Why cant I find any incandescent outdoor flood bulbs

[jw]

Why cant I find any incandescent outdoor flood bulbs in the stores anymore. I even went to some of the big stores, like Home Deport, Menards, and Walmart. All they got are these crappy and expensive Halogen bulbs. The old incadescent bulbs were $1.50 or less, while these halogen bulbs are $6 or less per bulb. And they dont last any longer despite that claim, in fact I think they have a shorter life.

Were they banned, or why cant I find them anymore?

And if the reason they are no longer sold is to save energy, where's the savings? Lets say that I leave the light on for 2 hours every evening. The 90W bulb (equal to a 100W incan) saves 20W per day. That's 600W per month or 7200W per year. At 12cents per kilowatt hour, that means I'll save $0.86 cents a year. That's after spending $4.50 more than the cost of an incandescent bulb, which will likely need to be replaced at the end of a year's usage. This is no savings whatsoever, it's actually costs me $3.64 MORE per year. On top of that, I dont think these 90W halogens give as much light as the 100W incandescents did.

Is this just another scam to suck more money out of people? Sure seems to be the case.

[jeff_wisnia]

This place, bulbs.com, seems to still carry them, though not in very high wattages.

See:

I'm not sure why you say that the halogen bulb will likely go south in a year. Your usage works out to about 750 hrs/year and per this page, halogens are expected to last 4000-8000 hours, about 4 times what incandescents do.

Figure it out again jw.

From another "JW"

Jeff

[jeff_wisnia]

Oops, I left out the link to the "bulb lifespan" page, it is:

[Don Klipstein]

In , jeff_wisnia wrote in part:

4000-8000 hours sounds long to me for 120V halogens. My impression is that usual is 2500-3500 hours.

[Don Klipstein]

These are not affected by any USA nationwide bans until 2020 if at all, and if they go then the halogen ones will probably go with them.

Check hardware stores. Check Rite Aid, maybe CVS, though these bulbs will probably be severely overpriced there. Supermarkets often have them, and they usually do not overprice light bulbs quite as horribly as Rite Aid does in my experience.

[Steve B]

They have decided in their infinite wisdom and illuminati counselors that incandescent light is so bad for you that you can not even perceive how bad it is given your level of stupidity. That is best left to governmental agencies and hacks who have never actually had a job, made a light bulb, or worked anywhere by the hour.

Don't you feel safe, going down to the Borg stores and not finding merely "light bulbs" like we used to use, but now have to buy very expensive halogens, fluorescent, and the bulb du jour?

I don't know about you, but I certainly sleep a lot better at night, albeit a little poorer.

We are adjusting to moonlight, starlight, and the decomposition of carbon compounds by simple fire to substitute for the lack of illumination.

And, it's actually not that bad.

God, I just feel so ..................... SAFE!

Thank you, Washington, D.C.

Steve

Heart surgery pending? Read up and prepare. Learn how to care for a friend.

[Molly Brown]

OSH had the 90W. 130V. about a month ago. Do you have OSH where you are?

[Don Klipstein]

Are you that out of touch with reality?

Are you a troll?

Have you not recently been at Home Depot or Lowes, or supermarkets or hardware stores, or Target, where "regular incandescents" are on the shelves aplenty?

For that matter, the first part of USA's incandescent lamp ban kicks in at the beginning of 2012. It progresses to a wider incandescent lamp ban beginning at the start of 2014.

The 2012-2014 "incandescent ban" has many exceptions, including every reflectorized floodlamp and every reflectorized spotlamp that I ever heard of. Exempt from this ban are also appliance bulbs along with "rough service" ones, left-hand-screw base ones, ones with non-screw base including bipin and bayonet, ones with base size other than E26/E27 "medium screw base", ones having globular, tubular or flame shape, 3-way bulbs, most 120V ones over 150 watts and some 150 watt ones, most 25 watts or less, ones designed for voltage outside the range of 110-130 volts, and ones that meet/exceed an energy efficiency standard that a small number of incandescents available at Home Depot already do (Philips Halogena "Energy Saver" 40 and 70 watt, roughly producing the light of 60 and 100 watt "ordinary incandescents" respectively).

There are a few other exemptions. I list all of them with credit at:

AKA:

[Molly Brown]

I think he is looking for non-halogen.

