get my electric consumption down to a sustainable usage of less than 600 kw per month to make a solar system feasable. 
Four months ago we had our electric fencer explode from a lightning strike so we bought a solar electric fencer. 

I have been looking at solar alarm clocks for two months now and today bought this.

Equity by La Crosse 65903 Hybrid Solar Desktop LCD Alarm Clock. From amazon 16.67 with shipping. I will let you all know how it does. 

I know these are little steps but they all add up to the total amount of electric we use.


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## alterego

We went to sears today and bought an energy star rated refrigerator. Our other refrigerator uses 4.5 fla while running and was rated at 684 kw per year usage. The new one. Not yet delivered. Will operate at 3.4 fla and 380 kw per year.

Seeing that we previously were averaging 640 kw per month our old refrigerator accounted for a full month of electric bill. This should make our usage go down 300+- kw per year. This would be 25 kw per month at .11 per kw and the cost of the refrigerator at 1100 the pay back is never. But it will get our usage down and get us closer to a reasonable solar load.


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## Smitty901

When I first started one at a time converting to LED I did not care about the pay back. The the cork screw lights we were stuck with just did not do the job . It did not take long to see the LEDS exceled.
One light in the dinning room had 5 25 watt bulbs =75 watts and poor light. When replaced with LED's they are 5 watts each totaling 25 watts that is the same amount of watts for all 5 VS 1 of the old lights. The amount of light the LED's put out far exceeds the standard builds , to the point I put a dimmer switch in.
Same in both bath rooms. I am getting rid of all other light before they burn out just to make the switch the LED's are that much better.
Pay back not an issue the light quality is so much better the change is worth it to me. Of course once changed out the savings in Electric is there as an added benefit.
Shop around there are some good sales on LED's from time to time.


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## tinkerhell

keep all your receipts, much of this stuff does not last as long as the warranty.


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## 8301

Fact.... It's almost always more cost effective to reduce energy expenditure than to increase a solar setup. It sounds like you are on the right track.

I need to do more like you are doing reducing electric consumption; my refrigerator is really old.


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## paraquack

alterego said:


> We went to sears today and bought an energy star rated refrigerator. Our other refrigerator uses 4.5 fla while running and was rated at 684 kw per year usage. The new one. Not yet delivered. Will operate at 3.4 fla and 380 kw per year.
> 
> Seeing that we previously were averaging 640 kw per month our old refrigerator accounted for a full month of electric bill. This should make our usage go down 300+- kw per year. This would be 25 kw per month at .11 per kw and the cost of the refrigerator at 1100 the pay back is never. But it will get our usage down and get us closer to a reasonable solar load.


Whether or not it really makes a difference, but the new fridge in our house has a much lower wattage but it seems to run a lot more than the old one. Maybe a smaller motor so less watts, but it run longer and more often????


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## 8301

Well my new low energy washing machine runs longer than the old less efficient one.... Maybe the smaller motor/compressor is just a lot more efficient...


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## Smitty901

The only advantage to solar is having the power. There is no payback Solar is a losing game. It will not hold up and will never pay back the cost. The only way they can sell it now is have tax payers pick up the cost for it. Every solar company that has got huge tax payer dollars has taken the money and run.
Solar is a scam as an energy source, it maybe an only option for small amount of lighting in some cases but a total waste and scam. Solar is a dream and nothing much more


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## alterego

Smitty901 said:


> The only advantage to solar is having the power. There is no payback Solar is a losing game. It will not hold up and will never pay back the cost. The only way they can sell it now is have tax payers pick up the cost for it. Every solar company that has got huge tax payer dollars has taken the money and run.
> Solar is a scam as an energy source, it maybe an only option for small amount of lighting in some cases but a total waste and scam. Solar is a dream and nothing much more


You are a real buzz kill dude.

I admit what you indicate above is true. However I still insist on putting a system in.


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## tinkerhell

so what you are saying is: living off grid with on grid tastes is expensive.


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## 8301

A grid tie system without batteries will pay for itself in must areas in about 15 years but will not make electricity when the grid is down. This is using the national electric average cost of .11 per kw/hr. A solar system with a lot of batteries will probably never pay for itself even if it is grid tied because of the additional cost of the batteries which just like one of those hybrid cars will need to be replaced occasionally.

However, consider this. If you instead intend to power things with a gas or propane it will cost you about .50 cents for just the fuel to make that same kw/hr of electricity,,, very expensive electricity. Add in the generator with maintence cost along with fuel storage costs and the number is probably well over to 65 cents per kw/hr. And even at that high price you will probably be out of fuel in a few months if you use 5 kwh per day average (run the generator a few hours a day with 200 gallons of stored fuel). And remember that that generator's inverter will not work after a strong EMP event. I think EMP to be unlikely but just wanted to toss that one out there because solar's inverter may not work either but the panels will still be able to directly charge your batteries. 

And since the generator only runs a few hours a day you have 120v ac only a few hours a day.

