blast ye, James Watt!
Well, we found out one of the reasons why our apartment has been unbearably hot: the previous tenant was nuts and put 100W light bulbs in every single light. We began noticing this yesterday, that our bathroom got unbearably hot when the lights are on and quickly realized that three of the six bulbs on the vanity mirror were 100W bulbs -- they were replacements for three standard round clear bulbs that had burnt out. We unscrewed them and suddenly our bathroom is much more bearable.
Then this evening, while hanging up clothes in the closet I was standing directly under one of bedroom lights, which was just a foot above my head. Within minutes I was sweating, even though an evening thunderstorm had cooled down our apartment significantly. The culprit: 100W bulbs again! I replaced them with energy-saving fluorescent bulbs equivalent to 100W and the room was cooler and, remarkably, brighter, since the fluorescents diffuse their light more broadly than the regular incandescents. Looking around the apartment, nearly every regular light bulb is 100W. We're just going to have to replace them all.
The funny thing is, neither of us were even used to thinking of light bulbs as major heat producers, since 100W incandescent bulbs have been banned in the EU for years.
Then this evening, while hanging up clothes in the closet I was standing directly under one of bedroom lights, which was just a foot above my head. Within minutes I was sweating, even though an evening thunderstorm had cooled down our apartment significantly. The culprit: 100W bulbs again! I replaced them with energy-saving fluorescent bulbs equivalent to 100W and the room was cooler and, remarkably, brighter, since the fluorescents diffuse their light more broadly than the regular incandescents. Looking around the apartment, nearly every regular light bulb is 100W. We're just going to have to replace them all.
The funny thing is, neither of us were even used to thinking of light bulbs as major heat producers, since 100W incandescent bulbs have been banned in the EU for years.