Heat Your House with Light Bulbs in the Winter

In the winter I heat my house with 60 watt incandescent bulbs [10-22 bulbs, 600-1320 watts], an electric space heater [700-1500 watts], a desk chair heating pad [50 watts], and a feet heating pad [50 watts].

I added light bulb socket Y adapters so I can put 2 light bulbs in some of the ceiling light sockets and table lamp sockets.

It can be a chilly 50F in some areas of the house when it gets cold, but I work and hang in the warm zones.

I get my net electricity from solar panels that I rent at a nearby solar farm that is hooked up to the Xcel grid. [Via SunShare] [That solar farm shades the plants at a vegetable farm.]

To make your electricity low carbon too, join a community solar farm, install solar panels, buy renewable energy credits or carbon offset. Check out Sunshare, SolarSlice, Xcel’s Solar Rewards, CarbonFund.org, Colorado Solar and Storage Association, and other community solar gardens.

Incidentally, nearly 100% of the energy used by an incandescent lightbulb is eventually turned into heat when used in an enclosed space. Even the visible light energy from a light bulb is converted into heat (IR) as it bounces around a room. The kind of electric heater (incandescent/heat bulb, water-filled, oil-filled, open coil, ceramic) doesn’t decide BTU output. BTU output is directly related to wattage.

About 40% of the electricity in the U.S. comes from low-carbon sources.

Conversely, my retired house gas heater was rated at 75% efficient [probably because some of the heat was lost through the flue]. But another 33% to 50% of the heat might have been lost because of the poorly insulated metal forced air ducts run under the floor in the cold crawl space. That old heater may have been less than 50% efficient.

So every light bulb that you use to heat your home rather than using the gas heater might help you keep the Earth a little cooler too.

The solar electricity I get from the solar farm is the same price I paid for fossil fuel generated electricity.

When it’s not winter, I switch out all the incandescent bulbs back to LED lights.

I wish I could put a heat pump in my place but it is out of my budget and it would not work with my old house.

For a cool planet, Stele Ely XOEarth.org/Incandescent

Note: New homes are being built with heated floors that use electric resistance mats and/or electric resistance cables. That sounds great to me because a resident can choose to use electricity from renewable energy to heat a home, instead of fracked methane gas that creates more air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. Resistance heating is my hero. Radiant heating is becoming increasingly popular in new home construction.

All resistance heaters, regardless of their type (incandescent, water-filled, oil-filled, open coil, ceramic), have essentially the same BTU output per watt. The conversion factor between watts and BTUs is a constant: 1 watt = 3.412 BTU/hour.

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Tiger Light : Future Cats Purr About LED Lights

Play >> Tiger Light .mp3 x Dave Weil and stele
Two tigers from the future have a few things to say about screwing in those LED lights to help make their lives possible 50 years in the future. Hear them growl about the “Tiger Lights” that you put in and how the LEDS you put in may be the ones that save their lives! Stop climate change, save a tiger.

Bengal Tiger /en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_tiger

The Bengal tiger (Panthera tigris tigris) is the most numerous tiger subspecies. Its populations have been estimated at 1,706–1,909 in India, 440 in Bangladesh, 163–253 in Nepal and 67–81 in Bhutan.[2][3][4][5] Since 2010, it has been classified as an endangered species by the IUCN. The total population is estimated at fewer than 2,500 individuals with a decreasing trend, and none of the Tiger Conservation Landscapes within the Bengal tiger’s range is large enough to support an effective population size of 250 adult individuals.[1]

Bengal is traditionally fixed as the typical locality for the binomial Panthera tigris, to which the British taxonomist Pocock subordinated the Bengal tiger in 1929 under the trinomial Panthera tigris tigris.[6][7]

It is the national animal of both India and Bangladesh.[8]

L.E.D. Advantages : via en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L.E.D.

Efficiency: LEDs emit more lumens per watt than incandescent light bulbs.[117] The efficiency of LED lighting fixtures is not affected by shape and size, unlike fluorescent light bulbs or tubes.

Color: LEDs can emit light of an intended color without using any color filters as traditional lighting methods need. This is more efficient and can lower initial costs.

On/Off time: A typical red indicator LED will achieve full brightness in under a microsecond.[119]

Dimming: LEDs can very easily be dimmed either by pulse-width modulation or lowering the forward current.[120] This pulse-width modulation is why LED lights viewed on camera, particularly headlights on cars, appear to be flashing or flickering. This is a type of stroboscopic effect.

Cool light: In contrast to most light sources, LEDs radiate very little heat in the form of IR that can cause damage to sensitive objects or fabrics. Wasted energy is dispersed as heat through the base of the LED.

Slow failure: LEDs mostly fail by dimming over time, rather than the abrupt failure of incandescent bulbs.[58]

Lifetime: LEDs can have 35,000 to 50,000 hours of useful life.[121] Incandescent light bulbs at 1,000 to 2,000 hours.[122]

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