{"id":4580,"date":"2010-02-22T00:00:56","date_gmt":"2010-02-22T05:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.olino.org\/us\/?p=4580"},"modified":"2013-12-19T03:54:06","modified_gmt":"2013-12-19T08:54:06","slug":"the-ikea-hack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olino.org\/blog\/us\/articles\/2010\/02\/22\/the-ikea-hack\/","title":{"rendered":"The IKEA hack"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"img_2921\"<\/a>Saving energy makes sense if it’s done correctly. This simple example shows that replacing often used light bulbs for Compact Flourecant Lights has a return on investment of less than 7 months. With some small modifications the replacement also looks pretty good!<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

We have a dining room table light which has 5 E14 fitting type bulbs. The original bulbs were 25W a piece, which adds up to 125W total.<\/p>\n

\"img_2919\"<\/a>
\nWaisting energy with a 125W dining room table light<\/em><\/p>\n

Wanting\u00a0to reduce our energy usage, \u00a0I decided to replace them\u00a0with 5W IKEA SPARSAM CFL’s. At first it didn’t look too pretty.<\/p>\n

\"img_2918\"<\/a>
\nThe first attempt, with ugly white fitting<\/em><\/p>\n

The solution was simple: spray-paint them a matching color and such that\u00a0the label text isn’t visible anymore<\/p>\n

\"img_2920\"<\/a>
\nImproved version with matching color<\/em><\/p>\n

Energy saved and business case<\/h3>\n

The result:\u00a0\u00a0the energy usage dropped from (5*25W) 125W to (5*5W) 25W. This light is turned on almost every day on average for at least 4 hours (more time during the winter and in the weekends) = 1460 hours. Multiply that with the difference = 146 KWh annually. Total savings per year (1 KWh = 0.22 euro) = 32.12 euro. Cost to replace the tradition bulbs with the IKEA sparsam bulbs = 17.5 euro (excluding the paint).<\/p>\n

General impression<\/h3>\n

In the\u00a0photograph below, \u00a0you can see lights 1, 2 and 5 have been replaced with the SPARSAM bulbs while\u00a0lights 3 and 4 are original (for comparison purposes). We think the SPARSAM bulbs produce more light than the original ones. The color temperature is a little bit cooler than the original ones. The only disadvantage we found was that the SPARSAM bulb takes about 5 minutes to warm up and\u00a0during that period it produces less light. We’re quite happy with the light the SPARSAM bulbs produce once they’re warmed up.<\/p>\n

\"img_2921\"<\/a>
\nComparing the energy saving bulbs with the original bulbs<\/em><\/p>\n

Switch to LED?<\/h3>\n

We’ve considered changing the SPARSAM bulbs\u00a0to LED lights. The “PHILIPS\u00ae Novallure LED Candle Lamp E14” seems to be a suitable candidate. This bulb could lower the energy usage even further to (5*2W) 10W. LED lights don’t suffer that much from a warm-up effect.<\/p>\n

The Philips bulb, sad to say, \u00a0won’t produce enough light for our application. It’s specification\u00a0notes:\u00a0 \u00a050lm (while the IKEA SPARSAM’s specification notes 170lm).\u00a0 The price of LED bulbs also needs to drop\u00a0for it to make sense to replace the SPARSAM bulbs. So for now we’re sticking with the SPARSAM bulbs.<\/p>\n

Related articles<\/h3>\n