CFLs … Going the Way of Audio CDs?

Ever since 1995 when Compact Fluorescent Lighting (CFLs) first came to the consumer marketplace, many of us have had a love / hate relationship with these strange bulbs that resemble a pig’s tail.  For sure, they are more energy efficient than their incandescent older siblings but it took some time to get used to some of the quirks in the technology.  CFLs take several seconds to reach maximum brightness when turned on.  In very cold locations, like barns and garages, cold winter temperatures exacerbate this delay. 

Many find the light output very harsh.  Some of the early bulbs could not be dimmed and the color temperature was toward the blue side rather than the red softer glow of the traditional incandescent lights.  Also, there remains the disposal issue. CFL lamps require small amounts of mercury to operate.

The newest kid on the block is the LED lamp (Light Emitting Diode.)  These LED lamps are extremely efficient, have tremendous service life, and come in various color temperatures.  Even better, they continue to come down in price.  They can even help save on cooling in the summer months as they give off very little heat.

About the only real downside is the availability of very bright bulbs.  I am sure that this will soon be addressed, but I have yet to find a 200 watt equivalent for the main light in my kitchen.

Just last week, General Electric announced that they are phasing out the manufacture and sale of CFLs and concentrating on LED technology.  For GE, one of the world’s largest companies, to make this move should provide a real boost to the advancement of LED technology and continue to force prices down.  It also might mean the end of CFLs.

Many of us who are customers of Duke Energy have a way to buy LEDs very inexpensively.  Recently the company sent an email to customers offering very deep discounts on the purchase of various types of LED lamps.  If you have not taken advantageof this offer, you may wish to check it out.    There you will find many special sizes.  They even have some lamps for candelabra chandeliers.

There has never been a better time to replace the lamps in your house with LED technology.  It will pay for itself in a short time.

The best laid schemes of mice and men

A few weeks ago I wrote about my installation of a back up generator for our house. I thought I would give you an update on the project as it shows that things don’t always go as smoothly as we would like with all things technical.

If you didn’t read the earlier column, here is a summary. With all the wet weather this spring I was getting increasingly concerned that we may have an extended power failure and electrical power for my two sump pumps would be interrupted. Since they were running almost constantly this spring, such a failure would certainly result in a few inches of water in our basement. I decided to install a small generator to handle the sump pumps, some lights and the fridge. All went well. I got it installed, wired and tested. You will remember that I joked about it being “cheap insurance” since we would now never need it since we had it available.

I should have been tipped off that all would not go as planned on a day in early May when I went to work. It was bright and sunny. That alone should have been a cause of concern as this was certainly not the normal for our spring. While at work in downtown Cincinnati we lost all power to the building and the emergency generator there kicked on as designed but because of a problem in one of the circuits we still were without power to some of the critical equipment. That was an omen of things to come that evening.

In the early evening we were pummeled with a big storm and the winds downed some power lines in our neighborhood. Here was my big chance. I was ready. We started the generator, plugged in a few lights, lap top and a small TV. We were set. We were back on the grid. Mother Nature didn’t get the best of us.

My smugness was short lived as the generator sputtered and stopped. All was dark, no Steve Raleigh providing blow by blow storm reports (pardon the pun) on the TV, no computer and no lights. Only wet darkness. Well, that evening ended up being anything but ordinary as I had to restart the generator several times. Wet and muddy from going in and out of the house I finally gave up and, since the sumps were not filling rapidly, we went to bed waiting for morning light and hoping for Duke’s reconnection.

The next morning still “Dukeless,” the sumps were filled. I started the generator again just to pump out the water. Later that day power was restored. Subsequently I found I had a vapor lock on the fuel system that has now been fixed. I’ll find out for sure the next time. My pride may preclude any further discussion of this project.

Cheap Insurance

The tri-state monsoon season was the source of real anxiety for me. It was not only the incessant gray sky or the water levels in my front yard measured in feet that made me uneasy. I was really concerned that I could hear the two sump pumps in my basement cycling on almost every five or ten minutes. They were doing their job and our basement was as dry as the Sahara. My concern centered on the frequent power outages that we experience and how long would it take for the water level to rise if the pumps lost power. Since spring is also a time for storms and wind, I figured that it was only matter of time until Duke’s lines would fail.

