Energy saving lamps

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Only with cheap 'daylight' tubes. True daylight ones are a delight - if you like daylight. ;-)

[Andy Champ]

Better for carbon emissions, yes. However, they are far worse for mercury being dumped into landfill.

Andy

[Malcolm H]

I'm with yugh Hugh!

[Bob Eager]

Quote from original post by grumps:

"My daughter (part of a school trip) visited our local wind turbine, for some eco-education. As a 'reward', the organisers gave all of the studnets 2 low energy lamps. They are made by Philips, rated at 20W, have a 12 year lifetime, and are about 5 1/2" long with a bayonet fitting. They are supposedly equivalent to 100W."

i.e. they *were* Philips (but probably from the 'freebie' range!)

You'd have thought that if they were using them for evangelism they'd make sure they were acceptable..

[Bob Eager]

Did you *really* mean LEDS?

[Derek Geldard]

That's odd they havent been available for "many years". In prototyping quantities (and prices) for about 2 years, as a domesticated product for Joe public Ca 12 months maybe, and even now don't have the capability to light a whole habitable room by a factor of maybe 2-3 orders of magnitudes.

Well you said it.

DG

[Hugh Jampton]

I think not :-( Sorry.

I meant energy saving bulbs.

Not my day is it ? - wait till you get to my age :-)

[Derek Geldard]

That's handy, you don't happen to have a sat nav with you do you ?

I think we'd all like to know where it is that domestic LED light fittings have been available for "many years", especially if they are "quite acceptable", for lighting rooms in houses.

So if you could just post your co-ordinates it would be a blast.

DG

[Mary Fisher]

'freebie' anything isn't 'a bit cheapo' - it's free. It costs nothing.

[Mary Fisher]

I haven't seen any arguments IN THIS THREAD about leds. I'm for them.

There are bound to be the C21st version of :Luddites but, well, that's theoir problem, not ours.

Mary

[Mary Fisher]

Why would you want to light a 'whole habitable room' etc.?

Unless it's a ballroom of coiurse.

We have central ceiling lights in all our habitable rooms but only the bathroom, lavatory, pantry and the small spare room ones are used and because they're small rooms the lighting is more than adequate from low energy lights. In larger rooms - dining room, sitting room, office, workroom, office, kitchen, we have smaller lights which illuminate what we're doing and make for a far more interesting 'atmosphere' than an overall central light.

Mary

[Bob Eager]

I might *be* your age! I experienced rationing...

[The Natural Philosopher]

Nor me squire. I've go this nice coffin to sleep off all the vampiric excesses...

[The Natural Philosopher]

In my case so I don't trip over the cat and break my f****ng neck.

[Bob Eager]

Calm down, dear...it's only a Fisher! As usual, trying to impose her lifestyle on others whilest simultaneously boasting about it...

[Pete C]

I wonder if the CFLs that give better colour rendition also have a lower output (less efficient phosphor?), so are really only comparable with 'soft tone' filament bulbs of the claimed equivalent.

cheers, Pete.

[Andy Hall]

I've tried them periodically and have not found any suitable for use inside the house. Either they are too dim or the effect of the light colour makes things take on an unnatural, bilious hue.

The one useful application has been for outside lanterns where the lantern is either fairly high up or requires disassembly with tools to change the lamp or both.

The 20W low temperature bulbs are just about adequate to use in larger lanterns that are high up from the output perspective, but are disappointing in the physical size.

I have used one of the small 7W types in a smaller lantern lower down where I'm mainly interested in lighting a small area immediately surrounding the fitting and wanted the lamp to look reasonably like a gas mantle would in terms of size. For that application, I would say it was reasonable, but not excellent and worht doing for the convenience factor.

Energy saving in the context of light bulbs is virtually pointless as far as I'm concerned - much more of a pseudo-political marketing game to allow people to take part in something (anything) than being of actual value. Those kind of games, promoted by the government turn me off faster than almost anything.

[Derek Geldard]

On the contrary from what I recall of modern ballrooms the overall lighting was typically very low, with "Mood Lighting"in corners and alcoves, and some sort of effect lighting on the ceiling often some sort of starlight effect. Viz the "Starlight Roof" in Leeds (before my time).

The idea of a ballroom with a single bare 500 watt GLS lamp hung from the ceiling in the middle of the room on it's own wire would be regarded as too primitive for words. Actually theatres and ballrooms ferequently have such lights but they are for the use of the cleaners when the clientele have gone.

Ermm, you mean you don't put "the light" on when it's dark. 8-||

We do. That being the case we want it to be adequately lit everwhere we go. Not the spare bedroom / bathroom / toilet etc. but in those places I don't want to stand and wait 2 minutes for a CFL to get to the stage of producing a useful light output either

Save for the delay mentioned above, CFL's are good enough for those, except probably for shaving in the bathroom. It is still the case that they do not deliver the performance they promise.

I'm sure it does. But you are limited in what you can do in the room to where the small lights are.

There are 4 active people in this house all with projects on the go. Of those myself and my wife have eyesight that is not what it was, without an adequate level of lighting we would not be able to move around and our tasks would be hindered by forever losing pens pencils screwdrivers nuts and bolts fuses, small tools and struggling to read small print, circuit diagram annotations etc, etc. etc.

DG

[geoff]

Far worse than nothing yes

The subject has been discussed to death here several times b4

[Owain]

Maybe you need some of those super-duper medical lights from Germany...

Owain