Flame effect electric fire

It has a red 60w tungsten bulb which blew the other day, I thought I'd go green and try a CF thinking I could paint it red with some of that stuff for decorative stain glass effects. After a half hour test the metal fan thing over the top still hadn't started turning due to lack of heat from the CF and so no flame effect..... It now has a 60w red tungsten again, we don't use the fire it's just to fill a hole in the fireplace but my wife insists on having it lit all evening and I sit there looking at it thinking, 60w 60w 60w ...........

Any ideas how to 'upgrade' it ?

Pete

Reply to
Pete Cross
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Probably be cheaper to run the CFL _plus_ a little 12v computer fan to blow the flame effect thingy round.....

..might need to run it off less than 12v though, depending on the effect you're wanting.

Failing that - how about a lower wattage bulb - they do standard filament nightlights down to about 12w...?

Adrian

Reply to
Adrian

I should try speed-dating, and for your opening question, ask "Do you like flame-effect fires?"

HTH David

Reply to
Lobster

They do, but their lifetime is measured in hours. I stopped buying filament nightlights for that very reason.

(It's seriously dark round here, so we need nightlights to find the loo in the night and so on. I've become rather a connosieur of nightlights as a result.)

Reply to
Huge

I doubt this will work... This weekend I had to replace a 60W red GLS and tried a 15W red GLS in a similar fire and the flicker fan didn't turn. The fan needs the heat output from the 60W red fireglow lamp to turn so you're stuck with it, unless you want to do modifications to turn the flicker fan with something other than heat rising.

I think the special fireglow lamps run with a lower light output per watt than a normal GLS, doing a side-by-side comparison. That could be due to the red colour but the filament seemed less bright...

Reply to
JohnW

Really ? When we used to breed budgies we used to run a couple of 12w fil. nightlights to save them getting in a flap overnight - and I'm sure we used to get similar bulb life to standard 60-watters - but it was a few lifetimes ago and my memory may be failing me

I can imagine How bright do you need your nightlights to be - would the 'neon' plug-top ones do the trick ?

Adrian

Reply to
Adrian

I picked up a white LED nightlight in Tesco for ~ £3.50 for the same reason. Does the job.

Owain

Reply to
Owain

Hamster wheel?

Or a living flame effect DVD on the television. Presumably she doesn't watch the fire and the television simultaneously?

Owain

Reply to
Owain

As said, the simple mechanism needs the 60w. Not sure why youre worried about a 60w bulb in a 2kW fire though! A bit of insulation about the house would save far more energy than mucking about with the bulb.

NT

Reply to
meow2222

No but she'll claim she can because "I'm a woman so I can multi-task"

David

Reply to
Lobster

She should be able to work some little pedals with her feet whilst doing the ironing, then.

Owain

Reply to
Owain

Some people sit and watch flickering lights on a box all evening, it costs more than your flame.

Mary

Reply to
Mary Fisher

Only if you sit down to do the ironing - that's the lazy man's way - not that many men iron. Fewer women too, these days.

I don't know what the world's coming to ... rant ... rant ... rant ... :-)

Mary

Reply to
Mary Fisher

That's the advantage of having a real log fire. When the TV adverts come on, watching the flames flickering away is much more entertaining.

My father has got one of those flame effect jobbies. Bloody awful thing. He replaced the blown bulb with a 100 Watt one and the little fan thing went around that fast it converted the fire into a hypnotic strobe. Still awful though.

Reply to
David in Normandy

Yep. Some of them only lasted minutes. Occasionally one would last a few weeks. They're also very vulnerable to vibration and over-heating.

They're OK, but they flicker badly and stop working after a while. We had one weird one which would only come on if you shone a light on it! If you buy the screwed together ones, you can at least replace the neons in them.

I've tried the electroluminescent ones, but they slowly fail as the material "burns through". I've also tried the miniature fluorescent ones, but they have a short lifetime, too, presumably due to poor construction.

I use Osram "Lunetta" 1W LED ones now. They work a treat and I haven't had one fail yet in a couple of years. Left one in India last year which was irritating, 'cos they're expensive.

Reply to
Huge

My MIL is obsessed by "flame effect" electric fires. She has them throughout and really hates it when the "glow" packs up. She doesn't like central heating because there's no "glow".

Reply to
Huge

Umm, you're trying to save 40W or so ... in a 1, 2 or 3kW electric fire? What's the point?

Ian

Reply to
The Real Doctor

Thanks for all your comments, two of you though missed the point, we do not use the heater part of the fire, we have central heating, it just blocks off the hole in the surround and as it's there my wife likes it to be lit. it just bugs me to have 60w wasted all that time. Maybe it's on top of other things though, like the TRV's, if she comes home as the heating starts up then she'll turn the TRV up full " because it warms up quicker " but then not turn it down so I come home to find nearly all lights on and the house like a sauna..............

Pete

Reply to
Pete Cross

Why not get something more entertaining like a lava lamp or fibre optic lamp. More entertaining to look at and uses less electricity (I think).

Reply to
David in Normandy

messagenews: snipped-for-privacy@n75g2000hsh.googlegroups.com...

It's not wasted - it's heating your house! And at 100% efficiency, at that, so you'll save a significant proportion of the 60W electricity costs on central heating fuel!

Ian

Reply to
The Real Doctor

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