Other than moving to Arizona, there are other solutions to my dilemma. There are battery powered sump pumps available. And there is always the bucket method of emptying the sump. The first is expensive and the second messy. I decided that I would solve the problem with the installation of a small back up generator. I had been thinking about this for years every time the lights fail, which if you have lived in my neighborhood you know is quite often. I remember in January that I found my self reading from my Kindle using a kerosene lamp. Abe Lincoln has nothing on me.

You can purchase large systems that will power your entire home in the event of a power outage. They cycle on automatically and can handle all of the appliances in your house including the furnace and AC. These must be installed by a qualified professional and are very expensive. I did not want to spend a lot of money; I wanted only to have enough power to handle the sump pumps, our fridge and some lights and perhaps TV.

I found a small gasoline generator at a local store. I placed it in a space outside under my deck away from all windows so that the sound of the engine or more important, the carbon monoxide, would not enter the house. Rather than wiring the generator into the existing wiring in my house which requires expensive switching gear, I ran some dedicated lines to specific areas of my house so I could easily plug in certain devices when the regular power failed. In essence I have a separate electrical system, albeit with much less capacity but enough for our needs.

In order to figure out what size generator you need, you must add up all the wattage required by the devices that will be connected to it. This is basic arithmetic. Be sure that you remember that devices with motors like sump pumps and refrigerators need extra wattage when they cycle on so you have to make sure that you factor that “surge” requirement into the required capacity. Generators usually have two ratings. One for continuous output and one for “surge” peaks. Once you come up with a number, add 15% to cover what you forgot or will add later.

This solution is not for everyone, but if you are handy and just want to have some lights, a cold drink and a dry basement when the power fails, you might want to consider it. It cost us about $300 for the entire installation. According to my wife, that is cheap insurance.

Why Can't Duke Keep the Power On?

Well, it happened again. I came home from work today and sure enough the clock on the stove and the one on the microwave announced that again we had a power outage. I’m not sure if the hamsters at Duke’s generating plant got tired or a misdirected squirrel got toasted in the lines. All I know is that we lost power … again!

Now I realize that I live on a semi-rural road, but Harrison Township is hardly considered the boondocks (unless, of course, you happen to live in Hyde Park…but that’s another story). I have not done a scientific survey and I have not documented every outage, but I can say that there are more power outages in our area than there should be.

My wife and I joke about it. The sky turns dark, the clouds billow and before the rain falls or the lighting brightens the sky, off go the lights and the computer and the TV and clocks and the stove and... Clear days and peaceful nights are not immune to these interruptions of our power. In fact, most seem to happen when Mother Nature is on her best behavior.

It is not just my house. My office is across the street from one of Duke’s two main distribution sub stations serving all of downtown Cincinnati. There, too, the power goes off several times a year.

For sure the big rain storms will happen and the errant driver hitting a pole can’t be prevented. Those are not the outages I am complaining about nor the once in a century wind storm of September 2009. It is the almost weekly interruptions that are driving me up the proverbial tree.

So why is this happening? One would think that with our level of technology such interruptions would be the exception, not the rule. I really don’t know for sure, but I have a hunch. I think that a high level of prevention and infrastructure improvements have fallen victim to the bottom line. Expenses for these things really don’t immediately help Duke’s profit. With companies looking for the short term gain, long term costs can get put aside. This is especially true when the consumer has no option. We aren’t going to make our own electricity. Switching to another provider doesn’t help since Duke and Dominion or any other provider still must use Duke’s lines and distribution system.

So what are we to do? Where did I put that flashlight? Thanks for letting me vent.

Where Did My Stations Go?

I have been getting questions about why some or all of the TV stations are disappearing from TVs that receive the channels over-the-air using an antenna. The stories are all the same. One day the person can watch all the local channels and change channels using the Up / Down button on the remote. The next day all or some of the channels are gone and the screen has a message indicating that “no signal is found.” This can be frustrating and very inconvenient if you are sitting down after a long day ready to relax with your favorite TV program.

The problem is not with the local broadcasters. The problem is indeed in your set.
Once you understand what has happened it is easily fixed.

Digital TVs and DTV set top converters all have a built-in memory. For the devices to tune in the over-the-air stations they must have in that memory certain information about the individual TV stations. This information, once gathered, is stored in memory circuits built into the devices. Some TVs have memory chips that must have electrical power to retain the information. Since power is required, if there is an interruption in the power the chip loses its memory. I know at my house hardly a week goes by without some interruption in Duke’s service. We had two last week. Often the outages are short but there are occasions when they do last an hour or more.

