I have a lighting fixture in my home office which takes three 60 watt bulbs. I like the light fixture fine, but it is difficult to get to to change the bulbs. I’ve tried different ones but it seems within a few months they burn out.
Anyone have a brand/model light bulb to recommend that would last a very long time? If I could even a year without having to replace the bulbs I’d be satisfied.
For ordinary home lighting purposes, LED bulb tech is now at a price & performance point where I think conventional filament bulbs are pretty much obsolete. These, for example - 60W equivalent brightness (8W actual), $2 each from a name brand.
ETA: some LED bulbs have issues with dimming, if that’s a concern, you may have to pay more for dimmable bulbs, but I think it’s still economic.
This is not normal. Is the fixture subjected to unusual vibration, on a dimmer, lots of rapid on / off cycling, etc?
These days you’ll have a hard time finding a plain old 60W incandescent in the US. Your choices will likely be compact fluorescent (CFL) or LED. You may have to experiment to find one that produces the color you like (typical “warm white” CFLs are a little pinker than incandescent). If there is a clip-on shade or similar on the fixture, you may need replacement bulbs that have the same A shape as your existing bulbs. If nothing clips to the bulb itself, you can use any of the more common CFL shapes (like spiral). LED bulbs tend to emulate classic incandescent shapes.
If you have any of the problems I noticed in the first section, you may also have problems with CFL / LED bulbs, so you should look into that first. Not all CFL / LED bulbs are dimmable, so check that when you purchase them if it is a requirement.
I don’t need dimmable. In the home office the lights are on in there perhaps 12 hours a day every day because it is always being used.
Are these LEDs really bright enough? I tried something when they first came out years ago, and they were also equivalents in the kitchen and it made the room look dingy. Might not have been LEDs, I don’t recall what they were called.
If they are not bright enough for you move to 100 watt equivalent LED bulbs. [these will still use substantially less electricity than the incandescent bulbs–although quite a bit more expensive than the 60 Watt LEDs]
The lighting fixture has a 60 Watt max sticker on it. I assume this is for safety to not exceed this.
That limit is for true power consumption, which correlates to heat output. A “60W equivalent” LED bulb consumes far less actual power (around 8W) for the same brightness, it remains cool to the touch. So you can, if you wish, use a much brighter LED bulb quite safely. But I have found that recent LED bulbs do now perform as advertised in terms of brightness. There is quite a wide variety of color “tones” available, so you may want to check them out in a store before buying online. Home Depot usually has a display.
Yes, but that means a 60 watt incandescent.
A 60 watt equivalent CFL is only going to put out about 13 or 14 watts. A 100 watt equivalent CFL is going to put out about 23 to 25 watts or so. A 100 watt equivalent LED is probably going to be somewhere in the 12 to 18 watt range.
The one thing you have to watch out for is that CFL and LED bulbs tend t have the heat concentrated near the base of the bulb where an incandescent has the heat spread out more evenly over the rest of the bulb. Depending on the configuration of the fixture, you may need to keep the wattage down just to prevent too much heat buildup at the base. If the bulbs sit upright so that the heat can rise away from the base it’s probably no biggie. If the bulbs hang down so that the heat gets trapped around the base as it rises, then you need to be careful about how hot it gets.
A 60 watt equivalent bulb, whether it’s LED or CFL, should put out as much light as a 60 watt incandescent. The color spectrum isn’t quite the same, but the actual light output should be the same.
At the back of every box of light bulbs now sold should be a “lighting facts” label, almost like nutrition facts. This will tell you three important things:
The brightness of the bulb, measured in lumens. Higher is brighter. A 60W equivalent bulb is about 800 lumens. A 100W equivalent bulb is about 1600 lumens. Keep in mind what engineer_comp_geek said: A 60/100W equivalent LED bulb would actually use much less power than that.
