Heads up on Tesco value energy saving light bulbs

Just got back from doing the shopping at Tesco in Slough and spotted their own 'value' brand 15w energy saving lightbulbs at 34p each. That's cheaper than normal bulbs for god's sake. They're stated to have similar light output to a 75W soft white normal bulb. I bought five and I've just fitted one in a desk lamp and one in a 2 bulb chandelier next to a 100w incandescent to compare them. They light up instantly unlike those very early energy saving bulbs which took forever to warm up although it takes another 30 seconds for them to reach full output. I'd say they fire up at about 1/2 output which is plenty to see what you're doing if you just want to flick a light on in a dark room to check something for a second. I've still got a couple of 10 year old energy savers in the hall and landing which flicker for a second or two and then light up so slowly I have to stand still for a minute before starting down the stairs. Those are now getting chucked cos clearly they're never going to do the decent thing and die of their own accord. I think these things actually last forever. They cost about a fiver each too and that was when a fiver was actually worth a fiver.

I can't actually see any great difference in brightness between the Tesco

15W bulb and the 100W normal one next to it. If anything the energy saver is brighter. They're rated at 10,000 hours life so if they get anywhere near that they're about the biggest bargain of the year. The 100W bulb is now coming back out immediately and going into the stockpile. I just wish I'd bought 10 of the things instead of 5.

I'd been grumbling about the government banning incandescent bulbs but at

34p a shot for energy savers that last 10 times longer that's me converted. Better fill your boots before Tesco put the price up. I reckon I've been spending £10 a year on normal bulbs plus the much bigger electricity cost they've been wasting. They don't last very long and I usually buy packs of five and seem to need a new pack every couple of months.

I've just written a spreadsheet to see what these will save. If you have 5 bulbs on for 8 hours a day, swap 60W normal bulbs for these, normal bulbs cost 60p each and last 1000 hours and electricity is 12p a kWh you'll save £87 a year. £79 in electricity and £8 in bulb costs. For the whole country that's nearly 2 billion quid a year. Even more interesting, playing with the spreadsheet, your break even cost would be the same if the energy savers cost £60 a bulb. Anything less than that and you're winning. It rather puts into perspective the £5 a bulb these things have cost in the past and which has no doubt put many people off using them. At 34p each it's a no brainer.

Reply to
Dave Baker
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Mind you, I bought some of their 7W SES candle bulbs recently and they're dreadful. Enormously long warm-up times, the worst I've had in years.

Has anyone tried Screwfix's 5W candle bulbs? I need something less bright at the end (four in a bedroom chandelier) and with faster warmup.

Reply to
Andy Dingley

for info - i got some ISTR 3w candles from toolstation for a picture light - they are a nice clean white but not fantastically quick to warm-up....

jim

Reply to
jim

Was I the only one who saw them when they were £1 each or 5 for 40p?

I got 10 bayonet cap and 10 screw cap for £1.60 total - even I'm prepared to go green at that price!

Al Reynolds

Reply to
Al Reynolds

Let us know what they are like after a few weeks of use.

If only it was that easy! ;-)

Indeed, if cost were your objection...

Reply to
John Rumm

Utter and complete nonsense.

A 15W CFL is the equivalent of no more than a 60W tungsten bulb.

Reply to
Bruce

In message , Al Reynolds writes

I think when I saw them at 34p each, 5 for 40p, makes me wonder what benefit Tesco are getting in return...

Reply to
Kenny

I bought some of their 34p bulbs with a two for one offer. So 17p each.

Also bought a carrier bag full of the 5 for 40p.

mark

Reply to
mark

When I was in there yesterday, their own label and GE ones were 5 for

40p while the Value ones were four times the price at 34p each.

Don't know whether there's any difference in quality but we've been using several of their own brand ones for a few months now and they're fine. A second or two to warm up but nothing troublesome.

Reply to
mike

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Reply to
Andy Champ

Reply to
Kenny

I think it must be some sort of extension to the subsidised loft insulation scheme that the government have being doing through the power companies.

If say the government spends £10 million subsidising low energy bulbs and this in turn enables them to defer the construction of a multi billion pound power station by a year or two then they are quids in.

Just a theory. No intention of setting the bullometers to full scale deflection!

mark

Reply to
mark

It could be. . . Don't tesco supply gas and electricity?; in which case they may be doing their regulatory duty to promote energy saving measures across their shop shelves rather than by sending free CLF bulbs on request to customers.

Reply to
OG

And not even that if you want to read under them and are more than 40 years old ...

Two visits ago, the hotel where I normally stay when I'm in Vegas, changed all of their room reading lights to CFLs. Now, it's impossible to read in the rooms at night.

I tried one in my bench light which normally uses a 60 watt incandescent. I struggled with it for two days, and then put the incandescent back in.

My wife has a cafe in a pretty old building. Doing her bit for the environment, she replaced the incandescent bulbs in the toilets with CFLs. This has resulted in the walls running with water and going mouldy, because the air in the rooms is no longer gently heated by the bulbs. The originals have gone back in ...

