I don’t have strong feelings about CFLs, but IMO, LED bulbs are one of of the wonders of living in the 21st Century. I literally walk around my house grinning now when I turn on my lights
I mentioned somewhere up-thread that I have a stash of something like 40 (or was it 80?) incandescent bulbs, which should last me for the rest of my life or until LED’s become more mainstream (and affordable).
Anyway, in part inspired by this thread, I went out today and bought MY VERY FIRST LED LIGHT BULB! It cost me $29.99 plus tacks. I just wanted to have one so I can see what they’re like. I think the tacks are supposed to keep it nailed into the fixture or something.
It looks like bright white with maybe a touch of bluish, not reddish. It has a code on the box that says 4000K – that’s a code for the color, right? The K stands for Kelvins? How are light bulb colors measured? I mean, what does it mean to describe the color in Kelvins?
I just checked. We have about 100 60-watt light bulbs.
The Kelvin rating is supposed to be the apparent color of a blackbody radiator at that temperature. Because LEDs and CFLs are not blackbody radiators, the color temperature is not all that’s important (Color Rendering Index (CRI) is important, too).
Here’s a color temperature chart.
Thanks. Ignorance foughten.
(ETA: Or is that “foughtened”?)
in this thread you would have been enlightened.
I suspect so much. The reason : I’ve seen many people complaining about these bulbs on this (American) board. On the other hand, over here (where we switched a couple years ago, although you can still find some incandescent bulbs produced before in some shops), nobody seems to have noticed any issue with the “new” bulbs, and nobody is complaining about them.
So, if not political, it’s probably some sort of baseless meme anyway, people hearing about the issue and convincing themselves it’s true . Bulbs don’t get to work properly on one side of the Atlantic and not on the other side. Or if there’s a difference, it’s so small as to be hardly noticeable for anybody not expecting it (note people saying they “can notice” the delay or the flicker, not that it’s blantantly obvious).
Anyone considering going back to kerosene?
It may be political, but if so it’s the other way around. People so desperately want them to be better that they ignore the substandard light.
But the bigger issue is that for many people they just do not last as long as advertised. I don’t doubt that CFLs last longer under certain conditions, but not everybody lives under those conditions. There are too many variables that effect longevity to make a blanket claim that CFLs last longer than incandescent. In my house they last about a month at best. It costs me about a dollar a month to replace incandescent in my loving room. I tried CFLs for about a year until I realized they were costing me about 15-20 a month. Even if they cut energy use to zero, they still waste far more resources than incandescents in my house.
May not be the same in your house, but I don’t live there.
Yes, there are memes going around blaming this on Obama. Of course, he didn’t sign the Bill, GWB did. Still, “teh ebul gubbmin is stealing our right to waste money and energy!”
When using your loving room for its stated purpose, have you considered good old fashioned romantic candle light?
I have some leftovers, from when I switched to CFL.
Not a stockpile, as such.
I finally ordered a Cree TW from eBay, since for now they only seem to be sold individually in CA, where there seems to be some mandate that bulbs meet a certain CRI, and I’m not about to buy enough to relamp my house, just individual ones to play with and for lights I don’t care about dimming or light quality. I’ll do my traffic signal lens test, but is there a fair real world test? A bowl of colorful fruit like on Cree’s web site? Printing out pictures and then photographing them under various lights?
I also used a Home Depot LED trim (which uses Cree LEDs) for over the sink since the existing trim is ugly and they don’t make incandescent ones for that fixture anymore.
Still waiting for an LED replacement for my bathroom heat lamp and EZ-Bake oven…
I think I have more of a stockpile of CFLs now than I do incandescent. I got a bunch of CFL from the electric company. I had bought some of my own and about 80% of the bulbs in use in the house are CFL. I have incandescent and they come in packs of 4 or whatever. Nothing seems to ever burn out over here. I have a lot of both - definitely enough to get me through to when they have perfected the LED.
I just remembered that I have The World’s Best Touch Lamp in my bedroom which someday will need a new bulb and I assume it’ll need to be incandescent. But…since it’s held on since 1997 so far, it might hold on until I can put a LED in it.
You’ll want to do a slit experiment. You’ll get results similar to these.
Not Kerosene, too smelly/messy, too much maintenance but…
I’ve considered putting in propane lighting. In the winter it would essentially be free to run as it would reduce the heat needed from the furnace by their exact power output + free light. Perhaps just not use them during a/c season or where they heat was undesirable. I also think that type of light can be ascetically pleasing.
The cost of running the gas lines, and not wanting unsightly gas lines has put that on hold. Also having unvented combustion, even if very small, does present some concern.
This idea was long before a IC ban was proposed, just at the start of CF coming out. If I can’t adjust to a non-IC bulb lifestyle I may need to put this into action, hopefully not.
What is going to be interesting is people may remember how long IC blubs last due to this ban (if it lasts). The reason, if you have to switch, you will be replacing IC bulbs as they burn out, that rate will slow as there are fewer and fewer bulbs. Your rate of changing CF and LED’s will go up. 20 years later a light will go out, you will climb up the ladder expecting yet another burnt out LED or CF (or whatever) and find that it was a old IC bulb and be amazed at how long those old bulbs last.
I didn’t have a stash until this thread reminded me about it, so I went to Home Depot and stocked up. Thanks for the nudge!
The primary issue for me is the recessed can lights in my house. One room is CFL, the rest are incandescent. I’ve never been able to find an CFL bulb I like the light of for those fixtures (but swapping them out in that one room would require changing the fixture, so I haven’t bothered). Some are better than others, but I’ve tried every one my local HD and Lowes carry, and none really give me the quality of light I like. They also burn out within a couple of years, so I’m not convinced of the benefits.
On the other had, I have an LED retrofit in one spot where I wanted to try it out, and I really like that one. It’s not perfect. The dimming has a bit of lag and operates more like there are 8-10 “steps” in brightness rather than a continuous dim. But the issues are minor, and the light quality is very good. I tried a few other LEDs that didn’t look good at all.
The problem there is that I have 50 of these fixtures in my house, and the only LED I’ve found that gives me the amount and quality (CRI and color temp) I want still costs about $30/ea. And I have about 50 of those fixtures in the house (every room besides the bedrooms and bathrooms). So I’m looking at $1500 in up front costs, ignoring the time commitment, to do the replacement. I’m thinking that within the next couple of years, the prices on quality LEDs will continue to drop, and then I’ll make the switch. My stash of bulbs should last me until then.