You don’t have to have a power failure. I know of one person who used the outlet supplying power to her TV for her vacuum cleaner. Each time she cleaned her living room she would unplug her DTV converter box. When she wanted to watch TV, the channels were gone.

Another person was very conscientious about saving energy so every time he was done watching TV he turned off all the power by using a power strip with an on/off switch. His laudable green lifestyle did not mesh well with his digital TV set as he lost all his channels every time he finished watching for the night.

Fixing this problem is simple. All you need do is rescan for channels. On most digital TVs and DTV converters, this “scan function” will be found by pressing “menu” on your remote. Every TV has different terms for this function but if you look for terms like “channel set up” or “auto program” I am sure you will find it.

Most high quality TVs and set top converters have memory chips that do not require them to be powered all the time. These models not only more reliably maintain the memory, they also save energy.

Some TV Options When The Lights Go Out.

I continue to get asked about the availability of battery powered digital TV sets. With the storm season on us and the inevitable Duke power outages almost a sure thing, many rely on small battery powered TV sets to get news and weather reports. With the analog broadcasting cut off just around the corner for the local commercial station on June 12, and the public TV stations already broadcasting only in digital, your trusty old analog portable will soon be useless.

When I last wrote about this a year or so ago, there were only two portable DTV sets available and they were very expensive. Things are beginning to change. While I will discuss some options, I still feel that unless you absolutely can’t live without TV during a power outage you may wish to wait a bit longer for sets with more features and lower prices to emerge.

You have two options for receiving local over-the-air DTV broadcasts. You can purchase a tuner that plugs into a lap top computer and uses the computer screen to display the program or you can select from a number of small battery powered TV sets with digital tuners. The Hauppauge Company offers a USB option. You connect an antenna to the “Stick” with is about the size of a memory stick. It uses a small remote control to operate the TV features. This model can also be connected to cable service but that won’t help much during a power outage. I have not tested this model although I have an earlier model from Hauppauge that works quite well.

There are several makers of similar tuners all of which retail at about $100. The key to optimum performance is a good antenna. Most of these come with cheap telescoping antennas that will not provide good reception. Use your regular “rabbit ears” antenna or better yet connect it to an outdoor antenna.

If you don’t want the hassle of using your lap top as a TV there are now some small LCD TVs that have digital tuners. They retail from about $99 to $150 and work like any portable TV. All have built in rechargeable batteries. While it might seem convenient, if you are without power for an extended period of time, it is nice to be able to pop in a few regular AAA batteries rather than sitting in your car charging your TV battery from your car’s power plug. Most of these small 7”models only get about 2 hours of use on a single charge.

You can find several models on Amazon.com. I have not seen any at the local electronic stores yet. I am sure they will be there soon. I expect to see better models at lower prices in a year or so. If you can wait, it is a good idea.

Why Does CET Not Have Backup Power?

With the spate of recent power outages you may have wondered why CET does not have back up power. The main reason is lack of funds. Unlike a radio and analog VHF TV stations, a UHF TV station like CET Channel 48, requires a tremendous amount of electrical power. When we last looked at it, a generator capable of powering our UHF analog transmitter and all the attendant air conditioning and cooling equipment at the Chickasaw Street location would cost in excess of $250,000. Since our transmitter is in Clifton and our studios are in the West End, we would need a generator at the studio as well. Again unlike radio, the equipment at the studio required to stay on the air also consumes significant electrical power … much more than we can afford.
The good news is that once we sign off the analog transmitter in February 2009 and switch to the digital transmitter, backup power may be possible. It seems that the digital transmitter requires only a fraction of the power than is needed for the analog system.
For those missing CET tonight I know this does not really help.
jack

Keeping the Lights On & the House Warm

The recent devastating ice storms in Kansas, Oklahoma and Missouri brought back memories of our brush with ice during early spring last year. While for the most part most of us in western Hamilton County and eastern Indiana were spared long outages of our electric service, I remember some in Clermont County that were without power for many days.

Today’s modern houses rely heavily on electrical power. Lighting, cooking, heat and air conditioning all depend on our ability to connect to and stay connected to the power company’s grid. Gone are the days when you could light an oil lamp and put a few more lumps of coal in the furnace and hunker down till the lights came on.

