Code Question For Closet Lights

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I used to think the yellowish light from standard bulbs was OK. That was before I saw fluorescent lights that were actually white. The same thing applies to the smaller lights that use LEDs. When I need to replace the low voltage outdoor lights, I'll look for LED.

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Reply to
Mark Lloyd
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I have one fixture that uses candelabra bulbs. The CFLs I got at Lowes are OK.

Yes, in the bedroom. A few in the rest of the house could prevent accidents. IIRC, I've always preferred sleeping in the DARK.

BTW, I put up a string of LED holiday lights in the hall, to make it easier to avoid stepping on the small cat who used to sleep there. "Lilly's lights" are named after the cat (the littlest cat).

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Light that looks blue is going too far. So is yellow. WHITE is more natural. Sunglasses are for when the light is too bright, not when it is the right color.

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Reply to
Mark Lloyd

That's kind of a duh. Mass production does lower cost. When I have a fixture with three or five sockets, I use the 13W CFLs. When I need more light from a one-socket fixture, I indeed pay more per lumen.

For you, fine. People differ. For me, a single 13W CFL is minimal for a closet, and totally inadequate for any room.

Yep, anything specialty costs a lot more. But you pay a premium price per lumen for those specialty lights in incandescent too. If you can afford to light a room by candelabra, you aren't really one to be complaining about the cost of CFLs.

I'm not gonna say everyone should totally convert to CFL right now. It took me about 15 years to reach the point I'm at now, and as I mentioned I still have incandescent in specialty locations.

If you're only promoting 13W CFLs as a replacement for 60W incandescent -- which after all ARE the most common incandescent size

-- then I don't see anything dishonest about it. If you make that comparison to say "buy these 85W CFLs", that's dishonest.

No antique fixtures, no candelabras, true. Hey, I live in ... oh, you said it. My house was built in 1953; it will always have rough edges. I do have a lot of exposed bulbs, and that doesn't bother me at all. I don't look directly at a lit bulb -- do you? And I find the spiral CFLs no uglier than type A incandescent bulbs, which after all are pretty ugly when you get over the fact that you've been looking at them all your life. As I think I said, I replaced some fixtures with ones large enough for the CFLs. The new fixtures were more attractive than the old ones -- at least to me, since I picked the new ones and not the old ones. If you can't afford $15 for a basic light fixture, then you are in a real bind, like to pay for the cost of running incandescents.

You didn't mention another situation in which CFLs don't work: when you want to use a dimmer. Perhaps someday, but right now a dimmable CFL is just a high priced bulb that doesn't do what it claims to.

Yeah, me too. Started again when I was 55. Actually my wife needed them more than I did; she was unsteady on her feet at times. She died this summer, so perhaps I'll pull some of the nightlights. But then my laptop computer pulls about 100 times more power, so I'm not exactly concerned.

Disagree. Your eyes don't adapt to changed lighting instantly, so an instant change in light is not necessarily good. The interaction is likely complex. I agree that in a closet, a quick max is valuable. But if you like 40W incandescent in a closet, a 13W CFL will give the same light in about a second.

Totally because you are accustomed to having yellow light inside. Do people look unreal to you outside? If not, then why do you think they look unreal with the same lighting spectrum inside? Only because of your expectations in that environment.

Or does everything look blue to you in sunlight? People do differ.

And hey, it's great that we have a choice and aren't forced to all use the same color bulbs any more.

Don't worry too much about overloading your eyes. It takes a serious effort to get a CFL setup to 10% of sunlight illuminance. Under typical conditions it'll be more like 1%.

Well, me, though that has a lot to do with overcrowding in my closets. The OP mentioned inadequate light in a closet, though I don't think he said whether this applied to 15W or 60W lights.

Edward

Reply to
Edward Reid

re: "The OP mentioned inadequate light in a closet"

Actually, the OP (me) asked about running Wiremold from a box-extender to a switch in order to replace the pull chain fixture.

Somebody else brought up the code related to the types of bulbs allowed in a storage space, which led to a discussion regarding CFL vs. incandescents, which reminded me that some CFLs take a while to come to full brightness, which made me worry about wearing a blue shirt with green socks.

If my concerns about a CFL taking time to come to full brightness equates to "The OP mentioned inadequate light in a closet" then I guess I did, but that would be a stretch.

The whole yellow vs. blue vs. white light is interesting, none the less.

Reply to
DerbyDad03

=3D=3D

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Well, the ones I have in the fixtures for my landing lights - 3 of them - take much longer than 1 second. I'll try one in the closet and see if I like them.

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=3D Incomplete? Did you mean grammatically or fashionably?

Reply to
DerbyDad03

Rueful chuckle. Now that I am middle age, and like many middle-age males, sometimes need to take a leak in the middle of the night, I broke down and put very dim nightlights in the bathrooms. I did this after finding out that even a few seconds of real lights kicked off the morning reboot sequence in my brain, and I can't get back to sleep. Just enough light to find the bathroom door without stubbing my toe, and to aim when I get in there, and I am okay. I can't sleep with lights on in the room either, short of complete exhaustion. In summer, when it gets light real early, if I wake up and can see more than the streetlight shining through the permanently-shut blinds, I may as well get up and start my day.

Reply to
aemeijers

My comment referred to your statement in a later post that "Meanwhile, these old eyes make me grab a blue shirt and green socks cuz the light is too dim.". Sorry, did not mean to misrepresent you.

Also sorry if this appears twice. I thought I sent it but can find no evidence that I did.