[jw]

Well, I put in a 90W halogen bulb just about a year ago on the front of my garage. I know this for fact because I built a large overhang over the garage door last summer and installed this light fixture and bulb when I finished sometime near the end of August. A few days ago I flipped the switch, and there was a flash and dead bulb. I dont even turn the light on every evening, but there have been a few times it was on all night because I forgot to shut it off, so I guess that makes up for the nights it's off. If anything, I got LESS than 750 hours out of it. I should mention this bulb is protected from the rain and snow since it's under this overhang.

Those life expectency charts always seem highly exaggerated. Those CF bulbs NEVER last as long as listed. These charts are also under "ideal" conditions. For example, rain on a hot flood bulb can crack the glass. Every winter I have ice sheets slide off the roof on one of my sheds and break a flood light bulb. I guess I will have to build a small roof over this fixture. I'd imagine that very hot weather makes halogen bulbs overheat.

Aside from hot weather, this particular garage bulb is well protected, yet it still burned out in a year.

James

[Don Klipstein]

All of the many exceptions of "this upcoming ban" that I noted apply to non-halogen as well as to halogen. "This upcoming ban" outside its many exemptions applies to halogen incandescents as well as to non-halogen incandescents. One of the many exceptions is almost-inherently halogen and a few of the many others apply disproportionately to halogen.

The non-halogen exemptions include without favoring halogen:

• All reflectorized type floodlight and spotlight bulbs

• Globular, tubular and flame-shape bulbs

• 3-way

• Ones designed for 220-230-240 volt usage

• Ones designed for usage at around or less than 82 volts, including over 99.8% of automotive low voltage incandescents, over 99.9% of incandescent flashlight lamps/bulbs, and about 99% of incandescent electronic equipment indicator lamps (and at least .99 of the other 1% of incandescent electronic indicator incandescents are exempted on basis of low light output likely due to being low wattage).

• Nearly all 200 watts or more and many of wattage as low as 150 watts, on basis of producing at least 2600 lumens

• Most 25 watts or less, and nearly enough all 15 watts or less

• "Rough Service" and the like

• Appliance lightbulbs, including "home oven" and "commercial oven"

• Traffic signal units

• Most but not all colored "lightbulbs". Not exempted are tinting to modify the spectrum towards "daylight" or in a way favoring some exaggerated color rendering properties while maintaining some "white overall color of the light", with not-exempted including "neodymium" and GE's neodymium-based "Enrich" and "Reveal" except for any implementations that are exempted on basis of bulb style, base style, design voltage, quantity of light produced, design voltage, or whatever else I missed.

Please refer to:

[Don Klipstein]

You did mention conditions such as rain that is often harsh on incandescents and halogen versions thereof aas well as to compact fluorescents. Despite mentioning of "protection from rain".

As a result, I like to say that you got hit worse-than-average by either "Murphy's Law" or otherwise failure to do the engineering efforts that satisfies the laws of both Murphy and Ohm as well as common building codes and common building practice.

You also mentioned in addition ice problems that I consider being "not quite usual".

Even without mentioning specific CFL types or styles and fixture types that may be not-so-good for outdoor CFLs, I suspect that your bad news has low applicability to good usage of CFLs such as in a majority of American homes.

[keith]

Perhaps your line voltage is a little higher than 120V. The life expectancy of a bulb is inversely related to a rather high power of voltage.

They shouldn't crack with a little water on them. I thought you said it was protected from the rain?

The outdoor temperature doesn't matter. At the temperature these things operate at, a couple of tens of degrees doesn't matter.

You likely have either a high line voltage or there is some vibration in the fixture.

[keith]

A bit humor impaired, today, Don? Well, if it wasn't so sad, it would have been funny.

[jw]

I didn't measure it recently, but maybe it was a year ago I checked with a digital multimeter and it was about 117. That's about the norm.

This one was (on the garage), it's under a 10 foot overhang I built on the front of my garage. The bulb is on the original garage wall so it's well covered.

I HAVE had them crack from water on other sheds where they are exposed. The old incandescent ones came with a thick globe and they held up to most everything, but they also sold some real thin cheap ones that would crack if water hit them when hot.

That may be the case. I know halogen bulbs are much hotter than incand....

It's not the voltage (I will check it again). There is some vibration when I open and close the garage door, but this is the case on all garages. Actually I rarely open the overhead door (light is above it), because there's too much stuff in the garage to get the car in it. Most of the time I just use the walk in door, which is near the corner of the garage. (a distance from the bulb).