Candles v lightbulbs 29 September 2022 at 7:05PM in Energy 15 replies 1.3K views

TheGardener

I was reading an article a day or two ago about a pub in Cornwall using candles instead of putting the lights on due to high energy costs. The article says they stocked up on Ikea candles.
So I was pondering on whether this was a sensible solution or a gimic - would it be cheaper to use candles? presumably, they'd need quite a lot of candles to light a whole pub (ex kitchen and loos due to H&S)? 
So if a £1 candle last 20 hours - how much energy would the lightbulb use for the same period? I know we can't know how much per kWh the pub is paying but...just wondering

theoretica

A 5W LED bulb (to make the numbers easy) would be much brighter than a candle and use 5 x 20 = 100Wh in 20 hours or .1 of a kWh.  The pub may be on a really nasty commercial electricity contract - but I doubt it will be paying £10 a kWh which is what would be needed to break even!

ChaunceyGardiner

Even if candles worked out cheaper, which they probably don't, they significantly increase the risk of a fire. I doubt their insurers would be too impressed.

[Deleted User]

Candles are usually between 50W and 100W and produce less than 20 lumens (because a lot of the energy is released as heat).  There's something like 150Wh in the wax of a tea light, and obviously more in the bigger candles.

150Wh would cost you 5p if it was electricity and 1.5p if it was gas.

A 5W LED light bulb can be 500 lumens.

On no comparison are candles cheaper or better than mains gas or mains electricity - except for perhaps as a marketing gimmick or trying to make a political statement.

TheGardener

I suppose you could factor in the heat as well then? More bodies in the pub (attracted by the 'romance' of the candles) + the heat from all those candles + the light - I suppose it's not about the cost of the energy - but the photos in the article make it look rather nice and might tempt a few folk in on a Monday night.  Most of the pubs around here are closed on Mondays.

Leon_W

Seriously.  If you left a 6w LED bulb (500 lumens) on for 24 hours a day, 365 days a year it would cost you about £14 at todays rates !

Stupid pub landlord !

TheGardener

Leon_W said:

Seriously.  If you left a 6w LED bulb (500 lumens) on for 24 hours a day, 365 days a year it would cost you about £14 at todays rates !

Stupid pub landlord !

Not so stupid if it gets your name and some lovely photos of your business into a national newspaper 

Ectophile

All those candles will also ruin the air quality in the pub.  Paraffin wax gives off some pretty nasty fumes.

Spoonie_Turtle

Ectophile said:

All those candles will also ruin the air quality in the pub.  Paraffin wax gives off some pretty nasty fumes.

Unless they're soy or other natural wax - which would make them much more expensive and an even worse deal.

matelodave

Looking at the cost, a pack of bog-standard IKEA candles is £5.50 for twenty making them around 28p each so at today's inflated leccy costs that's equivalent to half a kilowatt. 

A 5watt LED lamp will burn for 100 hours whereas I guess that best a candle will manage is around 10-15 hours and will give out significantly less light, so you'll need more of them. Posh candles might burn longer but they cost more

QrizB

TheGardener said:

I was reading an article a day or two ago about a pub in Cornwall using candles instead of putting the lights on due to high energy costs. The article says they stocked up on Ikea candles.
So I was pondering on whether this was a sensible solution or a gimic - would it be cheaper to use candles? presumably, they'd need quite a lot of candles to light a whole pub (ex kitchen and loos due to H&S)? 
So if a £1 candle last 20 hours - how much energy would the lightbulb use for the same period? I know we can't know how much per kWh the pub is paying but...just wondering

This was mentioned elsethread. I think the candles will cost more but if the publicity gets more bums-on-seats in the pub, it should easily pay for itself.

Ectophile said:

All those candles will also ruin the air quality in the pub.  Paraffin wax gives off some pretty nasty fumes.

I remember the time before the indoor smoking ban. A few candles isn't going to get close to that!