Heatballs

Gyro_Kai

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In its infinite wisdom the EU administration is now fighting lightbulbs and since the 1st of July those energy wasters with more than 60 W are banned and cannot be sold anymore (60 W next year). Europeans now have to resort to flourescent lighting with all their downsides (poisonous contents, often interference with radio, unnatural colour mix in many cases, slow lighting up etc.)

A totally unrelated news:
You can now, for very little money, buy "Heatballs", small devices which generate heat to warm the house and also some residue light. They come with standardized threads and look something like this:

http://www.faz.net/m/{C1691F66-94C1-47CF-A0D6-0CAC9C1A5583}g225_4.jpg

75 W and 100 W available as well.

Kai.
 
Hey, that looks like them old style lightbulbs ! COOL !!
 
Hmmmm… looks like a 220 volt bulb running on 110.

Years ago, a coworker, a physicist originally from the Alsace-Lorraine region of France, immediately after WWII found himself without a job and to earn a living, washed the branding off 110 volt light bulbs, rebranded them as 220 volts and sold them as high wattage bulbs.

They would burn brightly but not for long.
 
Kai
Heatballs .... that's what you call them. All I know I have been stocking up on them ever since I heard they would be outlawed. I would much prefer to outlaw the people who outlaw light bulbs. Who the heck is deciding our lives lately ? Think about it. I would like to meet some of them face to face but they never show. Instead they hide behind "causes" I once tried to pick a fight with a "cause" but I found it was just a mushy wet noodle bag of jello-like substance that had no backbone whatsoever. Besides it didn't show up for the fight.

C. Beaty
Interesting about the bright light. I had the opposite experience because of the following:

I am 1/4 mile from a main transmission line and receive top voltage . It degrades 30 miles down the road for all the neighbors but for me I get the maximum voltage which to run my light bulbs is 110 volts right?

That is what the label says but the fine print says 120 volts and if you are close to the source (like I am) it may be a bit higher.

I know very little about electrical but one of my friends said to buy the 130 volt bulbs (instead of the 120 volt) and they would last much longer. I did , and he was right. I got 5 times the life compared to 120 volt bulbs.

Yes the bulbs are labeled (by law) to state the voltage. Look at the label of the bulb that gives the wattage the voltage is listed also, or read the package. It is there somewhere.

Having that tiny grasp of things electrical I decided to be a real smart guy and bought 100 watt , 130 volt bulbs , and installed dimmer switches to run them at the equivalent of 60 watt bulbs. It worked. One cheap bulb over my desk lasted 8 years and would still be working.

Except I took a swing at the invisible "cause" that tried to outlaw my bulbs and I broke it. Actually that is only partly true. I dropped it when cleaning it ..... but hey !!!!! I would still slug the prick who wants to outlaw my incandescent light bulb. But the bugger never shows up. He hides behind some false religion called mother earth and saving the planet. I hate false religion.

I feel much better now that I said that.,. Stock up on 130 volt bulbs and dimmer switches. Keep your wives and families from adjusting them. Now I recommend the impossible. Wives adjust lights like men click remotes. :)

Arnie
 
I did the same as Arnie at my old house and seldom needed to change a bulb. Now I have 15' ceilings and so I must use 200w bulbs with a dimmer. I'm looking for LED bulbs with lums equivalent to a 100w incandescent bulb...that can be dimmed for low lighting....I hate to climb up there and change a bulb....
 
I had trouble with heatballs when I first arrived in the Big Sandbox.
But a little talcum powder and I was right as rain.
 
The picture is arbitrary, the guy simply sold lightbulbs as heating devices, tongue in cheek.

Just shows you how stupid that is. You can get an electric charcoal lighter which burns 20 times the energy of a lightbulb but they outlaw the lights without proper replacement on the market. If the development of LED continues as it did, in 5 years we will have true alternatives which consume even less energy and last almost forever.
That, of course is not desired at all by industry, but hey, sometimes progress does that. Imagine, before tearing down an old house you first salvage the lightbulbs :D.

Kai.
 
Imagine, before tearing down an old house you first salvage the lightbulbs :D.

Kai.

That is how our brilliant leaders work also. They banned all new three gallon flush toilets and only one gallon flushers can be installed in new homes. Go into any new bathroom and there will be turds in the bowl. It created a black market for old commodes and people were pulling them out of old houses to be sold to the owners of new houses after they passed inspection. It took a few years before commode technology imroved to allow a one gallon flush.
We are now under another financial burden placed upon us by our "experts" in Washington. When your r-22 condensing unit ouside your house dies, you will have to replace the air handler also, due to them forcing us into using r-410a. And that ruling was based on false science. VOTE THEM ALL OUT. This is not political based, it is scientific.
 
My only beef about compact fluorescent bulbs is the lie that 20W CF equates to 100W
incandescent, when clearly it doesn't.
As usual, the environmental alarmists discredit their case by overstatement.

Warm white 25W cfl is a proper equivalent to 100W inc, with sufficient margin to
render the slower start less problematic.

However, I would defend peoples right to heat their houses with light bulbs if they
so wish.

Stupidity should not be illegal, if only to avoid inadvertently criminalising distressingly
large proportions of the populace.

It should, however, be painful. At least financially.

As to which is the better for the environment, energywise or chemicalwise, I don't care,
as I have rather cleverly arranged to be dead within fifty years, which is when all the
dire predictions come to pass, I believe.
 
Here's the bottom line.. It's all about the respect of private property. Electricity is not free, you buy it, pay for it, and thus should be able to do whatever you want with it. The EU's political systems of course do not favor any kind of freedom. Hopefully their dangerous ideas won't cross the Atlantic, but it doesn't seem like the world is going in the right direction..
 
I'd give you an argument on that, Gil, but the commisars over here wouldn't like it. :)

More importantly, our Forum host wouldn't like it either.
 
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