Now let's look at a good 1kw solar setup with a decent set of batteries and inverter, Not the cheap stuff but a decent system you can build yourself for around $4500. All the numbers used here are extremely conservative and your system will probably preform 20% better because we're not even using the morning and late afternoon hours when the sun isn't as strong.

National average of 5 1/2 hrs of direct sun a day makes the same 5 kwh you plan to get out of your generator each day. A decent well maintained battery bank will give you at least 6 years before needing replacement. that's 10950 kwh over 6 years or about .41 cents per kwh. And you'll still be making good electricity for years after the generator has worn out and run out of fuel.

Admittedly I'm not taking solar battery inefficiencies into account here but most of the solar system will last over 20 years. And for those EMP fans out there you can toss a spare inexpensive inverter and basic charge controller in the safe (about $400) for EMP replacements.


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## Smitty901

alterego said:


> You are a real buzz kill dude.
> 
> I admit what you indicate above is true. However I still insist on putting a system in.


 Nothing wrong with doing what you want . Solar will provide some power. My point is it is not cost effective unless someone else is paying a major part of the cost.
I am not ok with other tax payers being forced to pay for it. Same as passenger rail every line in the world is paid for by those that do not or can not use it.
As tax payers we have lost billion on billions just in the last 6 years to scam solar companies.


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## alterego

I purchased a kill a watt meter and started measuring the use of our 20 plus year old chest freezer. We purchased a energy star chest freezer yesterday. About 580 bucks. It should use 270 kwh per year compared to nearly 400 kwh putting payback at 19.4 years with electric currently at 14.9 cents after tax on my bill.

We have not received the freezer yet. It will be delivered in early june.

Our most recent consumers bill is 281 kwh after the changes we have made thus far. I am supper satisfied with our results. I know we will need to use air conditioning soon which will jack me back up for usage.

We have not suffered at all to reach these low usage amounts just changed equipment and our ways.


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## alterego

Update on meter readings. I have tested the freezer for several days and determined it uses 1.12 kwh per day. Once I meter the new one I will let you know on that. The next item is my power vented water heater. I expected it to be substantially more however I found out that it was very low almost non-existent it only uses. 00430 kilowatt hours per hour or .1034 kwh per day.

I am hoping the energy star freezer change makes a measure able change.


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## alterego

The first two things measured were the 20 plus year old freezer and the power vent water heater. I just plugged my kilowatt meter into the entertainment center which has everything known to man plugged in here.






mom is currently in the shower and I dare fiddle with this portion of the electrical consumption now, covertly because I do not want to go into hand to hand combat on Sunday morning. If she started thinking I was intending to take breaking bad away from here, quobo cartoons from the little one and the wii away to facilitate my solar ambitions it would be all out stage 5 thermal nuclear war fair.

I will check in with this incognito.


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## alterego

The entertainment system (60 inch tv and surround sound dvd) draw .014 kw average over a 24 hour day that is on and off on mostly between 6 and 9 at night. .35 kwh per day average which is substantial less than I expected.

I now have my energy star freezer plugged in. I will report the difference once I have accurate measurements.


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## alterego

From my consumers smart meter my average daily is down to 6.8 kwh from between 16 and 20 several times in the winter which has not been discovered yet were up to 30 kwh.

So these changes are saving around 90 per month from previous bills.


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## alterego

alterego said:


> Update on meter readings. I have tested the freezer for several days and determined it uses 1.12 kwh per day. Once I meter the new one I will let you know on that. The next item is my power vented water heater. I expected it to be substantially more however I found out that it was very low almost non-existent it only uses. 00430 kilowatt hours per hour or .1034 kwh per day.
> 
> I am hoping the energy star freezer change makes a measure able change.


Ok so after several days of measuring consumption of the new Frigidaire energy star freezer it is testing out at .7501 kwh use per day. This new freezer is 15.6 cubic foot and the old one is around 12. We also brought home a half a cow because we were feeling like we were low so another 420 pounds of beef.


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## paraquack

I'm a little jealous. At least I'm a head of the curve this year, so far. Last two months 
have been down about 35% from last year but I think part of that was the temperatures 
didn't hit the hundreds until June. I have a funny feeling I'll make up for the savings 
this month. Still kind of hoping the State of AZ puts a damper on the Electric company's 
desire to F#&k over the people with solar on their roof and put their excess into the grid. 
It used to be you got full credit for what you put in when you needed to draw out for A/C 
etc. Now they want to pay you only 50% and charge you 100% when you take some out 
or if you have a true credit for the year. At that, it's not worth the price of installation.


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## alterego

This is a little misleading because it does not represent winter time conditions. The main draw in the winter were tank heaters for the cows. We do not have any right now.

Also I wish I could show the multi year chart. But I can not get a screen shot with out personal info.

March was about the time we made the refrigerator freezer and wash equipment changes to energy star. August and September show air conditioning used.


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## parul1212

Payback period is the time in which the initial cash outflow of an investment is expected to be recovered from the cash inflows generated by the investment. It is one of the simplest investment appraisal techniques.