One of the most popular features of many new homes is a stand-by power generator. The top of the line models use gasoline, diesel or natural or LP gas and can keep most of the critical systems operating if the power company system fails. They are not cheap. Even a modest 16,000 watt system will cost some $5,000 by the time you get it installed. While 16,000 watts may sound like a lot of power, it really is not if you factor in all the electrical devices in your home. From cell phone chargers to heat pumps, a modern home can take five times that amount of power under normal circumstances. So if you do decide to go the stand-by power route, you will need to ration the power to only the most critical devices like refrigerators, water pumps etc.

I have to emphasize that if you decide to install a system you will need to hire a professional electrician for this project. If you put a system in wrong you not only endanger your home and its electrical system, you can endanger other people. An improperly installed system can actually send power backwards into the electrical grid. A Duke Energy technician working to fix the outage working miles away from your home can be killed because of your mistake. This is not a DIY project!

Another caution; if you decide to purchase a small unit, using it only for lighting and perhaps a few small items, make sure that the unit is kept outside. Every year we read of the deaths of individuals or families killed by carbon monoxide poisoning. A generator running in a garage or even close to the house on the porch can give off lethal fumes that can enter the house.

I have a relatively inexpensive option for those who heat with natural or LP gas or oil. While most of us can survive without air conditioning in the summer, when the temperature drops below freezing, our homes can quickly become unlivable. You can keep your furnace running with very little electricity. A modern gas or oil furnace uses electricity to pump the oil, ignite the flame, control the thermostat and run the motor in the blower. None of these takes a lot of electrical current.

You can ask your furnace technician to wire the furnace so that is can be easily isolated from your home electrical service and plugged directly into a small generator. This should cost a few hundred bucks. You will need to have him tell you how many watts the furnace will need. Remember that the blower motor will require extra power when it starts. Once you have the number of watts required, you can purchase a generator that can handle that load and perhaps a lamp or TV. In most cases this should be in the $500 to $750 range. If the power should go out, at least you will be able to stay warm and keep the pipes from freezing.

Thanks for all the good comments during the first year of this column. My best to all for a Merry Christmas, Happy Holiday and peaceful New Year.

Some new information on old subjects

This week I am going to give some updates on topics that we’ve covered over the past six months. If there is one thing that is certain about new technologies, it is that they will change, and change often.

The Ford Motor company announced late last month that they will be the first major auto manufacturer to offer HD Radios in the 2008 models of Ford, Lincoln and Mercury vehicles. This should be a real shot in the arm for the advancement of HD radio. While there are more than 1500 AM and FM radio stations in the United States broadcasting HD Radio, the number of radios able to receive the signals remains very small. HD Radio, unlike satellite radio (Sirius® and XM Radio® ), is broadcast from towers and serves much smaller local coverage areas. The difference from standard AM/FM broadcasts comes in the clarity of the sound and the capacity to have more than one program simulcast over the same channel. For example, WGUC 90.9 is a classical music station. If you have a HD Radio you can get both classical programming and a jazz service with the flip of a switch.

In August I mentioned that before February 2009 you would be able to buy DTV adapters for your analog TV sets making them able to receive digital programming after the analog transmissions cease. The federal government has authorized the first company to manufacture and sell these adapters. Digital Stream Technology got approval last month. The adapters will retail at about $70 each. Plans call for the federal government to provide each US household up to 2 - $40 coupons good toward the purchase of the adapters. Look for them in stores in mid 2008.

Last May I wrote about the money you can save installing compact fluorescent light bulbs in your home as replacements for the energy hogging incandescent bulbs. Duke Energy sent coupons to customers making the purchase of the new bulbs a real bargain. Not only will you save on the purchase of the new lights but the dollar savings over the year can be as much as 75%. Even without the coupons, switching out the old incandescents will save you money. The only places you may wish to use traditional bulbs are in areas that get high traffic with lights being turned on and off often. Rooms like bathrooms or hallways with the constant on and off cycles will reduce the life of compact fluorescent bulbs.

Are you planning to buy a new HD television? According to a recent survey of about 3500 Road Runner™ subscribers in the Cincinnati area by Time Warner Cable, about ½ of respondents said they either already had an HD set or planned to buy one shortly. With the prices dropping and more programming available in HD, look for the sales of HD sets to really take off during the holidays and peak right before the Super Bowl.

A New Way to Connect to the Internet

There may be some good news on the horizon for those who want less costly high speed broadband Internet connections at home. Joining the two dominant suppliers in our area, Cincinnati Bell and Time Warner Cable, is Duke Energy. That’s right, the same folks that bring you electric and gas service are now marketing high speed access to the Internet with a new product dubbed Current™. This new service uses a technology first developed in Europe.

