Miscellaneous Prats and Permanently Bewildered01 Jul 2008 09:13 am
By Nelson
Thanks to Karin.
Low energy bulbs do not, in any case, save as much energy as claimed. This is because unlike conventional bulbs they produce very little heat. Therefore in a house using low energy bulbs the central heating system will have to work harder to make up the difference. Thus assuming one’s central heating system is on for 6 months per year, the actual energy saving is only half what is claimed. Ask any physicist.
Tim Beechey-Newman, Reading
I went one better. I did the calculations myself and then designed you an energy-efficient home that’ll have those environMENTALists eating their words.
35 Responses to “Huddle Round”
Assuming that the central heating system is gas, that’s usually more efficient (in terms of cost) at heating water. Hence gas boilers being cheaper to run than electric boilers.
Also, a central heating system will benefit from massive scale issues. In order to give off the same amount of heat, it’ll use less power to do that as part of a central heating system than an individual lightbulb.
In summary, Tim Beechey-Newman, fuck off.
When an object is dropped from a height onto the floor, the potential energy is trasferred into kinetic energy, and then to heat upon impact with the ground.
When I realised this, I turned off my boiler, and just spend all day dropping sacks of potatoes on the floor.
Publish this if you dare.
This argument floors me every time. As if anyone has ever claimed that energy-saving lightbulbs are the single cure-all for energy.
Insulate your fucking house, you retarded bell-ends.
Tell you what, Tim. I’ll get rid of my conventional bulbs and replace them all with low energy ones while you rip out your central heating and heat your home with racks of light bulbs. Then we compare energy bills in six months time. Nob.
Aah, but a modern teacher would give marks for showing some sort of twisted logic there. He’s clearly thought about it…
Tim does seem to be SLIGHTLY missing the point here. Is he really complaining that energy saving lightbulbs are bad precisely because they’re more efficient at producing light?
Nice try Tim, but you’ve not quite understood the issue.
I don’t know about you lot, but my fridge used to always be boiling hot, until I smashed the boil. That’ll teach them tree-hugging enviroMENTALiberals.
Bulb, even. Now I just look silly.
I have an idea - let’s shove an incandescent bulb up his arse and switch it on, and then try putting an energy-saving bulb up there, and see which one he prefers.
Tim’s point isn’t that energy saving light bulbs are bad - just that (in winter) they’re not much better than conventional bulbs, because the 90% of energy they ‘waste’ goes to heat up your house, which you would be doing anyway. He’s not wrong per se, though I don’t think the Nobel Prize Committee will be contacting him any time soon either…
To those greenies who jumped on a coal train outside Drax powerstation, little did they know that Drax actually powers Mr Beechy Newmans Neon Vegas stylee Barrat house. Whack him and the UKs CO2 emmisions will be halfed.
Rich(MMath)(Oxon) if we dropped Tim Beechey-Newman instead of potatos he would generate heat through air friction and he would warm his own house whilst teaching him not to be such a spastic.
I’m awarding you “Pedantic Nitwit Of The Week”.
You’ve given me some great ideas for pedantic physicists who want to save energy though:
The man’s a genius. Next winter I won’t bother to put my central heating on; I’ll just leave the lights on instead.
If non-energy efficient light bulbs heat my home in the winter with only a small amount of assistance from my central heating, will leaving the fridge door open in this weather act like air conditioning?
No. If everything was 100% efficient it’d simply move energy around, making no difference to the overall temperature of the closed system. As it is, it’ll actually heat your house to some extent. I’m surprised Tim Beechey-Newman didn’t think of it.
Sorry for taking your question seriously
If there’s any REAL rocket scientists here, feel free to make this thread even more boring.
Of all the things he could’ve chosen that really are crap about low-energy light bulbs (they take ages to come on; sometimes they don’t; there are fairly serious unresolved waste disposal issues; they’re too chunky for many existing lamp/shade combinations; they cost an arsing fortune; they flicker; they don’t give as much light as the packaging implies; I’ll think of some more in a minute…).
What a twat.
p.s. love ‘pedantic nitwit of the week’
P.p.s. Not a rocket scientist, but do work in a lamp-shop…in case you didn’t guess.
To Setyourfacestostunned:
Most people’s fridges vent the waste heat they remove from the contents into the kitchen, so leaving your fridge door open is highly unlikely to make your house any cooler. If anything, it will actually make it hotter: the motor will be running for longer (and producing waste heat) as it is trying to cool down not just the insulated compartment of the fridge but the whole house. And meanwhile, the heat transferred by the cooler will be coming straight back out the back of the fridge — along with the waste heat from the motor.
If your fridge was located in a fireplace (so all the waste heat went up the chimney), though, it would actually work as an air conditioner. More importantly, if you had a “proper” air conditioner, it would have less heat to get rid of.
I once stayed in a squat where a fridge (with the door closed!) was used as a heater. In the depths of winter, it was noticeable.
