Light Bulbs

[linell]

Has anyone tried buying any lately I needed one for the downstairs loo, and could only find Energy Saving Bulbs at £5.99 each.

Linell.

[Maths girl]

Sorry to say

energy saving ones are the only ones being sold now unless you can find a shop with old stock but I think some people heard they were being removed from sale and laid in stocks so I think you could be out of luck.

[SRD]

You can get energy saving ones cheaper than that (even Waitrose has them cheaper than that) but it still means that you can't see where to point Percy. Down here most independent hardware stores still have traditional bulbs and you can get them online. I have heard of a store selling '100 Watt heaters' in an effort to get round the ban. Have you tried the market stalls?

[Jimmy]

Try Tesco's they have some.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-storie ... -22854658/

[MarkCDodd]

Incandecents are banned in Australia and so they should be!

All tests I have seen show that an equivalent wattage energy saver is just as bright if not brighter the an incandescent.

We swapped over all our bulbs in a single hit and not noticed any degredation in brightness.

If you feel otherwise, buy the next wattage up and still use a fraction of the actual energy.

Advertising them at 100 watt heaters is pretty accurate. Most of you energy is dissipated in heat, not light.

[gardener]

Mmm, I'm not keen on them either. I don't like the light that they give. Here our electricity is all produced by hydroelectric or geothermal so it is pretty "green" and I've never seen a total comparison for old bulbs versus new bulbs taking in cost of production and destruction as well as actual running costs. The energy saving ones aren't supposed to end in landfill so have to be returned to the recycling plant - oh yes, have to drive there too, then I suppose get shipped out of the country.
I can see that heat matters in a hot climate but if you have to heat the room anyway then it is slightly less of an issue (not that I'm saying it is an efficient way to heat, but it isn't wasted heat).
I think that something better will be along in a few years time. I like the sound of the light emitting film which could be put in the window so that the window is the light source at night as well as day.
While we do have to buy these stupid energy saving ones then I think we have to realise that they vary a lot, the light emitted is not always the same, start-to-full-working time varies, and the price. Gives me a headache I tend to buy a bunch in IKEA and hope for the best but they are prett rubbish outdoors in low temperatures so perhaps I need a special one for that...

[linell]

Thanks for the replies, I didn't realise that the Energy Bulbs had to be sent to the Recycling Plant Will buy on line from now on, at least with the old bulbs you could see what you are doing Cheers from Linell.

[SRD]

Incandecents are banned in Australia and so they should be!

All tests I have seen show that an equivalent wattage energy saver is just as bright if not brighter the an incandescent.

We swapped over all our bulbs in a single hit and not noticed any degredation in brightness.

If you feel otherwise, buy the next wattage up and still use a fraction of the actual energy.

Advertising them at 100 watt heaters is pretty accurate. Most of you energy is dissipated in heat, not light.

Nearly all the tests I've seen, which were carried out by the manufacturers, show there is no difference, a BBC investigation showed they were poor tests, unscientifically carried out with the results badly analysed. When the tests were done by an independent lab (but only on a small sample so not scientifically valid) they showed that the drop in light quality was between 5 - 30% depending on the type of light, that the energy saving was around 50% rather than the much higher figures claimed by the manufacturers, that the new bulbs are much more dangerous to the environment if not properly re-cycled (at the time of the investigation there were virtually no re-cycling plants in Britain capable of handling the bulbs and the safe collection, packaging for export and shipping caused more ecological damage than the entire savings in the rest of the process) that the life of the bulbs was less than half that claimed by the manufacturers and that a significant portion of the population suffered sight problems that were seriously exacerbated by the new bulbs. Personal experience shows that the light isn't as good, we've had to change our shower light fitting to take two of the new 40w equivalents rather than the old 60w one (the larger high wattage new bulbs are too big to fit into the old fitting). In general we are using 3 bulbs rather than the two on dimmers that we used to use. We now need 2 outdoor lights to replace the single 100 watt one that we used to have, that's sort of a benefit actually as they are spread further along the drive giving greater coverage if at a lower level but then the cast light interferes with the neighbours more.

Don't get me wrong, I'm in favour of the gradual change from incandescents to a new form of lighting (in fact it should have been going on for years) but I think that it needs to be done in tandem with existing types, as the technology improves and as new, dedicated fittings are installed, especially as it's not going to be long before the new lights are themselves phased out, to be replaced by LEDs.

[snoopysue]

There are three main problems with energy saving bulbs- the first is the colour of the light they give out, not attractive at all, although they are getting better! then there's the delay when you turn them on, so useless for a quick visit to the loo! Lastly you can't use them with traditional dimmer switches.

These problems are being looked at by the manufavturers, but they wont be able to solve them completely. We have halogen bulbs that are inside a big bulb, so they're more like the incandescent ones, but use less energy. There are also led light sources comimg on the market, these look promising.

Oh and by the way, don't just buy the cheaper bulbs as their lifespan isn't always as long as the manufactureres say! We tend to buy osram or Philips and don't have to replace them as often as the cheaper ones.

And I agree with Gardener about the heat not being wasted! He reason for energy saving bulbs having to be recycled is the nasty chemicals they're made of- very envirnmentally friendly¡ ( Not)!

[MarkCDodd]

There has always been a vaiation in light output for a given wattage of incandescent as well!