The “color temperature” of the bulb measured in Kelvin, or how yellow/white it is. Usually the warmest (most incandescent-looking) LEDs and CFLs you can find are 2700K, or called “Soft White”. If you prefer a whiter but harsher light, you can also look for Cool White or Daylight bulbs. The higher the K rating, the whiter it is.
How much power it ACTUALLY uses, and also the expected annual cost if you leave the bulb on 3 hours a day. Multiply by 4 for the costs for 12 hours a day.
Also, before you shop online, visit a local Target or Home Depot or Ace Hardware or Costco. Many utilities will subsidize LEDs and CFLs. At Costco where I live, for example, you can get a 6-pack of 60W equivalent LEDs for only $5.99 (or the 100W ones for $12) because the local utility helps pay for them.
LEDs are definitely mature enough now to be used as incandescent replacements. If you still don’t trust them, CFLs would be a second best choice, but they contain mercury, put off more waste heat, and sometimes take a few seconds to reach full brightness (whereas LEDs are instant). On the other hand, without subsidies, sometimes CFLs can be better on a cost-per-brightness basis than LEDs, though the difference gets smaller and smaller each year.
If you want a ruggedized incandescent then search for “rough service” light bulbs. These are designed for use in harsh environments and are more resistant to vibration and power surges.
Those big Las Vegas signs used be filled with 220V bulbs, run at 110V. They last a very long time like that. You’d have to experiment to get the correct light level.
Around here, incadescent globes always have the ‘expected’ lifetime in hours printed on the box. The actual number is almost meaningless (because it depends on the quality of your voltage supply), but a 2000hr bulb will last longer than a 1000hr bulb.
A good quality CF bulb designed for outdoor lighting will last years and years and years., even with bad voltage. (But may take 15 minutes to warm up). I’ve never seen an incadescent globe designed for that kind of use, but perhaps they exist.
Seconding what Riemann, Reply, and engineer_comp_geek have already said. I’ve got a mix of incandescents, CFLs, and LEDs around the house, and current LED bulbs are totally comparable to incandescents. And I haven’t had an LED bulb burn out yet. 
The only thing I’d add is a recommendation to go straight from incandescents to LEDs, skipping CFLs on account of disposal being a nuisance because of the mercury content. (Home Depot will take them and dispose of them properly for you, btw. I’m sure there are other stores that do this, but they’re the one I know for sure. But when a CFL burns out, you shouldn’t just throw it in the trash.)
(Bolding mine) Uh, also, you can buy them from the physical store where they have the display. I think they still allow that. 
I’ve often seen problems in chandeliers which kill incandescents quickly. It might be the sum of all problems. The roof, the wiring, the sockets, the heat, and hence temperature, inside the shade/diffuser…they all sum up.
incandescents are very very inefficient at making light. A 60 Watt Incadescent makes a Watt of light and 99 Watts of (wasted) heat… Well its not really wasted heat … but the point is that the heat output of the lamps is such that you work off their power draw not a separate rating… even for LED lighting is turning most of the power drawn into heat… LED’s are about 10 times more efficient… the % efficiency is 10 times larger. 1% to 10%.
I second Fridgemagnet. Home stores have these bulbs; mechanics use them in portable work lights.
I’ve yet to meet an LED bulb that is cool to the touch when on. Their warmth is quite a bit less than an incandescent of any wattage. I’ve wondered what future generations of kids are going to do about Easy-Bake ovens. (Momme-e-e! The cookies still aren’t done!)
I think as you get higher in the k temperature it becomes blue, not so much white.
Have a look at this color temperature guide.
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Home Depot LED bulbs have a lifetime guarantee.
I also have some hard to change bulbs. Way up in a vaulted ceiling where I need an extension ladder to get to them. It’s a pain in the ass to change them, and darn right scary.
They’ve been going strong for about 2 years. I suspect they will last many more. It’s the main living area of our house so they get a lot of use.
I did go to LED. And mine are dimmable (I know the OP does not need this). When you dim these, they turn off some of the white LED’s and turn on some red ones to create a softer/sunset look. I like them very much.
