Light bulb insanity

[Brian Hood]

I own a company that is 80% lighting design and it is all going LED. People just love them and they are getting better and better. For example, the best garage/shop lighting you can get may be the Pixie flatlight from Home Depot.
http://pixi-lighting.com/flatlight-residential.html
http://pixi-lighting.com/where-buy.html

At this point our goal is to design without any fluorescent lighting at all, and the ratio of LED to incandescent is about 80% LED, just because it is so much better lighting. It is tricky though and there is a learning curve. The failure rate is very low but the costs are all over the map but dropping.

[Clarence Martin]

I wish they would bring back the 5 gallon flush toilet !

[Jason Roehl]

I wish they would bring back the 5 gallon flush toilet !

I see those all the time on jobsites when someone doesn't realize the water hasn't been turned on yet and uses the commode. You have to bring in a 5 gallon bucket of water to flush the toilet...

[David Weaver]

I wish they would bring back the 5 gallon flush toilet !

I just put out two in the last year! They had a casting date of 1953 in them. After watching seinfeld and married with children, you'd have thought the junkers might pick them up to sell them on the black market! (kidding of course, i know they're worthless, because my neighbors have had one in their garage for 7 years, trying to find someone who will buy it).

They were american standards with brass parts in them that had finally worn out. Took a different mode to save money with them - one we abided by in the house when I was growing up. Flushes only occur with solids, otherwise everything else is left to steep (to save water). That wouldn't fly with my wife!

[Clarence Martin]

I just put out two in the last year! They had a casting date of 1953 in them. After watching seinfeld and married with children, you'd have thought the junkers might pick them up to sell them on the black market! (kidding of course, i know they're worthless, because my neighbors have had one in their garage for 7 years, trying to find someone who will buy it).

They were american standards with brass parts in them that had finally worn out. Took a different mode to save money with them - one we abided by in the house when I was growing up. Flushes only occur with solids, otherwise everything else is left to steep (to save water). That wouldn't fly with my wife!

I got a water well , so no worry about conserving water.

[Steve Rozmiarek]

I see those all the time on jobsites when someone doesn't realize the water hasn't been turned on yet and uses the commode. You have to bring in a 5 gallon bucket of water to flush the toilet...

LOL, we use them here when the power goes off for days too...

[Leo Graywacz]

I got a water well , so no worry about conserving water.

Don't let the EPA hear you say that.

[Mel Fulks]

Here is my home made shop light ,mentioned earlier in this thread. Aprox. 16 and 1/2 inches flat to flat.image.jpgimage.jpg

[David Weaver]

I got a water well , so no worry about conserving water.

both of my parents were in the same situation, they still are (well with good flow), but they are hard core about minimizing toilet flushing. Could have something to do with their septic, I guess.

I, on the other hand, have to pay about 1 1/2 cents per gallon of water between water and sewer charges. IT makes my teeth gnash a little to waste water.

[Brian Elfert]

I'm paying about 1.7 cents per gallon for water and sewer. I figure $400 a year is cheaper over time than well and septic.

There isn't an unlimited supply of clean water which is why it pays to conserve water regardless if one has a well or city water.

[David C. Roseman]

Here is my home made shop light ,mentioned earlier in this thread. Aprox. 16 and 1/2 inches flat to flat.image.jpgimage.jpg

Clever, Mel! Thanks for posting.

David

[Steve Rozmiarek]

Thanks Mel, that makes sense now, and looks like it works very well!

[David Weaver]

I'm paying about 1.7 cents per gallon for water and sewer. I figure $400 a year is cheaper over time than well and septic.

There isn't an unlimited supply of clean water which is why it pays to conserve water regardless if one has a well or city water.

I guess. It's pretty much unlimited here, though (no crop irrigation), it comes from a river that never dries up. But the infrastructure isn't so unlimited here, though time and regulation is its biggest enemy and not capacity. What that amounts to, I guess, is that the water costs more because of the infrastructure, and even if it's not limited from the water standpoint, infrastructure drives up the price of the water and still implores conservation.

With a wife who has a clinical cleaning problem (lots of loads of laundry, etc) and two kids, I could only wish my total bill was $400 for the year. it's closer to $1000. I'm sure my parents haven't paid close to that for their wells and septic on an annual basis (over the last 35 years), BUT, their rural townships are slowly forcing people to sign up for public water and sewer, so they're not going to have a choice soon, AND they're going to have to pay a large share of the hook up costs in a place where a lot of houses are far from the road. Not sure how that's going to work for houses that are set back far and below the road level.

Building a well and putting in a septic with a new house now isn't as simple of a proposition as it used to be, what used to be specified as septic appropriate now seems to require sand mounds. I guess the conditions for what's acceptable have changed.

It's all part of the price of progress, I guess.

[Brian Elfert]

I believe a new well and mound system here in Minnesota is upwards of $25,000. New houses here in Minnesota are required to have two locations for a septic system that cannot be disturbed during construction. The second site is for a replacement septic system in the future. It seems like a septic system here lasts maybe 30 years. I've seen where people will just keep using a failed system because they don't know it has failed, or don't have the funds to replace it. Sale of the house generally forces replacement of failed systems because the new owner will have the system inspected and will require the seller to replace a failed system.

I would much prefer to pay $400 a year for water and sewer than pay for a septic system replacement.

I'm currently looking for a lot to build a new house and some have city sewer and some would require a septic system.

[Steve Rozmiarek]

I was thinking of something while wiring in an exterior light on the woodshop yesterday. Circuits are sized for electrical loads, while it's no problem to put lower draw bulbs in an existing circuit, if at some point in the future a circuit that was designed for leds or something, it could be easily overloaded by something as simple as the wrong bulbs. I suppose someone has thought of this, and there is a plan, anyone know what it is?

I'd think the days of the Edison base on all light bulbs may be a thing of the past at some point, or code changes or who knows?