Edward

Reply to
Edward Reid

But not by much. The two $12.60 bulbs from HD turned out to be aesthetically unpleasing because the ballast shifts the center of the illumination (the brightest point of the bulb) about 2 inches above the old (incandescent) one. I failed to think about this at the time so to remedy the problem I bought two 25 watt incandescent with medium base at my local 99 cent store. Cost = $0.99 (duh); at the same store a packet of two 60 watt bulbs also costs 99 cents. Now to be fair I could have bought a packet of four 60 watts for the same 99 cents; I presume there's a quality difference but I don't really know. However even if CFL's followed the same premium my original HD purchase should have only been $8 and change and I suspect if CFL's were to follow most other products the premium should only be a fixed amount to cover the slightly lower sales. IOW the mfgs are gouging the non-loss-leader customer.

Yikes! Millions of people use candelabras. Just look around the average lighting store including HD and Lowes.

But he's not and nor are you. I believe he works in the CFL industry and his attitude, like yours, is "except for these special tasks like refrigerators and stove lights... etc" not accepting that there are far more applications that are not CFL-appropriate (e.g. my candelabra, my crystal chandeliers, my instant-on closet lights, my much more appropriate color rendition incandescents for make-up, etc)

If they're at eye level of course you do.

Nah, they're not appropriate for any fixture built for incandescent lighting unless they're completely hidden and function the same as an incandescent (time to full light, color temp, etc).

I have no dimmers. As I said before I match the lights to the requirements for illumination. My kitchen, for example, has one four bar fluorescent for general illumination; one two bar over the sink used while washing up, one two bar over the laundry area used... well, guess, one single bar in the range hood. and one square two U bar over the kitchen/dining table (each bar is 32W). I also have a mess of halogens under the top cabinets. No CFL's in the kitchen. When they're all on you can do open-heart surgery . My point is that by turning on or off individual lights in the room you can produce an appropriate level of lighting: you don't need dimmers.

Since the OP is bitching about us not addressing his issue I'll give my two cents on that: you can easily get a $10 box-mount fixture with an opalescent shade which will satisfy the one-in-a-zillion-years risk of explosion of the bulb be it incandescent or CFL. Mount it above the door and supply it with wiremold or other conduit or bury NM or AC in the wall. Don't forget to use 90 degree rise cable for the last two feet to cover that other one-in-a-zillion risk of fire. All these depend on how strong the unions are in your locality. As to bulb, most closets function fine on 40 watt incandescent within that $10 fixture. The fact that it's incandescent automatically gives it a CRI of 1.00 (or 100, I forget which). You don't need to worry about degrees Kelvin or other rubbish we pay others to look after for us.

Reply to
knuckle-dragger

I have used dimmers in my bathrooms for years. Lots of light when we need ir, very little light for midnight bathroom breaks and romantic showers.

Reply to
DerbyDad03

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Turning on or off individual lights in the *bath* room isn't as easy as in most other rooms, at least not in my case.

As I mentioned to aem above, I have always had dimmers in all of my bathrooms. I've never had a bathroom big enough for "task lighting" with multiple switches. It's either a couple of sconces next the mirror in the main bath or couple of cans in the secondary one.

Dimmers allows us to have lots a light when we need it and just a little for midnight bathroom breaks and romantic showers.

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Kindly point out where I bitched about anything. My question about using Wiremold was answered to my complete satisfaction in a post by Wayne Whitney very early in this thread.

=3D=3D

Reply to
DerbyDad03

Sometimes you have to rely on common sense. I personally don't need a code book to tell me if something is safe or not. I do read the NEC from time to time just out of curiosity, but I've not seen a whole lot in it that i wouldn't have done that way anyway. And there are parts of it that are down right ridiculous.

Reply to
Steve Barker
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Sorry if I missed something, but the statement seemed to be saying there was something wrong with blue and green, but never said anything to justify that. Maybe it was a personal preference, which does not apply to everyone.

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Reply to
Mark Lloyd

It can, one reason for sleeping in darkness (note that an eyemask is NOT the same, skin is light-sensitive). You could have a remote light switch by the bed. I use X10 for that.

BTW, colored lights are less disturbing. The same reason I avoid too many non-colored holiday lights.

Reply to
Mark Lloyd
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Instead of a dimmer, I plug in a string of LED holiday lights. Those are usually enough, but the regular light is still available when necessary.

Reply to
Mark Lloyd

Value (of personal liberty gained by allowing everyone to pick and choose which NEC requirements make sense and which can be ignored) < Cost (in decreased safety of resulting electrical installations).

Yours, Wayne

Reply to
Wayne Whitney

ote:

re: "Sometimes you have to rely on common sense." re: "And there are parts of it that are down right ridiculous."

Are the parts that you find "down right ridiculous" ever in conflict with what you would consider "common sense"?

Reply to
DerbyDad03

=3D=3D

When do you plug these in...just when you need them (i.e. the midnight trip to the bathroom) or are they plugged in all the time, acting as a nightlight?

Reply to
DerbyDad03

always

Reply to
Steve Barker

rote:

re: "always"

That what I thought.

And that justifies my asking whether or not there were any codes issues with the plan I posted.

"Common sense" may lead someone to think that the plan was OK, but some "down right ridiculous" part of the code may say it's not.

Reply to
DerbyDad03

Bitching may be too strong a term... I took it as complaining:

From DerbyDad03 in an earlier post:

and some more...

Reply to
knuckle-dragger

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