To combat the cost of electricity, we are switching to energy-saving lightbulbs, which are mostly fluorescent lighting.
There are a few myths related to fluorescent lighting that prompts us asking this questions:
Should I turn off the light when leaving the room?
The short answer is yes. Turn
them off if you will be gone for more than 10 minutes.
Myth #1:
It takes more energy to start a fluorescent that it does to run it, so
leave the lights on all the time to save money on your electric bill.
Reality: When
you turn on a fluorescent lamp,
there is a very brief jump in current when the ballast charges the cathodes
and causes the lamp to start. This inrush of current can be many times
greater than the normal operating current of the lamp. However, the spike
of current draw normally lasts no longer than 1/10th of a second, and
draws the equivalent of about 5 seconds of normal operation. So, if you
turn your fluorescent lamp off and on more frequently than every 5 seconds,
you will use more power than normal. So, normal switching of fluorescent
lamps has very,
very,
very little effect on a power bill.
Myth #2:
Turning fluorescent lamps off and on wears them out right away.
Reality: Electric
lights have a published rating for expected life. This rating is in the
hundreds of hours for many incandescent lights, and in the thousands of
hours for most fluorescents. Fluorescent lights have a life rating based
on how many hours they are left on every time they are turned on. This
is usually referred to as "burn time", and for fluorescent lights
the burn time is three hours.
Every time a fluorescent
light is turned on, a tiny amount of the coating on the electrodes is
burned off. Eventually, enough coating is burned off, and the lamp fails
to start. Most full-size fluorescent lamps are rated to last 20,000 hours
when left on for 3 hours every time they are turned on. This means that
the lamp has roughly 6,667 starts available to use up. (20,000/3 = 6,667)
Longer burns extend
lamp life. If you "burn" your fluorescent lamps shorter
than 3 hours per start, you use up your potential starts faster. If you
"burn" them longer than 3 hours per start, you use up your starts
more slowly. However, you are paying energy costs for the operating time
of the lamps, and the most efficient lamp is the one that is not on when
it is not needed.
But longer burns
use more energy. Operating a light when it is not needed is simply
spending money for no purpose. Today's rapidly rising electric rates mandate
that every building becomes leaner with energy use to control costs.
So I guess we have to find the trade
off point. There is a point where the amount of money you save from turning off the
light exceeds the cost of reducing lamp life by more frequent This is too technical and for me it is not worth to worry about it.
If you like to read it futher, please see the site below. I grabed more information from there and it explains in great details on the site.
* Information obtained from Lighting Design Lab.
