We have a semi-flush fixture in our dining room (on a dimmer) that takes two 60W-max incandescent bulbs. It’s not enough light.
I’m eventually going to get around to hanging a 3-5 bulb pendant or chandelier (once we find one that we like), but in the mean time, can I replace the 60W bulbs with 100W-equivalent (15-20W actual) LEDs without burning the house down?
My gut says yes, because drawing ~40W for ~3200 lumens seems safer to me than drawing 120W for 1600 lumens, but my gut has been wrong before.
You are not going to burn your house down, but you might burn up the LED lamps.
Is this an enclosed fixture? Does it have sufficient airflow? If so, you can put in LEDs.
If not, they will overheat and fail.
Provided that the lamps you buy will fit, there should be no problem. I have replaced a number of halogen spot lights with LED and they are a great improvement.
The usual problem in light fittings is heat. LEDs are much cooler than incandescents.
Incandescent wattage ratings for lamps and fixtures are based on two things: power draw through the cord, switches, sockets etc., and heat.
Since the power draw of CFLs and LED lights is a fraction of equivalent incandescents, I doubt there’s a modern bulb made that’s too big in power draw for any standard lamp or fixture. Nonissue.
Heat is also a much lesser issue, although larger (100W equivalent and up) CFL and LED bulbs do generate some heat, and some very large ones (250-300W equivalents and up) have restrictions about airflow, mounting, etc.
But in general, with standard bulb configurations in standard fixtures and lamps, you can pretty much ignore incandescent wattage warnings and stick whatever net brightness works for you in there. Use a little care if the lamp or fixture is really small, or sealed (or just pretty much so - no good air circulation), or if you’re really going to go crazy and put a 150W-equivalent in a small table lamp.
ETA: I just replaced seven PAR30 reflectors, 65W each, with LEDs. They are a little uneven in dimming response, but knowing that all seven of them draw about the same current as one incandescent (9W each) makes that very tolerable… and there are ones that have much better dimming control, and their prices are falling rapidly. LED lighting effin’ rocks. It literally might be what turns the tide in balancing energy consumption around the globe.
Cree does have a new bulb design, 4Flow, which has a vented plastic envelope. the bulb is light weight and the same as an incandescent bulb in shape. these would need very open air flow.
other LED bulbs are heavier with a heat sink. these might work in less open situations.
I have conventional dimmers on all my built-in fixtures and most of my floor & table lamps. I run only traditional incandescent (or halogen) and often run them a bunch dimmed, like 25 to 40% of full output.
I have never tried LEDs at home but I have looked at them in stores. None seem to dim like I want. At best they’ll go from 100% output to about 75% output then cut off; they won’t dim below about 75%. And none have the color change to a more orange/yellow light as they dim. They’re always the same unpleasant blue color from full bore to cutoff. Which is not acceptable to me.
Has there been any progress in this area I’m unaware of? Is there a brand I ought to be looking for to see these dimmable wonders you speak of?
Back when I put a pole mounted light fixture in my backyard to light my patio/yard it said that it had a 100W max. A 100W bulb wasn’t nearly bright enough so I got one of those Y shaped splitters that turns one socket into two and put two CFL’s in it. Far more than 100 ‘watts’ worth of light but well under 100 watts of electricity being drawn. Like boytyperanma said, the fixture doesn’t care how much light is being given off, just how much electricity (and heat) is being drawn through it.
In fact, one of the nice things about CFLs (and now LEDs) is that I’ve finally been able to get more light from fixtures that had low wattage restrictions. Those little bedside table lamps that could only handle a 40watt bulb now have 10w LEDs in them and light the whole room as if they had 60 watt bulbs in them, for example.
Interesting; much like the reasons people prefer 24fps movies over high frame rate. HFR (and LED) are indisputably superior on a technical level - the latter, in that their light color does not change with absolute level - but many people are so used to the strong reddening as an incandescent dims that it seems normal and preferable.
There are dimmers better tuned to LEDs (succeeding ones that were better tuned to the dimmable CFLs), but they are still a bit rare and expensive. There are also LEDs that have better dimming characteristics - in that they will dim along a steady curve, not that they will “go red” as they do so - but they, too, tend to be the more expensive models.
Put up with a little ratchetyness in dimming for now, and/or wait another year or two. I’d say LED is an end-game technology we’re going to have around for a very long time, and the gear will quickly find optimal operation and cost points.
Me, I discovered that my (slightly older, incandescent-era) Lutron dimmers will allow much lower settings on the LED reflectors with a little up-and-down jiggering. They do tend to cut off on a normal dim-down, but then can be made to kick back on with an up-tick, then a down-tick etc. Well worth all the benefits… for a little while. I will replace them when the cost/value ratio makes it sensible.