Dethroner Asks You: Best Non-Incandescent Light Bulbs?
Published by Joel January 31st, 2007 in Ask Dethroner, Decor, Gadgets. Share This
It seems that California may attempt to outlaw incandescent light bulbs with the twee “How Many Legislators Does it Take to Change a Lightbulb [sic] Act?” (Seriously, that’s the name.)
There is some debate about whether this should be the sort of thing a government should legislate, but putting that aside, using less energy is an unquestionable good. But older fluorescent bulbs have traditionally provided a flickering, unpleasant light. Newer technologies like CFL bulbs (the often spiral-shaped ones) and LED bulbs are supposed to provide a light closer to that of an incandescent.
My question is simply: do any of you guys use CFLs and LEDs to the exclusion of incandescents? Are there really bulbs out there that can provide warm, full-spectrum light on the cheap?
21 Responses to “Dethroner Asks You: Best Non-Incandescent Light Bulbs?”
- 1 Pingback on Feb 4th, 2007 at 11:52 am
I don’t. But I only use about 5-10 bulbs (max) in my apartment at night. Typically I have 2 or 3 on (less than 100W). I honestly do not see how much I really can save (or help the planet).
My dad switched to CFL bulbs and hates them. The light is not natural, cannot be dimmed, take a bit to “warm up”, etc… He’s eventually going back to incandescent.
LED bulbs I have never tried. I’m curious b/c they can potentionally emit any color light with the right combination of colors.
They hit this on Ask Metafilter about 6 months ago.
I’ve tried, honestly. While there were no flickering, light wasn’t natural with any bulb I tried; some of them were downright unpleasant.
I still use non-incandescent bulbs in my closets though.
I switched fully to CF bulbs a couple of months ago. I have no incandescent bulbs at all.
I switched all at once, and bought a number of different brands for different applications, and because I wasn’t sure which ones would be best.
If you’re switching out bulbs in a ceiling fixture in a bedroom/bathroom with a full frosted glass enclosure, you’ll do just fine with the spiral CF bulb. If the bulb is exposed, there are a number of warm light solutions for you. The best ones I’ve found are the ones with the coil covered by a second frosted dome. They come in different shapes. None of them will be _exactly_ like incandescent, you’re making these changes for a reason, right?
One general rule to abide by is this: You don’t need nearly as many watts as you think. Even when the packages say “equivalent to 40 watts”, it’ll be closer to 50 or 60.
And a couple of days ago. Recommended in thread were these which have high outputs compared to a lot of CFL’s and put out light that is the same color temperature as incandescent light bulbs.
Pony request: can we have a preview button for comments?
Color temp is the key. Look for something less than 3200K. Anything in the 4300K range is like office lighting and will be more green. The blueish color light is in the 5500K range and more like outdoor light.
I have a couple. One for the garage, that dumb thing turns itself on it seems. We also have one in a recessed can and it sucks. Takes awhile to warm up and the color temp is not quite right. IKEA actually has some pretty good examples in the store if you want to see how they look.
I’ve got one CFL for the bedroom. Only complaint is the “warm up” time - is there any way to get rid of that, or different types that light up faster? It’s very dim at first until it warms up.
I’ll have to look into the LED lights….any recs?
I have a lot of fluorescents. I have a spiral one in my room, and in the kitchen we have 5 recessed flood light style, and the only problem is the warm up time. I also have globe style in the bathroom, and they also have a warm up problem, and they are just a little too yellow for me, but i like using fluorescents.
I have tried a couple of the CFL bulb, and hated them. One was in a floor lamp that gets bumped all the time, and it went out in no time. The other one over my sink flickers so much it’s pathetic.
I wanted to switch to save electricity, but the cost of the bulbs and the flicker of the only one that has lasted and the fact you can’t dim them has kept me happily using incandescent.
I’d be interested in possibly trying LED lights, but I’ve not seen them yet. I’ll have to look.
As a test, I bought a couple of the store-brand CFLs at Safeway here in Seattle, and found them to be surprisingly warm — perhaps too much so — and flicker-free. I’d like to replace all of my incandescent bulbs now, but globe-shaped bulbs for the stupid vanity mirror in my bathroom (e.g. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000BOC3E6/) are pricey.