Yeah, Nelson, but that heat you transfer to the egg by sitting on it you’ll have to get back by maybe drinking one more cup of tea, so you’ll only end up having to boil the kettle again.
Thank you all.
Fridge door is firmly closed.
@Paul: Damn. You’re right. Entropy’s gonna get me in the end.
I’m no rocket scientist, but wouldn’t Tim be warmer if his water was closer to the bulb. Putting it on the other side of the room means that he gets colder as he drinks.
Even more energy would be saved if his parents had not given him a double barrelled surname. Calling him Beechey OR Newman would have saved 2 syllables of breath EVERY TIME HIS NAME WAS SPOKEN.
But he’s saving energy as soundwaves eventually degrade into heat energy. Doubly so in the case of Tim, who speaks a load of hot air.
He’s not wrong PER SE, but you have to wonder which part of his arse he pulled the energy saving figure of a half from.
Have you never noticed how much of the excess heat just goes towards making the lightbulb really, really hot? Not to mention that most standard bulbs generate more light than is strictly necessary too - hence why a room with a bare lightbulb is usually pretty unpleasant.
Yeah, and loads of my central heating just goes towards making my radiator really hot. I should write British Gas a stern letter - I’m being conned!
Another bonus feature of your radiator is that it’s (probably) situated close to the floor in a position where its heat will induce convection currents in the room, thus spreading the warmth effectively.
A lot of lightbulbs, I’ve noticed, are placed near the ceiling and/or inside a restrictive funnel like device which may or may not impede the flow of air.
None of this matters as much as the fact that Tim’s pulled the magical figure of a half out of god-knows-where, when there’s much more inefficiency to standard light bulbs than mere heat production.
If you coated your entire house with kitchen foil (with the shiny bit facing into the room) then theoretically everything in the room would radiate heat back onto itself, thus getting hotter and hotter until … well, you’d have to turn something off and open a window i guess.
Talking of rooms, did you know that in the average living room there are 1,271 things that Chuck Norris can use to kill you? Including the room itself apparently.
I don’t know what i’m more afraid of, Tim Peachy-Cockhat or Chuck Norris
Actually no, it’s definitely Chuck Norris
Tim whatshisface is just a walrus gash
I’d imagine that Tim Beechey-Newman’s house is already adequately warmed by the tires that he burns in his front-garden.
I am a rocket scientist! There wasn’t much in the course about light bulbs, though.
An energy-saving bulb just might mean your central heating using a few more watts, but it wouldn’t need the whole 54W (or whatever) to make up the temperature difference - light bulbs, as others have pointed out, tending to be on the ceiling and not radiator-shaped.
I have just finished researching my back catalogue of Blue Peter annuals. In the 1973 issue there is an item regarding the boy who collected all manner of lightbulb (over 5000 in his collection). His name was Tim. I think that I have found a conspiracy.
Tim Beachy Head seems to have failed to notice the primary problem with energy saving lightbulbs, which is that they are really bad at actually emitting light.
The ones in my house seem to take an age before its possible to see anything by them.
Perhaps while he is waiting for his to get up to speed, he could turn off the boiler and generate his own heat by wanking furiously. I suspect this is something he would be quite adept at.
If his profound utterances on the subject of light/heat/cleverness weren’t enough (”Ask any physicist” surely qualifies for the auto-generator) - consider the man’s bio on Asteral.com:
“Tim Beechey-Newman, Financial & Commercial Director
Tim joined Asteral as a Director in 2006, prior to which he was working as an independent consultant to BMI Healthcare.
Prior to this Tim worked in structured finance & leasing, accountancy, financial modelling, film finance, and tax, for various organisation including Kleinwort Benson, Hill Samuel, and Ernst & Young.
Tim has a degree in Human Sciences from Oxford University.”
Assuming there’s only one Tim Beechey-Newman, it’s frightening that they let him within 500 feet of medical equipment.
This one’s a bit unfair to pick on. The guy’s message is perfectly reasonable and the factor of a half is as good as most to pick for an estimate. He doesn’t say that this makes climate change nonsense or energy saving lightbulbs a bad idea. There are enough fruitcakes out there to pick on without needing this one. There is more bad science - and bad sense - in several of the replies here than in the original comment.
Oh, and questions about running fridges with doors open may seem worthless, but they’re enough to let you study phsics at Oxford, so don’t knock them!
hEHEHEHheheheh.
Idiot
I think the ‘half’ that he’s claiming isn’t referring to efficiency values but to the fact that his estimated 6 months of central heating is half of the year. Since the cold half of the year is also the dark half you’d be justified to guess that it’s more than that.
(Notwithstanding all the perfectly reasonable comments about lightbulbs not being sensible heaters due to positioning etc.)
Also, just wanted to comment about the problems of energy saving bulbs - this is entirely anecdotal, but my impression is that their performance has been getting better in recent years - less flickery, faster on, cheaper, etc. It’d be a shame if a useful step that people can take in their own homes suffered because of poor performance of early models.