Hey BDlvr!

I think you might be relying on old info.



The older dimmer switches worked like rheostats in that they used windings to "burn up" unwanted energy going to the light. Today's dimmer switches use a solid state circuit to rapidly turn the light on/off, reducing energy consumption.



Here are a few links that I found:

From Answers.Yahoo.com

Q: Does a dimmer switch (a rheostat) on a light reduce power consumption?

A: The term rheostat, tends to be an older expression that dates back to the days of using "windings" and a variable "wiper" to provide a variable resistance model between the supply and load, (light). With such a resistive device, the power consumption is actually increased slightly due to the additional component's presence in the circuit, but more importantly whatever power is not going to the bulb, is generated as "heat" at the windings.



In more recent years, we have moved to solid state devices which control the on/off time per each cycle of the AC current or a cyclic off time x times per second on DC current, but either way, the net result is a reduction of power consumption equal to the change in power factor, less a very slight amount of heat generated at the solid state device.



So yes, a solid state "dimmer" of recent and typical design can reduce the amount of overall wattage consumed for a given amount of light produced.



See also: url=http://home.howstuffworks.com/dimmer-switch2.htm]How Stuff Works[/url]
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