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## A Watchman

parul1212 said:


> Payback period is the time in which the initial cash outflow of an investment is expected to be recovered from the cash inflows generated by the investment. It is one of the simplest investment appraisal techniques.


Well, that explains it...... now we know why he was wondering around taking all those measurements of usage and crunching all the numbers together.


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## Alteredstate

Here is a little update on this thread I really wanted to find this and I was having a heck of a time remembering remembering which search term to find it a lot of are LED light bulbs that I bought in July and August of 2013 which I now know because I found this thread are starting to burn out and we are having to replace them so the whole bullshit play of them lasting for 20000 life hours and operating for years and years is a farce


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## Chiefster23

I switched to led bulbs a couple of years ago. I bought CREE bulbs from HOME DEPOT. The bulbs were made in USA and I paid extra for them. They are already starting to fail so yes, the 20 year lifespan bullshit is in fact 'bullshit'. Now CREE bulbs are made in China.


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## azrancher

Alteredstate said:


> Here is a little update on this thread I really wanted to find this and I was having a heck of a time remembering remembering which search term to find it a lot of are LED light bulbs that I bought in July and August of 2013 which I now know because I found this thread are starting to burn out and we are having to replace them so the whole bullshit play of them lasting for 20000 life hours and operating for years and years is a farce


Oh NO, they would lie to us? They did the same thing for the compact fluorescents, but they are correct... the LEDs did not burn out, just the electronics to power them, typically the capacitors that are in the drive circuit go bad, just like the ones in your computer LED monitor.

*Rancher *


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## 23897

Ripon said:


> I would say yes, but I would shop around on bulb, wait for deals, and do them over a year at $50 a month or so.
> 
> You seem engaged in the math so now add up how often those lights are on. Watt x hrs a day = kilowatt hrs a month and you can see if your 25% projection is off or right...at least be closer.
> 
> Also what are your utility rates? Here in beloved CA most of us get (x) kilowatt hours at a very affordable rate. Cross over tier one and the rate goes up a tad, but cross into tier three and WALLOP you get a doubled rate. Now for those of us in tier plans if a few bulbs knocked us down to tier 2 again it could save us .30/33 cents a kilowatt hour.
> 
> If a 100 watt bulb is on 3 hrs a day for 30 days it's 9 klwhrs or could be $2.70 a month, but an LED at 15 watts is 1.35 ish klwhrs at $.2 due to a lower tier and you save $30 a year on one bulb.


I think the number of hours has already been factored in as he uses a percentage of the average monthly bill to calculate the savings.

Regards

Ian

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## 23897

Ripon said:


> I would say yes, but I would shop around on bulb, wait for deals, and do them over a year at $50 a month or so.
> 
> You seem engaged in the math so now add up how often those lights are on. Watt x hrs a day = kilowatt hrs a month and you can see if your 25% projection is off or right...at least be closer.
> 
> Also what are your utility rates? Here in beloved CA most of us get (x) kilowatt hours at a very affordable rate. Cross over tier one and the rate goes up a tad, but cross into tier three and WALLOP you get a doubled rate. Now for those of us in tier plans if a few bulbs knocked us down to tier 2 again it could save us .30/33 cents a kilowatt hour.
> 
> If a 100 watt bulb is on 3 hrs a day for 30 days it's 9 klwhrs or could be $2.70 a month, but an LED at 15 watts is 1.35 ish klwhrs at $.2 due to a lower tier and you save $30 a year on one bulb.


I think because he uses the average monthly bill in his calculations he has already accommodated the hours used in his math.

Regards

Ian

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## Smitty901

The conversion to LED may have a long term apy back. But that alone does not cover other advantages to LED. Just like solar will never really pay back at today's rates if it is all you have it is worth it. And having LED lights makes using any solar back up better. Same with any generator power.
Always more to look at than juts a dollar Vs time pay back.


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## 8301

Back when LED bulbs for lights in the house were becoming more popular (around 2014) I read an article stating that they needed to radiate the heat generated to protect the electronics in the base of the bulb. The article suggested that the early bulbs may not be super reliable and to look for bulbs that had heavy bases or cooling fins around the base to dissipate heat. The article also suggested that LEDs would both drop in price (which they did) and develop tougher electronics allowing them to actually last 10 years.

With the exception on the cheapest bulbs (4 pack of weird looking bulbs for $7 at Home Depot) I've not had an LED bulb go bad in the last 3 years.


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## RJAMES

I think they get tax breaks to help but every grocery store and many of the fast food places in my area have all switched to LED. WalMart switched out a couple years ago they do not do things just to look good the math has to work. 

I say switch the lights you use the most first , look for deals and spread the expense out. Something else to think about is no heat with LED so less AC used. With the wife and fans good luck , took me forever to get the wife to understand a fan cannot cool a room that no one is in .


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## Smitty901

Over the last 2 years the only lights not changed over to LEDS are the 4 large shop light types in my bike room. They make them in LED now and are darn proud of them. They must be with the price they put on them I will wait on them a bit. The number of hours I use those lights not that high.


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