Ever Forward

Go ahead, Gillette. Laugh, and laugh hard. You’ve earned it this time. I was the one laughing the other day in the store, looking at all the shaving systems, aka razors on the shelves. It seemed ridiculous, at the time, to pay $10 for a razor.

Indeed, I joked with another guy about the whole shaving system idea. Whatever happened to the good ole straight razor? I recalled my days in the Marine Corps, when we’d be in the field shaving with a single blade and luke-cool water.

The other guy accused women of trying to turn convert our natural rugged good looks into cute-n-smooth. Awww, we had a few good laughs about the whole $10 for a razor deal.

Then, after he left, I bought the Gillette Fusion Prologue – probably the most expensive of the razors. The next morning, I tried the spiffy new shaving system. I applied the heat treatment crap that, interestingly, warms your face. Then I shaved.

It didn’t feel like shaving. There was none of the face-scraping that has been part of my routine for so many years. I immediately reported to Maty that it could not possibly be working. It felt, um, smooth. But when I finished, I was shocked. My face was cute-n-smooth – no redness. No stubble. Just a smooth neck.

So go ahead, Gillette, get your laugh on.

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The Advantages

LEDs offer three crucial advantages aside from energy reduction and color temperature range:

• A good 7-Watt LED can generally replace a 60-watt incandescent or a 13-watt CFL.
• LEDs contain no mercury.
• LEDs should typically last 25,000 hours (18-20 years @ 4 hours per day). Many of us will retire before we replace these bulbs.

Additionally…

• The plastic part of LED Bulbs from EarthLED don’t get hot (but the metal heatsink does)
• LED bulbs from EarthLED also are nigh impossible to break – safe for children & pets!

What to look for in LED technology

• You need to know the color temperature of LEDs.
  • A ‘warm white’ (2700 Kelvin) is yellowish, like a candle.
  • A ‘neutral white’ (4000 Kelvin) is the midway mark.
  • A ‘cool white’ (5000 Kelvin) is more blue-ish, like natural daylight.

• The light color temperature should be stated on the package or website product description
• Check the watt-rating – what is the bulb designed to replace? How many watts does it actually use?
• Lumens (how much light reaches the intended object) – Multiply the Lumen output of an LED by a factor of roughly 2.2 to find the equivalent for an incandescent bulb or CFL.
• Make sure you are buying a bulb designed to replace a standard light bulb. Many LEDs are directional and designed for specific uses.

There are dimmable LEDs on the market.  I have no personal experience with these, so I’d be interested to hear yours, if you use or try out these lights.

What are the best opportunities?

• Any situation where you still have an incandescent bulb. When it dies, just go ahead and replace it with a appropriate LED bulb.
• 60-Watt replacement LEDs are sufficient for most lighting situations – I used to use 75-Watt incandescent bulbs & 18-Watt CFLs.
• LEDs are designed to fit a variety of applications, from decorative lighting to floodlights to track lighting and standard fixtures. There are even LEDs that can replace fluorescent tubes.

Making the switch from incandescent to CFL and then to LED is effectively pointless by now.  Just go ahead and replace dead incandescents with LED bulbs.  Your savings will be far greater than you can realize.  If you’re already using CFLs, you can wait till these burn out (by which time prices should be even lower) or you can pass on the CFL to a low-income neighbor or charity.

Where to find LED Bulbs?

You can find LED bulbs at EarthLED.com, 1000bulbs.com, Lowes, Home Depot, Bed, Bath & Beyond, and other places. Be careful to compare – not all LEDs are created equal!

Note:  If you really must know more about the lumens issue, check out the 2nd comment below this article.   I know someone out there is kind of geeky & curious and just dying to find out more…

In 2008 I began sharing information about how to switch from the old incandescent bulbs to Compact Fluorescent Lamps (CFL).  Recently, Duke Energy began to offer CFLs for free to encourage people to leave the old incandescent bulbs behind.  Since 2008, though, the R&D folks have been working hard developing the latest LED bulbs.  Now, stores like Lowe’s, Home Depot and Bed Bath & Beyond are starting to carry the newer LED bulbs that can replace standard light bulbs in our homes – offering the potential to reduce energy use by yet another 40-60%.  Before you jump, I’d like to share my experience.

I have already converted my home to LED bulbs, all from EarthLED.com.  Our bathroom’s ‘decorative’ fixture, intended to hold four 40-watt incandescent globes now holds just two 7-watt, ‘cool white’ LED bulbs that provide probably the best light quality I’ve seen in years in a bathroom.  It’s like the sun shines in, even though our bathroom has no windows.  I have one ‘warm white’ (more like the light from a candle) LED that I use in my floor lamp in the living room.  My wife actually prefers the LED light quality over that of the CFL it replaced.

