Turning Off The Lights Doesn't Save Much Energy

Stop stressing about turning the lights off every time you leave a room. That advice—which was drilled into generations of kids—was true for incandescent bulbs, which were incredibly inefficient. Now the US has moved onto other types of bulbs, including LEDs, which take much less energy to operate. “While the principle of not wasting may be noble, the energy used is so minuscule as to be meaningless,” Wirecutter editor and light-leaver-onner Jon Chase said. #lights #sustainability #energy #ledlights

[ryangonzales]

Even so, why waste unnecessary energy? Flipping a switch is barely a minor inconvenience

[CyberBullyOfficial]

It's about lengthening the life of the bulb nowadays.

[three-card-dead]

this might just be electricity company propaganda, yeah 3 pennies for everyone in the state of Texas is like $700K profit every 20 hours

[MrWyzdum]

I leave my lights on 24/7 for security.
Burglars outside see a bright house surrounded by dark ones and think, "let's go to a dark one where nobody's up" and leave me alone.
Costs me 18¢.

[Competitive_Dud]

I turn the light off when I leave the room & turn women off when I enter the room. 😎

[atadeniz]

But in bigger scale of whole mankind, it still makes an difference, and its an nice habit to have to turn off the lights

[thibaultmol]

3 pennies per 20 hours.... PER LIGHT. If you calculate that for a year time to the amount of lights you have it might still make sense.... And honestly once you're used to it it's not that big of a deal to turn them off

[JCosta-qgql]

Did a lightbulb manufacturer film this?

[asandax]

1 Watt is 1 Watt no matter what bulb you use. Of you can save 1 Watt save 1 Watt. Saving 1 Watt everyday saves 365Watts in 1 year.

[jonevansauthor]

You can look up how much less energy we're using nationally because people went from incandescent, to CFL, to LED bulbs. It's an insane amount - but ultimately countered by increasing population.

The real question is why are we touching switches to turn off lights in the first place? I use Alexa as often as a switch now and it sounds like a minor thing but when you want to get into bed, and can just tell the light to come on and off and at the different levels of brightness for that midnight toilet trip... worth it's weight in a bulb that's barely more expensive than a non smart one.

[Paelorian]

It's hard to imagine being so lazy that you'd rather keep the bulbs on 24/7 instead of hitting light switches. If you're that lazy, get a motion detector switch and/or The Clapper. They'll pay for themselves: electricity is just part of the cost. LEDs have lifespans based on time in use. Good ones can be expensive: those that are especially bright, give off good color, draw less power, are dimmable and water resistant, have a long lifespan, and can handle enclosed fixtures. You will greatly reduce the lifespan of yout bulbs by not turning them off.

What is the point of this Wirecutter video? Not turning off your lights is a bad idea for many other reasons.

Incandescents and CFLs do wear from being turned on and off, but there's no reason left not to buy LEDs at this point. You can even get glass ones that look like incandescents if you have old-fashioned light fixtures. Any box of LEDs will show an estimated lifespan in hours based on three hours of use per day. Leaving the bulbs on would mean wearing out and replacing the bulb 8x as often in ideal conditions, probably much more frequently since the bulbs will never cool down and rest.

[churro]

You almost got me Big Electric Company, no no no ☝️

[timothy]

CFLs are so bad, if I couldn't afford LEDs, I'd rather buy candles than CFLs

[Liquidglitch]

Sure, let's give the energy companies another reason to raise their rates. Stupid advice