Essentially the Internet connection piggybacks on the electric wires strung on the poles on your street and into your house. There is no need for any new wiring in your house. Each electric outlet in your house becomes a high speed Internet connection. A special modem the size of a cell phone plugs into an electric outlet and a cable from the modem to your computer completes the connection. The Current™ Internet access is capable of speeds comparable to popular Internet plans from cable and phone companies. There is a tremendous amount of technology that allows this to happen, but for the consumer, connecting is as simple as plugging in.

Duke Energy, and before them Cinergy, working with The CURRENT Group, LLC, a privately held company based in Germantown, Maryland, began testing this technology in the Cincinnati area a few years ago with a limited roll out in selected neighborhoods. According to company reports, the roll out is limited to an area of about 50,000 homes. As of this writing it is still not available in the Harrison area. I have not been able to get information when we might see the service offered in our area but will keep checking and mention it in future columns.

There are a number of other uses of this technology besides providing Internet access to consumers at home. Duke Energy and other utilities can use the system to electronically read your electric meter or selectively turn on or off electrical devices in your home in the event of high energy demands.

One byproduct of Duke expanding a presence in the local broadband market and that is good old competition. Right now Time Warner’s Road Runner® and Cincinnati Bell’s ZoomTown® are the only games in town. While they periodically offer special rates and packages with TV, Internet and phone service, the average cost of high speed internet service is still on the high side for either service. A third player in the region should add some pressure for lower rates and better service. We will just have to wait.

A clarification – A few weeks ago in my column about the iPhone® I said that Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal and David Pogue from the New York Times each got an iPhone®. David emailed me to clarify that he only has use of the devices he reviews for a short period and then they go back. If Steve Jobs sends me an iPhone®, I guess I will have to do the same thing.

Save Big and Be Green with Compact Fluorescents

Much attention has been given lately to global warming and the need for all of us, especially those of us in the United State and other industrialized countries, to conserve resources and reduce our contribution to global pollution. If you’re like me, when I hear the reports or read the accounts in newspapers or magazines, it still seems like something that needs to be addressed by someone else. Many of us have the tendency to think that what we do individually makes little difference. That of course is not true. Over the next two weeks I will give you some suggestions for saving electricity thus reducing pollution from our local coal fired generators. At the same time I’ll give you an added incentive, since you will not only be saving energy but be able to put a few bucks back in your pocket.

In any house there are visible and invisible consumers of electricity. Some will surprise you and you will be amazed at the amount of energy (and cash) you can save with just a few changes.

Among the most visible consumers of energy is lighting. Let’s look at household lighting and how to accomplish some significant savings.

I checked with my friends at Duke Energy to arrive at an average residential cost per kilowatt hour. In other words, how much does it cost to use 1000 watts of electricity for one hour? The answer, in the Greater Cincinnati Area including Indiana, but not Kentucky, is 10 cents. I will use that number to compute the cost savings throughout this article. If you don’t live here you will need to find out from your electric provider your KW/H cost.

With that in mind I did a little auditing of my own habits to see what impact I could have on reducing my own energy consumption and what that might mean for my utility bill. I have already changed out the bulbs in several lighting fixtures with highly efficient compact fluorescent bulbs. These new bulbs come in a variety of sizes with varying light outputs. Some can be used with dimmer switches. (Be sure to look on the package since not all will work with dimmers.)

Currently you can purchase compact fluorescent light bulbs that provide the same amount of light (or lumens) as a standard incandescent bulbs but use a fraction of electricity. Those bulbs will last 10 times longer. Let’s do the math. If you use a 100 watt bulb in a lamp in the family room and it is turned on an average of five hours per day (more in the winter, less in the summer) that will work out to 1,825 hours per year. If you use the regular incandescent bulb, it will consume 182,500 watts in one year ( 182 kwhrs) costing you $18.00. If you replace that incandescent bulb with a compact fluorescent bulb using only 23 watts per hour, you will pay $4.00 for the same amount of light for an annual savings on that single lamp of $14.00

If you look around your home, I bet you can find a dozen or more lighting fixtures that can be changed out with little effort and a modest expense. Even figuring in the higher cost to purchase each compact fluorescent light bulb, you will have a net cash savings at the end of the year. Each year thereafter will save you more than $150 if you change out 10 or 12 bulbs. The reduction in electric demand of course will lessen the need for Duke to burn coal to make electricity in the first place.

In the next post we will look at some less visible electricity “vampires.”