Lightbulbs - the facts?

[Jim S]

What, exactly, is the situation regarding the phasing out of tungsten lightbulbs? All my main room lights are on dimmer switches so do I fill my spare bedroom with bulbs for the future?

[Bolted]

You can buy halogen replacements, which are pretty much identical albeit more expensive to buy and less expensive to run.

Or you can readily buy dimmable CFLs these days.

If you really like the stone age, it is more authentic to light a fire in the corner of the room.

[The Natural Philosopher]

yes.

[Davey]

There is nothing wrong with liking something as it was, such as tungsten bulbs. My wife reacts to fluorescents, they give her headaches.=20 Funnily enough, I am about to by a wood-burning stove for the house. Maybe we'll leave the door open, so we can read by its light.

--=20 Davey.

[Gareth]

You may already be too late, or you could be lucky and get some very cheap in the 99p Shop or the clearance sections of other shops.

You can now get halogen bulbs inside ordinary light bulbs. These work with ordinary dimmers, they come on instantly and, in my opinion, they give a much nicer light than CFLs. They are slightly more efficient that the traditional light bulbs e.g. 42W replacing 60W (but nowhere near as efficient as CFLs).

[Bob Eager]

Which have the same horrible light.

Don't be silly.

[Bert Coules]

I must check those out. Almost all my lighting uses small 40W screw-thread reflector bulbs - if there isn't an alternative available I'm faced with having to replace all the fittings.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Quite. Although the implementation I see in most houses where they're paranoid about changed to CFL is more akin to candle light, level wise. But without the pleasant effect.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

It's only *some* tungsten lamps which are 'banned'. Mainly GLS (basic lamps). 'Specials' - like it seems you have - are still available. Even although they are generally less efficient than the old GLS types.

[Bert Coules]

Thanks for that. Mine are R50s - I couldn't remember the designation when I wrote my last post. I'm puzzled though: what's the justification for doing away with the larger bulbs and not the smaller?

[Gazz]

the larger bulbs use more power, which apparantly means more greenarse gasses produced, which is killing the plannet they rekon, so get rid of them and the greenarses can feel smug that they have done their bit to save the planet,

don't worry, they'll get to the smaller bulbs in time, then they will start moaning about the mercury in the cfl's and make us switch to led's, untill someone points out something bad about the manafacture of them and they make us all use fart gas for lighting... they produce enough of it, so may as well burn it for light.

[Owain]

Bulb manufacturers make more profit on the fancy smaller bulbs.

Bulb manufacturers lobby the EU for changes in the lightbulb laws.

Owain

[Stephen]

You've raised a point indirectly for me. I have 8 off 50 watt GU10 tungsten bulbs on two dimmer switches, so thats a total load max of 200 watts per dimmer. I recall that when fitting the dimmer switch, it needs a minimum load to work properly which was 100 watts, SO I am OK if two out of our bulbs go pop.

Now I have seen in my local Tescos that there are Philips LED GU10 lamps that are 4 watts each and are compatible with dimmers.

So if I replace the 8 off 50 watt bulbs with these 4 watt dimmable LED GU10's thats a load of 16 watts per dimmer knob.....

Have I got to change the dimmer switch as well?

Stephen.

[Brian Gaff]

It would be interesting to find out what it is about the compacts that causes this, as I too find them naff. However if you pay a bit more and get the proper white ones, they seem to do this less. i suspect then that its the el cheapo coatings used that are the issue. could be persistance of the phospher or maybe the emission frequencies of the stuff, I don't know. Brian

[tim....]

No you don't.

After the initial period where everybody mistakenly thought that it wasn't allowed to sell 100W bulbs they are now easily available at a market stall near you.

It will be ages before they run out of 60W bulbs

tim

[Brian Gaff]

One could I guess make a case that tungston should be refitted during the cold days of winter to reduce heating costs.. grin. Brian

[Brian Gaff]

If you like dim light and want to maximise the life of light bulbs of the tungston persuation, then why not wire two in series. they will probably never blow.

Brian

[John Rumm]

Probably due to their sharper rise and fall flicker...

Might also be related to their non continuous spectrum.

I must admit I am not sure why the quality of light from the compact versions seems so poor compared to that from a traditional linear tube ones.

[John Rumm]

If you have all electric heating (assuming its not a heat pump system), then there is no real energy saving advantage to getting rid of them in the first place!

[Chris K]

Agree, I think it is that all CFLs available in non specialist outlets have a low colour temp (mostly 2700K) probably in an attempt to match incandescant. To my eyes, that just makes them an unpleasant colour and seem dim. Linear lamps have always tried to emulate daylight and, at least to me, preferable.

Also, converting our flourescent tubes to elecronic ballasts has made them much more pleasant to work in as there is little or no 100Hz flicker.

Chris K