I based my 60% savings figure above on switching from an 18-watt CFL to a 7-watt LED, as I had used 18-watt CFLs to replace my 75-watt incandescent bulbs.  Prices for LEDs are still high, but dropping.  The EarthLED ZetaLux 2 Pro bulbs (what I own) that normally cost $30-$35 is currently running $20-$30 on-sale.  Even at these high prices, you’ll be saving money over the long haul, in terms of energy savings and the number of bulbs you have to buy.

I’ll post a quick howto guide subsequent to this post.  In the meantime, here’s a little something to keep your interest…

Some major advantages of LED lights:

• LEDs use approximately 40% less energy than equivalent CFLs and should last up to 20 years (as opposed to 7-10 for CFLs)
• LEDs are ‘instant on’ – no warm-up period necessary to reach full brightness
• LEDs contain no mercury & are recyclable
• LEDs don’t have the ‘flicker’ problem that early CFLs did
• LEDs are safer than incandescent bulbs and CFLs for use as spotlights for paintings & photographs
• LEDs offer a greater range of light color temperatures
• LEDs offer better light quality than CFLs – not the ‘harsh’ yellow light you may have seen with CFLs
• LEDs don’t get as hot as other bulbs (the plastic parts can be handled, but be careful about the heat sink)

Note: Not all LEDs are equal.  The 60-watt replacement models I’ve seen from Phillips at Lowe’s or Home Depot don’t offer much energy savings – if any – over a typical CFL.  I saw some at Bed Bath & Beyond that appear to be more sensible, but I still like the ones from EarthLED.com the best.  After posting my experience at work, a co-worker responded to say he can’t find anything that matches the cost vs brightness of the ZetaLux 2 line from EarthLED.

My howto guide offers more details on selecting LED bulbs to replace your standard incandescent bulbs and CFLs.

I hear people object to bicycle commuting on the grounds that “I sweat too much”, or “I don’t want to arrive at work smelling like I’ve been working in the fields all day”.  It’s hard to blame them for this objection.  Many offices don’t have showers available for workers to use, and mine is no different.  The CEO has a shower, but I honestly can’t see me running up, and saying, “excuse me, I’ll only be a minute.  Uh, can I borrow your soap?  Thanks!”.  I just go into the Men’s restroom and use No-Rinse for a quick ‘field’ bath.  Recently, No-Rinse really proved its value when I found myself confused over whether I had previously worn a t-shirt.

When I commute by bike, I normally wear a cycling jersey to work, freshen up with the No-Rinse, don my t-shirt and uniform shirt, both fresh out of my hanging bag panniers.  At the end of the day, I change back into a cycling jersey for the trip home.  I usually take out my uniform and t-shirt so I can wash them.  Well, last week was a bit different.  I biked it on Friday night.  For whatever reason, I forgot to take my uniform shirt out until Saturday, and completely forgot the t-shirt.  Yesterday (Tuesday), when I went to put in a fresh t-shirt, I encountered the old one and couldn’t remember if that was a spare or if that was the one I had used last week.

I started smelling the shirt, and Maty, who was with me, looked at me funny.  “Did you forget to put your shirt in the wash?”  She was half-laughing at my forgetfulness.

“I must have, but this smells too fresh.”

She smelled it.  “Yes, this one is clean.  This must be the spare.”

“Fine.  I’ll just wear it.  I can put it in the wash tonight.”

So  I stuffed it back in the pouch and off to work I went.  This time I put the definitely-used t-shirt in the main compartment with my uniform shirt when I put my cycling jersey on for the trip back home.  Today I opened my side pouch again, to see what other spare t-shirts might be lurking.  There was one I know I didn’t wear, along with a tanktop like the one I was confused over.  It smells fresh too.  The bottom line is, I have no idea which of the two tanktop t-shirts I wore, and which was the spare.  I’m sure the No-Rinse is at fault.

No-Rinse is a body wash you can use when you don’t have the ability to take a bath or shower.  It is used in hospitals and camping situations.  I can break a sweat just by walking out into the hot humid Charlotte air.  At 90+ degrees Fahrenheit & muggy-as-all-get-out, I’m usually dripping wet by the time I finish my 8-kilometer commute to work.  I probably smell like last week’s roadkill.  So to use the No-Rinse, and then later find myself confused as to which t-shirt I wore 4 days ago, I can only say the No-Rinse is great stuff!

That’s probably more than you wanted to know, but have a laugh and know that we cyclists have a tool at our disposal for freshening up after the ride to work.

You can see the photos from our Memorial Day weekend trip to King’s Mountain in the gallery.  Maty and I spent the afternoon there, and grilled steaks in the picnic area.  We visited the historical farm, complete with people dressed in 1800′s attire and doing the things that one would normally do in the 1800′s: cooking, sewing, weaving, making wood crafts and tools, and such.  Then we went to the picnic area, cooked and ate, and then headed down to the lake.  We sat by the lake watching people on the paddle boats, and then headed toward the dam.

You can walk around the lake by the foot of the dam, and we took some photos from below the dam, and Maty decided to take her shoes off and soak her feet for a bit in the cool water.  What a great day!