R63 Low Energy Bulbs

[Charles Ping]

A familiar tale. A kitchen with 7 R63's in the ceiling. A nightmare to replace the fittings unless I want to rip up floors in two rooms above. So I'm stuck with R63's.

I've tried a few of brands. Some, despite being 11W and called "60watt equivalent" were noticeably dimmer than the usual bulbs. A bought a couple of 11watt "bright" ones from Your Lightbulbs. They have silvered reflectors and clear glass fronts but they were too damn white. The kitchen was like a shopping aisle in Tescos.

Given that low energy R63's are too expensive to keep buying randomly in the hope of getting he right mix of brightness and quality I thought that I'd ask here.

Has anyone found an R63 ES spot that they believe gives the same light as a traditional bulb?

Thanks

Charles

[Mark Carver]

FWIW

I spent a while looking around for low energy replacements for our eight R63 spots in the kitchen.

I eventually settled on this model from TLC:-

swapped the lamps before my wife came home from work, and got them 'warmed up'. (The light output is pathetic for the first minute or two). At first she didn't notice, but then said there's "something funny about the light in here". I'm not overly impressed, they're not as bright as the tungsten versions, and the colour temperature is cooler, but I can live with that. TBH I don't think low energy lighting is good enough still, but at least the kitchen lighting consumption has fallen from 480 watts, to 88 watts, so it's 5.5 times cheaper to run. If you can afford the extra lekky, stick with tungsten IMHO.

[David Hansen]

On Mon, 16 Jul 2007 11:25:45 +0100 someone who may be Charles Ping wrote this:-

There is a little more choice by replacing the fittings with R80 ones. However, as I never was foolish enough to install downlighters as general illumination in a kitchen I have not experimented with energy saving bulbs for such an application.

[tinnews]

Just shows how unsuitable downlighters are for the kitchen doesn't it!

[Charles Ping]

I agree but blame the people before us who put them in. I'm not ready to destroy the kitchen just to change them.

Charles

[Andrew Gabriel]

Some R63's can take an R80 by removing a piece of trim. If yours can, I would suggest looking at a 23W GE Genura. It's very expensive for a compact fluorescent, but it gives off more light than a 100W R80 (it's an electrodeless induction lamp). Another plus point is there's no life shortening penalty for switching on/off as often as you like.

[Mark Carver]

Likewise. I've inherited the kitchen light fittings too. In fact I suspect it was botched because only place in the house where the floor creaks is in the master bedroom which is immediately above the kitchen.

[unopened]

I'm using Megaman 2700K Warm White Compact Reflector R63 BR1111i 11W E27 lamps.

They do not come to full brightness instantly, taking 30 seconds or so. What I do is use a mixture of both incandescents and CFLs, so the incandescents give instant light, and the CFLs give power saving. The colour temperature mixes well with the incandescents, but it is plainly obvious that the light output (even though claimed as 60W equivalent) is lower, just by comparing the depth of shadow formed from two adjacent lamps when I put an object between the lamps and a sheet of (white) paper.

Of course, your lighting design may mean you can't use a mixture.

Cheers,

Sid