The material and thickness of the element determine the lumens (that is the measure of brightness) produced.

But if you go by the average of the hundreds tested by the Australian government then the most common incandescent light bulb used, the 60W, produces an average of 720lm.

To get the same from a CFL (Compact Flourescent Lamp), after hundreds were tested, you only need between 11-12 watts!

That is a huge difference in power to get the average output.

Some manfucaturers put the lumens output on thier packaging.

This may become compulsory in Australia.

CFL also come in different shades to mimic different light sources.

If you want to have the same sort of lighting as the "pearl" incandescent the you get "Warm White".

Most offices will use "Cool White" which is what tube flourescents produce.

The "Daylight" shade is designed to mimic noon sunlight.

[Antie Em]

Sandwell Council used give them away - they leave them on people's doorsteps. My mom has had quite a few deliveries, she can't use them because they're not bright enough for her to do her crosswords. I then have to use my petrol (more emmisions) to take them to the recycle. I personally think they look grotesque and you can't use them with dimmer switches.

So I will continue to use ordinary light bulbs where I have a normal light fitting until they come up with something better. I do my bit to save the planet by never having a plastic carrier bag at the supermarket.

[Rob]

Marky do you get all that info by Googling or is it all in your head?
Be honest cos If it's in your head then i'd worry if it was me!!

[snoopysue]

Sandwell Council used give them away - they leave them on people's doorsteps. My mom has had quite a few deliveries, she can't use them because they're not bright enough for her to do her crosswords. I then have to use my petrol (more emmisions) to take them to the recycle. I personally think they look grotesque and you can't use them with dimmer switches.

So I will continue to use ordinary light bulbs where I have a normal light fitting until they come up with something better. I do my bit to save the planet by never having a plastic carrier bag at the supermarket.

I agree with you Auntie Em!
Our council used to give them away too, but they were the really cheap ones, so they took ages to warm up and give max light, and the colour was disgusting - mad food look so unappetising! The halogen ones use about 30% less energy than the old incandescent ones and have a good colour temperature.
My husband's an electrical engineer and started out as an electrician - so lights and light sources are something he's knows something about!
LED lights are coming on the market, are quite expensive at the moment but should last for ages. We use dimmers a lot and some of the energy saving ones have built in dimmers, so things are getting better, but they'll have to get a lot better before I change to them! They may save energy in the home - but how much energy do you have to use to dispose of them safely?

One thing that probably would do more than changing your bulbs is turning off the lights when you leave the room!!! In Denmark you can buy a sensor that you have instead of a light switch so that the lights turn on and off automatically! As we have a new house and my husband's doing all the electrics himself, when they're finished we have sensors and switches in some of the rooms so we can set them up to turn on and off automatically. We also have a ventilation system, so that we don't open the windows to air the house, it uses electricity to run of course, but because we have a heat exchanger on the system we recycle about 80% of the heat in the output air. And although it doesn't work as an airconditioning unit it will help cool the house in summer!

[Antie Em]

Sandwell Council used give them away - they leave them on people's doorsteps. My mom has had quite a few deliveries, she can't use them because they're not bright enough for her to do her crosswords. I then have to use my petrol (more emmisions) to take them to the recycle. I personally think they look grotesque and you can't use them with dimmer switches.

So I will continue to use ordinary light bulbs where I have a normal light fitting until they come up with something better. I do my bit to save the planet by never having a plastic carrier bag at the supermarket.

I agree with you Auntie Em!
Our council used to give them away too, but they were the really cheap ones, so they took ages to warm up and give max light, and the colour was disgusting - mad food look so unappetising! The halogen ones use about 30% less energy than the old incandescent ones and have a good colour temperature.
My husband's an electrical engineer and started out as an electrician - so lights and light sources are something he's knows something about!
LED lights are coming on the market, are quite expensive at the moment but should last for ages. We use dimmers a lot and some of the energy saving ones have built in dimmers, so things are getting better, but they'll have to get a lot better before I change to them! They may save energy in the home - but how much energy do you have to use to dispose of them safely?

One thing that probably would do more than changing your bulbs is turning off the lights when you leave the room!!! In Denmark you can buy a sensor that you have instead of a light switch so that the lights turn on and off automatically! As we have a new house and my husband's doing all the electrics himself, when they're finished we have sensors and switches in some of the rooms so we can set them up to turn on and off automatically. We also have a ventilation system, so that we don't open the windows to air the house, it uses electricity to run of course, but because we have a heat exchanger on the system we recycle about 80% of the heat in the output air. And although it doesn't work as an airconditioning unit it will help cool the house in summer!

Wish we'd have had sensors when our kids were growing up then we wouldn't have to keep yelling at them to turn the lights off - the place sometimes looked like Blackpool illuminations. I think we were one of the first houses in the street to have the loft lagged. We had snow on our roof when most others had cleared. It really saved on the central heating bills.

[snoopysue]

Wish we'd have had sensors when our kids were growing up then we wouldn't have to keep yelling at them to turn the lights off - the place sometimes looked like Blackpool illuminations. I think we were one of the first houses in the street to have the loft lagged. We had snow on our roof when most others had cleared. It really saved on the central heating bills.

Our system can be set up with timers as well, great for kids! We could set it up that after bedtime they can't turn on certain lights! We have a program we use to set the system up, so when we're on holiday the lights turn on and off automatically so it looks as though we're home!