The Lance J. Technoweb

I have a 1980's vintage light fixture on the outside of my house.  It uses a two-pin GX32D-2 fluorescent bulb , which is unlike the modern CFL bulbs you see today.  These GX32D-2 bulbs are super-challenging to find, and expensive too. Even worse than that, the GX32D-2 is a 22 watt bulb - that is a lot of electricity for a modern outdoor house light fixture.  And all that power is used for from dusk to dawn - about 12 hours a day. My goal is to replace this decidedly old-school GX32D-2 bulb system with a traditional light bulb socket and a commonly available LED bulb.  Here's the fully story. What is inside a GX32D-2 light fixture My GX32D-2 light fixture has three major electrical parts: a ballast transformer, the 2-pin bulb socket, and the bulb itself.  If the lamp stops working, it can be due to a bad bulb or a bad ballast.   Usually I try a new bulb first, and if that doesn't work, I replace the ballast. Nothing is inexpensive when it comes to ...

I think about energy efficiency a lot, so my question of the moment is... when is the best time to do laundry?  For me, my laundry consists of machine wash and machine dry. Washer Efficiency With the wash, the question is when is the best time to use a pretty much fixed amount of water and energy.  I think that's when electricity production is at its most efficient, which is at night and on weekends.  That's because the energy companies use their most efficient electricity generators 24 hours a day, but add less efficient generators as load increases. Dryer Efficiency With the dryer, the question is when is it easiest for the dryer to remove moisture.  I think that's during low-humidity times.  Dryers draw in air to work their magic, so the more dry the air is, the more quickly the laundry will dry. Also, note again that dryers suck in air, and exhaust warm moist air outside.  During extremely cold or hot weather, a heating system or air conditionin...

With so many LED bulbs on the market, it's hard to choose a good one.  And sadly, no retail web sites that focus on selling bulbs help. Faceted bulb selection The sellers of light bulbs should offer a faceted selection tool, allowing the customer to locate the best bulbs they can find.  With over 1000 bulbs on the market, not offering such a selection tool makes it nearly impossible for a customer to find the right bulb. Here are the facets that all adequate retailer should offer: Socket Style (traditional E26 Edison, etc) Bulb Shape (Traditional, Globe, Spot, Candle, etc) Average Life Minimum   (25k hours, 50k hours, ...) Light color (warm white, daylight, blue, etc) Special Features (wet, smart, etc)  User-specified Lumen Range (350..600, 150..1000, 150..350, etc) Just a note about numbers.  It is STUPID to offer discrete facets for things like bulb life or lumens.  There are thousands of different possibilities. RANGES are the only non-stu...

I've had this Lux programmable thermostat for years, and it's worked perfectly great for me. But this week I just learned about enabling Recovery mode, and it both works great and should save me more money. What is recovery mode? Normally, a programmable thermostat is a device that is used to turn on the heat at a user-specified time in order to meet a user-specified temperature. In contrast, a recovery mode programmable thermostat is a device that ensures that a user-specified temperature is met at a user-specified time. The difference seems subtle, but in the real world, recovery mode makes a big positive difference in terms of living comfort and heating efficiency. When using a thermostat, it can take a variable amount of time for your heat to come up in the morning.  Let's say you want to be up and about a 7 AM with a house temperature of 68 °F.  When should the heating system come on? Well, that depends on your heating system, how cold it is outside, and...