Cosy-fficiency

You’re probably wondering why I’m holding a drill in my hand. Drills aren’t cosy. I have failed on the title premise immediately.

Bear with me… or just watch the video :)

Making my studio cosy also made it more efficient to run. This unexpected bonus has encouraged an efficiency spree, which has spread rather quickly to almost every other lighting appliance in the house.

The first victim - er, I mean, beneficiary, was another salt lamp.

This particular salt lamp differed to my studio’s version in one major way. It was 4 times larger.

The light in its centre must work its way through more material to escape and make a glow visible to you or me. So I needed a brighter bulb than the original, which ran at 15W.

And I found some.

Pretty much a direct replacement. But surely… the numbers seem too good to be true?

These were the tiny “pygmy” bulbs I found for the salt lamp. A clear step up in brightness from the original! And at only 1.1W (a measly one-point one!) they were almost 90% cheaper to run.

The original bulb, running at 15W.

The direct LED replacement, not only brighter, but also dimmable and a mere 1.1W! One point one. Over 90% more efficient than the original. Huge leap!

But this wasn’t enough brightness for the bigger salt lamp. It was still too unconvincing a glow - not enough to light up my evening piano playing sessions. Observing the lamp’s base and inner cavern, it seemed possible to accommodate a “normal” bulb which was thin. A candle-style one, then.

This candle-style lamp runs at 3.3W - three times more than the little one, but still almost down to a fifth the energy use of the original. It should be a fair bit brighter, too.

So I attempted the fit.

It would not fit.

But the new bulb had to fit through this hole, and then into the cavern within, which had been designed for a much smaller bulb.

The choice was to give up, or do something that would probably void any notion of warranty. The phrase “give up” is not one that appears in my dictionary.

Therefore I got out the drill.

For many tens of minutes I fought with the Salt Lamp of Amazon. Three times I ventured to find my work was not done. From the most unexpected of angles to the greatest of forces I explored any manner of achieving my goal. Until at last I threw down my enemy and had drilled its caverns from the inside.

You can actually see the little circles which indicate the pointy end of the drillbit I used - many attempts made to excavate where the top of the new bulb would actually go! Only revealed after vacuum cleaning out the inside.

And here we have it at last. The result of this great battle of our time. It’s cosy, it’s efficient. Title premise met.

Now I can play the piano in a calm but actually visible glow.

Get that piano playing some epic music because we have victory!