I think that once the government have managed to completely stop manufacture of incandescents, many people will begin to realise just what they have let go without so much as a whimper of objection. There are places where CFLs are just not appropriate. Plus the cheapos are nothing like as long-lived as they would have you believe, and are prone to generating huge amounts of RF pollution - that's interference to legitimate radio transmissions - when they go faulty.

To go back to the age thing, I'm not sure just what happens to the sensitivity of the human eye as it ages. I don't know whether the overall spectral sensitivity decreases, or whether the 'graph' of spectral sensitivity shifts. What I do know is that my 86 year old mother tried them in her house, and thought that she had gone blind. Her otherwise very good eyesight, which works fine in daylight and tungsten light, suffered very badly under CFLs. Be warned, you might just come to regret having submitted to this latest piece of government tinkering with our lives ... (:-\ }

Arfa

Reply to
Arfa Daily

I think it is a bit of both - the sensitivity at the blue end diminishes leaving the image somewhat more yellow. Perhaps that fact that many CFLs lack red output and often have a green/yellow colour cast results in a situation where the overall contrast is reduced.

(might be interesting to see if the so called "daylight" CFLs are any better - since they have a more pronounced blue output (the verall colour rendition is still poor - but the contrast with yellowing vision ought to be better)

So how do we stop the buggers?

Reply to
John Rumm

"John Rumm" wrote

This calls for an independent select committee assessing the increase in the number of stair-way accidents in the home. Once the NHS cost of treating all the injuries caused by poor visibility becomes apparent, the real-world energy saving will be brought into perspective and incandescents will be welcomed back with open arms!

Phil

Reply to
TheScullster

Well quite. I did buy some Osram Duluxtar 23W CFL's from Screwfix, which make a passable attempt at moving towards 100W equivalence (probably close enough, if not quite there) but 15W? Do me a favour!

Reply to
Bob Mannix

I'm not sure to be honest John. I suppose that if enough of us wrote to our MPs about it, that might start waking a few of them from their herded -sheep stupour over some of this eco-bollox, but I fear that the gravy train that much of it generates, and that these worthless people and their entourage are happily riding, is rumbling along at too much of a pace to be stopped now.

Without jumping on one of my favourite soap-boxes, I think that the situation can be compared to lead-free solder in electronics. It's legislation that has been poorly thought out and steamrollered onto the books without a second thought for any real-world consequences other than the one which they consider to be the primary.

The use of lead-free solder to manufacture electronic goods has resulted in a huge increase in reliability issues to a technology (soldering) which was fully mature and totally predictable. The very low cost of the Chinese and other far-eastern imported electronics which has flooded the market, often makes the cost of repair of these items, prohibitive. So, what then ? More energy wasted dismantling and recycling them ? More electronics to landfill ? More new items being made and shipped to replace them ? Worryingly, I read a few days ago that the lead-free solder exemption for medical equipment (in place I understood, because of the potential life-maintenance requirement of such items) has now been rescinded. Heaven help us all if they do the same for avionics and military equipment ...

A further thought with CFLs. The energy budget to make them is much higher, due to the fact that they have ballast electronics, comprising perhaps ten components, in them. All of these have to be manufactured, as do the materials which go into *them*. They all have to be shipped to some central assembly place. All of these factories have to be heated, lit, and the workers got to and fro, and fed. Once the whole mess is assembled into a CFL, it then has to be put into stouter packaging than a traditional bulb, because not being spherical, the glass has a greater readiness to be damaged by impact. The packaging is heavier, and bulkier, as is the lamp itself, all of which contribute to the energy budget.

Because of the toxic mercury and phosphor compounds which they contain, they have to be properly disposed of, which involves a trip to your local tip - I bet there's not a bus goes past it either ... If they are actually properly 'recycled', then this will have to be done by dismantling them, removing the toxic chemical components, stripping the electronics, and properly disposing of the individual electronic components, which is a waste in itself, as there's not a lot can be done to recycle them into individual constituents, nor much oportunity to reuse a component which already has cropped leads, and may be approaching the end of its useful service life.

On the other hand, incandescent bulbs contain no toxic compounds, or even anything remotely harmful to the environment (excepting of course the tiny blobs of solder which used to be tin/lead, and are now lead-free, but which have never been shown to be any tangible threat to the environment anyway) so do not represent any problem, other than material loss, if they do just go to landfill.

I'm not averse to us all being a bit greener in the way we live. What I do hate is the way that we are having all the eco-bollox forced down our throats on a daily basis, by politicians who are just trying to make a name for themselves, fed by faceless euro-committees who are merely justifying their own existence (and huge government consultency fees), and manufacturers and company directors who are using the green mist which we are all suffering now, to line their own pockets.

So, with due deference to the OP, whose enthusiasm for the product, I admire, I would suggest that before we all follow each other like sheep into accepting this technology, we actually stop for a moment and consider whether it really does replace incandescent lighting, and contributes to the environment in quite the way that we are being led (by the nose) to believe ...

Arfa

Reply to
Arfa Daily

Reply to
john

I wonder if the till receipt give the OP a seperate WEEE charge?

Adam

Reply to
ARWadsworth

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