Does turning on a light bulb use more power?

Question

I've heard that turning a light bulb on/off uses 20 minutes worth of power up? Is this true?

i.e. If I leave the room for 15 minutes is it actually better to leave the light bulb on?

Answer 1

No it does not use up 20 minutes of power. Turning the light on does not require any more additional power than it does normally take to run it because the light bulb does not have a ballast that must be charged prior to turning it on. Flouscent lights do have ballasts and should not be turned on and off every 15 minutes however the standard light bulb does not. The electrical lines in your walls such as your wall sockets have electricity constantly, because of resistance, electricity is constantly expended in those lines to keep them charged, so if you never use an appliance, light. or anything you will still be billed for a small amount of electricity because you loose some to keep all the lines charged with electricity....


I hope that shed some light for you.

Answer 2

The intant load is removed is savings. Turn lights off no matter how short the time you leave the room. Do the bugs living in that room need light think not? And compact floresent bulbs in every fixture that does not have a dimmer or three way thing. I use them every where I can even over the vanitys. Floresent outside flood lighting 15 watts vs 150 watts turned on at dusk and off at dawn now that is savings. Landscape lighting and tree lights floresent many watts savings there. I might turn the A/C down a degree.

Answer 3

The truth is an ordinary light bulb will not make allot of difference if you turn it on or off. If on the other hand it was a fluorescent tube light, it would make a difference. Although the tube light uses less electric than an ordinary light bulb during its use, the fluorescent tube needs and big current to start it off. This is why you have heard your storey, and also why most offices etc use tube lighting.

Answer 4

a tube light or discharge lamp such as street lighting do use more power to start up but not that much and normal bulbs should be switched off when not in use even the government adverts being shown now advise switching off but the best we can do is not leave appliances such as t.v's or computers on standby this wastes alot of electricity, and virtualrealitys ,the notion you pay to charge up the wires is rubbish electricity has to have a complete circuit to flow either through an appliance or to an earth through a resistance so if you are using electricity with everything switched off you have a wiring problem

Answer 5

VIRTUAIRE made a complete hash of it.!!!!!
Most of the others are correct, in fact always turn off an ordinary light, not a fluorescent..
If you are keen to make bulbs last longer, buy a dimmer and turn on at the low setting first ,increasing the illumination gently.

Answer 6

This is a complete fallacy. Switch off every time.
I heard this in relation to fluorescent tubes which have a starter capacitor and take a couple of seconds to fire up.

It is easy to test this idea.
If you work out how much energy a light uses in twenty minutes, and then work out the current involved in using that energy in a few seconds, you will see that if the fallacy were true, you would blow all the fuses ( or melt the wiring) when you switch on.

Answer 7

No, it doesn't change the rate of power consumption. But it does cause the bulb to wear out faster.

Answer 8

Yes, this is the main reason why bulbs burn out. The shock and overload of the action of the electrons barging through the filament increases attrition with every use.

15 minutes? hmmmmm good question.

Answer 9

Yes

Answer 10

Yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! But turn the light off when you leave the room.