Re: If B&Q had a brain, they'd be dangerous ...

[Tim Watts]

Just finished redecorating the hallway, and SWMBO decided that it needed a

> new lampshade, so we trotted off to the nearest B&Q. Now this is a big > store, and they have three complete aisles of light fittings. And not a > single one was switched on. Not one. How the bloody hell are you supposed > to make an informed choice, when all the displays are dark. Anyway, she > chooses a 'shade' that comprises 4 concentric circles of quite delicate > chains (about like a necklace chain) supporting glass 'crystals' at > varying heights to create a sort of 'sphere'. At a guess, I'd say that > there are about 50 of these chains.

Ahem:

[Alan]

In message , The Natural Philosopher wrote

It's the drive electronics that fail because they get too hot. You need to install a 100W fan/blower above each bulb to keep it cool - or only use them in up-lighter mode (bulb above electronics)

[Dave Liquorice]

So as you appear to be fully aware of the drawbacks of CFLs why didn't you look at the box before you bought it? You only have youself to blame for not checking the product has the abilty to meet your specification. There are decent CFLs out there but there is no hard and fast way of telling if a particular one is a good one or not. Price is not a particulary good indication, they should have the lumens output and colour temperature on them though, things like instant start might not be mentioned.

[Andrew Gabriel]

of my local shops (except supermarkets) have had 100W bulbs back for months. Some never got rid of them in the first place.

[Huge]

So what would be the point of "checking the product has the abilty to meet your specification" if "there is no hard and fast way of telling if a particular one is a good one or not"?

[The Medway Handyman]

Homobase are as bad.

Changed a light fitting & dimmer switch for a lady of Friday, boticed that the bulbs were non dimmable CFL's & told her they wern't suitable.

Turns out she had selected the light fitting & the dimmer switch and then went to the advice counter to ask which bulbs she should buy. Droid took her to the shelf & placed the 5 non dimmable lamps in the basket right next to the dimmer switch :-)

[Steve Firth]

CFLs seem to be for people too stupid to use a light switch. If they are left on 24/7 they are just about usable, but the switch on delay and long warm up times make them useless for occasional use and dangerous for use on stairs. Despite this, and despite stairs needing good, intense, illumination fuckwitted politicians want to phase out the one useful, good quality form of lighting.

OTOH if you want to replace the 60/100W bulbs on stairs with 500W halogen downlighters it's OK you can still buy those.

I can't even see how CFLs will achieve any useful level of saving of electricity. When I'm not in a room I turn the lights off. I don't leave lights pointlessly burning in the hall and stairways. Apparently politicians and other supporters of CFLs leave their light on at all times.

[Arfa Daily]

> --

Ahem back. They are all 100 watts. I only wanted a 60 watt in it as that is the maximum that it is rated for. I have 100 watt bulbs in my last ditch stash, but since they made them about the size of a bloody golf ball, they run too hot for a standard bakelite pendant fitting ...

60 watt pearl bulbs were banned some time ago.

Arfa

[Arfa Daily]

No, I have the EU to blame for banning proper light bulbs, and our stupid government for rolling over and letting us be dictated to. We're talking a bloody light bulb here, not a power tool or a car or a new DVD player or whatever. For 50 years, I've bought light bulbs without having to look at the box. You buy it. You stick it in the fitting, and it behaves like a light bulb. Period. They have introduced this crap technology in yet another bit of ecobollox thinking, as a replacement for light bulb technology. If they are going to do that, then they should ensure that it is a proper replacement technology across the board, not some half-arsed substitute that may or may not work in an acceptable way. You say yourself that there is no hard and fast way to tell if any particular CFL is actually going to be any good. What friggin' use is that ? If I pay 3 quid for a bloody light bulb, I expect it to work. The print mentioning this one's drawbacks was about the size of a gnat's c*ck, and took a while to find on the box anyway, after spotting the asterisks that referred to those drawbacks on the main blurb. I needed my reading glasses to even see them, and I didn't have those with me in the shop.

So no. In the case of something like a light bulb, it should not be my responsibility to know what I am buying from a raft of similar products. It should be up to the store that is buying them in / having them made for themselves, to ensure that what they are selling does the job properly.

I could take the piece of crap back, but it would cost more in petrol and my time than just throwing it away. To say nothing of the carbon impact of doing so. If I actually cared ...

Arfa

[Mike Clarke]

That figures - "&q=100w%20pearl"

So try a Google search for 60w pearl

[The Natural Philosopher]

You van now get halogen ones.

[The Natural Philosopher]

I am sorry, that's an unacceptable restriction.

Two of them WERE mounted that way, used outside in lanterns and only used occasionally at night.When its cool.

[<me9]

I haven't a single filament lamp in use, and I find the CFLs satisfactory. Some aren't but there are good ones out there. Use the size that gives the light required rather than the claimed value on the packet.

I like the 6000k ones (as sold by CPC -- don't buy at same time as club hammer!) but SWMBO prefers the lower temperature ones that are as bad as filament lamps.

I've never liked tungsten lighting, too red, I much preferred the gas lights, and have used fluorescents of one form or other for years.

[geoff]

In message , Arfa Daily writes

100 x 60W

Got 50 x 500g reels

should see me through until October ...

[Bob Eager]

LOL, so true. Or a 10kg tub of dishwasher powder...

[Huge]

The best place for them is the loft. You don't have to look at them much, the poor light quality doesn't matter, they last ages so you don't have to crawl around in the grot to replace them and it doesn't matter so much if you forget to turn them off and leave them on for 6 weeks.

[michael adams]

So much for the economics of cheap labour.

They probably paid someone about 20p, to spend half an hour putting that shade together

The downside is that they paid them another 20p to spend another half an hour wrapping it up in bits of plastic.

michael adams

...

[geoff]

In message , Arfa Daily writes

So - do you need a couple of "real" 60W bulbs, then ?

[Tim Watts]

>>> --

Double ahem on you sir!

point being, 100W pearl were "banned" too, except Parialment cocked up and forgot to actually enact the EU ban in English law.

I assumed the plethora of 100W pearl would imply lesser wattages were also available - seems to be so.

another one in the other direction...

[Tim Watts]

I;m not a huge CFL fan (mostly because the d*****ad lampholder manufacturers have not allowed for the extra length of CFLs[1])

But I am generally impressed by 25/30W Prolight daylight CFLs. They start quite bright instantly, warm up fairly fast and produce an exceptionally good light (for a CFL and better than any filament lamp other than an artists type IME) for decorating and fine working.

[1] eg SWMBO went to the ind estate, so I asked here to get a couple of old style inspection lamps, but only if a 25W CFL would go inside. They didn't fit, needless to say. How hard would it be to make those a bit longer and maybe 3 heat resistant soft lamp supports. Ditto "submarine" bulkheads - add a couple of inches to an otherwise nice fitting and I could put a f*ck off CFL in and make them useful.

Ditto lampshades - how hard to design a couple f extra inches in?

I'm quite dismayed by the whole lamp bollocks. In teh "old days", we managed with nothing but BC. Now it's a bloody random mixture or ES, SES, BC, SBC, "golf balls" (fecking stupid - least likely to be able to be converted into a decent CFL) and 500 types of halogen bases!