I don’t know about the USA, but in the UK we get CFLs which, rather than spiral shaped, have three or four square hoops coming from the base of the bulb. I’ve found these to be flicker free (and I can see the flicker on a 75 Hz CRT), warm (especially when combined with glass lampshades), long-lived and with no (noticeable) warm up time. My suggestion to those who tried CFLs a few years ago is to give ‘em another shot, the technology’s moved on.
I heard that AM financial-adice guy, Clark Howard, talk about this (lightbulbs, not the California law) a couple months ago. He swears LED lights are fantastic, provide light equivalent to an incadescent, last forever, use much less energy, and don’t produce any heat. But they are still quite expensive, which is probably why nobody really knows that much about them. I dunno, give it 4-5 years, and the price comes down substantially, we might all be switiching over, if the advantages really are so myriad.
I use a combination; I haven’t been able to find any CF’s that are suitable for use in dimmers, and my house unfortunately has dimmer switches in nearly every room. I do use them where I can, though. The warm up time isn’t really a big deal to me, and I get a lot more light out of these than the old fashioned bulbs (particularly on old circuits that tend to burn out incandescents).
oh, and to the guy who said he didn’t know how much he could save, running approximately 100W of bulbs a night, do the math:
100W * 4 hours of light per evening = 400 watt hours * 365 = 146,000 watt hours per year.
To produce the same amount of light, a flourescent bulb needs approximately 20-25W instead of 100.
25W * 4 hours per evening = 100 watt hours * 365 = 36,500 watt hours per year.
The average cost of electricity in the U.S. is about 10 cents per Kwh, so your light bulbs currently cost about $14 or $15 a year to run. The new bulbs would only cost you about $3.50. That’s not a huge amount of money but I admit I get fairly excited when I find a $10 bill on the sidewalk or in my laundry basket (maybe I need to get out more).
The real savings comes in generating electric power. Burning coal for power is about 40% efficient, so your 100 watts is really about 160 watts of energy expended in terms of coal, while the new bulb is only about 40. That’s reducing the amount of coal burned for light by 3/4, just from switching a few light bulbs. Sure its a small amount of our total power usage, but its such a huge savings in lighting that its hard to dismiss it altogether.
personally, i love the warm up time for CFs. it’s a reminder that i’m a superior person who is saving the earth- every time i turn them on!
seriously, though, they’re fine. haven’t tried LEDs.
LEDs are fine for focused stuff like reading lamps, but are not good for general room lighting, because their light is very focused, and not diffuse like a CFL or incandescent.
and the High-power LEDs out now *do* put off heat, enough that they need a heat-sink to prevent them from burning out.
Generaly, the more expensive bulbs tends to have shorter, or no, warm up times. Cheap ones also tend to “flicker”. So don’t cheap out!
I found the Slivania ones works best in my house. The light is warm with out being yellow like some incandesents. I have some cheap ass ones out side of the house, they take a few seconds to warm up but who cares, they are outside. I also have some super white ones for my utilty/laundry room and my garage.
It’s all trial and error, you have to find the ones that you like. And it’s not just about saving a few dollars here and there. Every little bit of energy we don’t use helps.
Also, CF always last longer so that means less energy is used to make replacements and less waste to dispose of.
Another thing to remember is that all bulbs, incandesent or CF mave mercury and other nasty things in them and they can not be just tossed into the trash. Find your local household toxic waste disposal.
Our house is entirely fitted with CFL’s of different brands and qualities. The more expensive ones have very minimal warm-up time.
You might not save a ton of cash just by switching to CFL’s but when you do a lot a small stuff combined, it makes a big difference.
We completely removed all incandescents (~12) from our apartment and added all CFLs. They’re great, they seem to produce about the same amt of light output and I haven’t noticed any warm-up time issues. I did make sure to buy all ENERGY STAR labeled bulbs because they go through a tougher testing process. I’m pretty sure there are dimmer and 3-way options available; you just need to check the packaging. The long-term savings are quite impressive. I’m a huge proponent.
To see how much you can save with CF bulbs, use this spreadsheet:
http://www.seal-pa.org/sahs/math/schmitt/documents/CFLs.xls
Obviously this doesn’t take into consideration the quality of light. That is a personal preference. But if you are content with the light provided, you may be surprised to find out how much you can save. I know I was. It turns out to be about $3 per bulb per year, with considerable variance possible in both directions depending on many variables. So if you replace 20 bulbs with CFLs, that’s $60 a year just for changing light bulbs.