Energy saving light bulbs FFS……..

I had a problem with a series of 3 (£2.50from Asda) blowing repeatedly for no apparent reason. But other than that I've no problems and they've slashed my elec bill. Dim for a few seconds but then brighten up. And in places where I had 60W bulbs I now have 100W equivs and it's much brighter.

Mind you, I'm not keen on living in a sterile lab environment lit by super-bright white light.

only traditional bulb we have in our house is the 60W (all they had in the Corner shop when it blew one sunday evening) one in the bathroom.
Tried a energy saver in there, but it didnt last long, being only on for short periods.

hall/landings/office/lounge/bedside table lamps are energy savers.
The lounge has 5x 40w equivalent candle shaped energy savers – so get the same warm white as a normal bulb, but all 5 lights use less energy than a single standard bulb – take 2secs to go from on but slightly dim, to full brightness.

have only had to replace 1 or 2 in the last 5 years (they were cheap ones from Ikea 3 for a £1 jobs)
We've been getting a bit of a stock up ATM – Lidl has been having offers on Phillips ES bulbs – buy 1 for 50p, or 5 for 49p (no i don't understand why it costs 1p less to buy 5 than to buy 1… but there you go.)

hate them.
proper guardian reading crap they are. like Prius'

yes normal light bulbs are inefficient at lighting a room, but what they waste not producing light, they kick out as heat, so warm the room ANYWAY.
its still energy.

stick with incandescent and turn the heating down a click or two.

they are also full of all sorts of horrible stuff are they not?
mercury etc?

I don't understand this whinging about light bulbs. They're fine. If yours aren't bright enough, get a brighter one. Jeez. If it wasn't for the fact they take a few seconds to brighten up you wouldn't know the difference. It's all in your mind…

hate them.
proper guardian reading crap they are. like Prius'

yes normal light bulbs are inefficient at lighting a room, but what they waste not producing light, they kick out as heat, so warm the room ANYWAY.
its still energy.

stick with incandescent and turn the heating down a click or two.

they are also full of all sorts of horrible stuff are they not?
mercury etc?

Fallacy alert!

The heat from incandescents is at ceiling level, not where you need it. And it's a tiny fraction of what you need to heat your room. They are the equivalent of an electric heater, which no-one uses because they are so inefficient.

Fluorescent bulbs do indeed contain tiny amounts of mecury. Coal-fired power stations also emit mercury, and the extra power generation required for incandescents causes more mercury to be emitted than the amount in your fluorescent bulbs. And of course the mercury doesn't go anywhere unless you break the bulb. Unlike a power station, which sends it straight into the atmosphere.

I see a gap in the market for that Trout fellow. 🙂

Mods – can you ban ransos please? He seems to know what he's going on about. Surely that's not allowed?

Blimey, next you'll be telling me that I shouldn't recreate that summer feel by putting patio heaters outside of each of my open windows during the winter months.

Treehuggers 😉

Use them

Some are better than others at 'Warming up' properly. Some don't last very long (GU10 repalcements seem to be keen) but they ALWAYS use less energy than an incandescent.

They do seem to vary a lot.

I'm using a "normal bulb shaped" energy saver in the living room, but when you first switch it on you hardly even notice that it's on; and it takes a good 5 minutes to get to up to full brightness and even then it isn't bright enough to read by.

I thought I had done the right thing and gone for a more expensive, known brand (Osram Dulux EL Classic – £6.73 from lightbulbshop). It is nice warm light, but it just isn't bright enough.

Graham – You're surely not saying the 20W isn't bright enough…

recommended replacements:
25W with a 5W
35W with a 7W
50W with a 10W
60W with a 11W
75W with a 15W
100W with a 20W

We have energy saving bulbs, some are pretty instant light, the others are over a couple of minutes to warm up.
Quite annoying as I usually only turn the main light on to find something, then it goes off again. Having to wait 2-5 minutes for it to warm up and then turn it off seems stupid.

Who said they are 10p?
I think it depends on the type of bulb you are after, show me an R50 spot lamp for 10p, or even a £1.. We have 16 of these with an average price of £10, thats £160 on light bulbs!!! 😯

I'm happy to use the energy saving bulbs, as long as they don't cost silly money, which for certain bulbs they do.

will1 i have sorted those bulbs for you.

they are only of use in the loo where at 3am you dont get blinded by a light when you let the pressure off your bladder.

otherwise horrid things and emit large levels of EMI which cannot be good for you.

I actually now wear a TJTin Foil Enterprises 54-61 EC Non Approved Helmet to protect my neural pathways from these evil evil death waves.

Graham – You're surely not saying the 20W isn't bright enough…

It's the 15w one we have, which is supposed to be equivalent to 75w incandescent.

It's more like 30w if you ask me – not bright enough to read comfortably with.

otherwise horrid things and emit large levels of EMI which cannot be good for you

applies only to androids and cyborgs

applies only to androids and cyborgs

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I'm doing a study of incandescents vs CFLs at the moment.
Colour wise, some modern CFLs are capable of 2700K, which is warm on the correlated colour chart and only 100K away from the GLS lamps.

11001 1 11 00 011 100001 0 0

01000101 01101000 00111111

Incandescesents only emit 5% of energy as light. Almost obscene really.
But then CFLs only manage around 20%, some LEDs now are 25% ish….perhaps we should stay in the dark until something reaches 50% or so?

some LEDs now are 25% ish

do you mean experimental organics LEDs ?

Mrs. Starship picked up 5 x 11W (eq. 60W) from Morrisons today for 20p!

Now that is cheap.