Dimmer Switches

[whisky-dave]

I'm not sure how you can judge that. For most of the evening I leave my kitchen lights (4X50W halogen)on almost maximum[1] dim, it saves me switching them on to full brightness then off again, when passing through the kitchen or going to the fridge freezer.

[1] Just bright enough to see that my cat isn't about to trip me up and so I can see the handle of the fridge door to get the beers out. :-) Would it be more efficient to leave 200w of lighting on from 6pm to 1am ;-) Then again a girlfriend/wife that could see in the dark would be the most efficient option :-)

[John Rumm]

Its one of those numerical exercises in most cases... if you routinely want to run lamps substantially below their nominal brightness, then you will pay more doing so dimming large bulbs than by fitting bulbs closer to the brightness typically required. However that then raises the question of how you get the extra brightness on the occasions you need it. Having some lights that can be independently switch is one solution.

If on the other hand you use the light close to full brightness most of the time and occasionally want lower levels then a dimmer is ideal - it does what you want and will probably lengthen the bulb life by quite a decent margin as well.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Strictly speaking if talking about actual efficiency a dimmer isn't a good idea at all. It has an insertion loss - so you never get quite the full brightness from the lamps, and the efficiency is best at full level.

Which is all *totally* irrelevant since where they are used 'mood' is far more important than efficiency. There's a difference between lighting and illumination. If all you need is efficient illumination you use fluorescent strip lighting - as has been the case in such places for many a year.