Browsed by
Tag: LED bulbs

Some Ideas For Keeping Your House Cool.

Some Ideas For Keeping Your House Cool.

Comments 0 Comment

I wish to share with you some ideas on how to help keep your house stay cool.  These ideas have come from years of trying different actions and techniques.

  • A real important factor that you should try to achieve is to cool your house the best way you can so as to deeply cool the house structure as possible.  Think of these factors:
    • Cool the core portion of your house for as long as possible.  The cooling concept here is time.  It takes a long time to get the behind the walls to cool down.  Once these areas are cool they then act as sources for cooling.  Reasoning behind this method is if it takes a long time to cool the inner walls of your house then those areas should still be cool the next day when the temperature rises.  Those inner walls should be a cooling source!  So, consider start cooling when the outside temperature drops below your current house temperature.  This may be very late afternoon or early evening.  I have a very good inside the house thermometer (NEST), which I can view on my cell phone.  I compare that temperature with a good reliable Internet service provider web site.  I like The Weather Channel as I have found it to be reliable for my location.  Just a suggestion, you might consider buying a good outside thermometer that is WiFi capable so you can double check what The Weather Channel shows.
    • CAUTION:  Do not think you know the outside and inside temperature by how it feels on your body. Use science by looking at a temperature gauge.
      • Open windows when it gets cooler outside than in your house.
      • Close windows when the outside air gets within one degree of the pending outside temperature rising.
    • If you use any kind of window dressing such as sheer curtains, be aware that they will impede the free flow of air.  I do not like sheer curtains covering any window that I might want to open when it is cool outside.  I typically slide the sheer curtains open and closed as I think best.  If y0u think you need to keep a sheer curtain in place to maintain privacy, consider placing one or two ends of the curtains in line with the window opening so that, if there is a breeze, the curtains will be blown out of the way with the breeze or wind.  You will loose privacy when this happens but the curtains flapping back and forth might meet your requirements for some privacy.
  • Please be aware that turning on lights in a room will add heat into that room.  Tungsten light bulbs typically generate more heat than florescent bulbs but florescent bulbs do add some heat, just less than tungsten.  Compact Florescent Lights (CFL) and LED bulbs emit way less heat.  LED bulbs are the coolest because they emit very little heat.  Reference: https://brennan-electric.com/the-pros-and-cons-of-led-lights/
  • Another option to consider is to install window awnings where sunlight can pass into a window typically from the south, east and west.  Sun light passing into a window will heat the inside of that room.  I do not yet have these installed but I hope to soon.  A small rather nifty advantage is that you might be able to keep a window open when it rains if it has an awning.  Awnings are reported to increase the value of a home some times.

 

Posted:  June 19, 2024
Updated: June 20, 2024
Posted by: Score Card

Hard Wire A Broken Malibu Light Instrument Trick.

Hard Wire A Broken Malibu Light Instrument Trick.

My daughter loves to decorate for Halloween every year.  Her boyfriend brought over a lot of decorations that were pretty good.  One category of items was plastic pumpkins.  The pumpkins came with a large hole on the bottom, perfect for placing over a Malibu light.

We have a planter along the street of our house that I wired for Malibu power years ago.  The main power line was sunk under the lawn and then threaded under the sidewalk from the house to the planter.  I then created an electrical T network where a new Malibu electrical cable ran along the length of the planter.  I purchased a connector to marry the two main power lines in the middle.  Now take note that I had two ends of the top of the T wire that became important years later.  Each end of that wire ended at each end of the planter and this is where I placed my Malibu lights using their squeeze and penetrate a pin method.   The lights in this planter over time failed and I did not make the effort to repair them because we keep our Malibu lights on all night and I wanted to cut electricity costs.  I decided to switch over to LED bulbs to save money but they were hard to find at that time and expensive.  My bulb source, when I started this switch over, was charging over $20 per bulb so I only did the switch over for the most important instrument locations.  This planter was not that important.  The Halloween 2015 season I noticed that Philips offers a 20 watt LED replacement bulb that only uses 2 watts for less than $7.

  • Manufacturer: Philips
  • Model 9090011318
  • Voltage 12
  • G4 capsule
  • Brightness 195 lumens
  • White light
  • Estimated length of service: 13 + years.
  • Estimated yearly cost $0.24.
  • The problem with this bulb is that it sticks out from the socket too far for some of the Malibu instruments.

Home Depot also sold a nifty Malibu filter kit consisting of three colored glass filters and a metal clip for MR16 bulbs.  I used these glass filters in other light fixtures.  They really to the ambiance, the Halloween theme my daughter was trying to convey.

The main point of this post is to share with you a trick I used to save money and make a much better electrical connection to two of my Malibu lights and ensure ease of troubleshooting if a problem occurs in the future.  This all started when I found out that a few of my Malibu light fixtures had bad electrical connectors where the cable connects to the main power line.  I decided to hard wire this planter and not by the normal push pin method.  This really works for the planter because lights were only placed at the ends of the top bar of the T.  This trick only works at the END of the main power line.

In the image below I show one end of the T line that rests at one end of the planter.  I separated the main power line so I could deal with each power line separately.  I intentionally cut one line much shorter than the other.  The reason is I do not want the two wires to ever short out.  Look at the image below and in your mind see if there is any way one wire can ever touch the other. They can not.  I stripped the insulation from both the main power line and the instrument. I then twisted the instrument wires to the main line wires as shown below.

Image shows the main power lines was staggered cut so the two bare ends would not short out.
End of main power line has been staggered cut so the two sides of the circuit will not short out and the light fixture wires have been twisted to the main lines.

 

After I twisted the instrument wires on to the main power lines, I used plastic twist wire nuts (I used “Greenie” because they might blend in with the surrounding plants).  As you can see in the image below, the instrument is very old, still working though which explains why this is saving me money.  I do not have to buy a new instrument.

Image shows an old Malibu light base being connected to the end of the main power line.
An old Malibu light fixture base is shown being connected to the end of the main power line. Twist connectors were used.

Below is an image of the repaired light fixture ready for the plastic pumpkin to be slid over the light.

A very old Malibu light fixture model 8301-9300-01 which had bad electrical connector is shown hard wired to a main power line and a plastic pumpkin ready to be placed over the fixture.
A very old Malibu light fixture model 8301-9300-01 which had bad electrical connector is shown hard wired to a main power line and a plastic pumpkin ready to be placed over the fixture.
Verified by MonsterInsights