Long-lasting lightbulbs - Page 2

JackAZ · 08-01-2010, 12:02 AM

I'm with verdesardog, when the cost of LED comes down that is what I will use. Until then I have a stockpile of incandescents to cover me for a little while beyond the ban on them. Why? Because I've found that CFL's trigger horrible headaches (something I already deal with far too often). As a result I can hardly stand to be around them. Traditional fluorescents don't bother my too much, but CFL's immediately irritate my eyes and a headache follows shortly thereafter. Here's to a dramatic drop in the price of LED bulbs for the home.

harryset · 10-28-2010, 04:21 PM

I have changed most of the lights in the house and the garage to cfl. I still hate the warmup time it takes for them to come up to full lighting, but I'm getting used to it. A few of mine are the ring style fluorescents that screw into a standard bulb socket, they take little, noticeable, warm up. I have a pair of cfl spots on the front of the garage that I installed when the kids were in high school. I leave them on constantly and they are still going. My daughter graduated college in '04.

jcjacob · 10-28-2010, 05:28 PM

The warm-up for some CFLs is abyssmal. I had some on the motion detectors and outside floods around my house and changed them to incandescent because in cold weather they still weren't up to full lighting when the timer ran out and they went off.

I just purchased some 'instant on' CFLs by Phillips for my garage door openers, and they've been great. They are very bright right away.

As a side note, I was just reading last week about some new instant-on bulbs that are just coming out. They have a small halogen bulb as well as CFL. When the light is turned on, the halogen provides full luminence. As the CFL gets brighter, the halogen dims. When the CFL reaches full brightness, the halogen bulb is completely off. It'll be interesting to see what the price of these start out to be.

harryset · 02-25-2011, 02:23 PM

I had changed over a majority of the lights in my house to CFl's, but with my wife having problems with migrain headaches from time to time, I have replaced most of the CFL's with incandescent bulbs.

I have been spending some time over the last week researching replacing a couple of my garage security lights, with solar powered lighting.

I pretty much nixed the idea for two reasons:
(1) Initial outlay can be very expensive, depending on how and what you use.
(2) Most of the common lights you find are questionable in reliability.
(3) They tend to not work very well for very long, in cold climates.

The bulbs on the front side are 23 watt cfl's and I think the two that shine over my parking area are probably 15 watt cfl's. They are double lamp fixtures and run 24/7, because for some reason, I got lazy and didn't install them with the proper controls for dusk to dawn/motion detecting, like I should have.

I hooked up to my smaller parking lights to my Killawatt EZ box to see what it was operating at. This is, once again a dual lamp setup, with a pair of 15w cfl's, that is plugged in, not hardwired.

I figured my electric rate at $.10 because I couldn't find what the actual was. . . actual cost per kwh is $.0826, I think.

120.4 v
31 watts
50 va
.41 amps
.13 kwh

Cost per:
day: .06
week: .47
month: 2.01
year: 24.52

I think that other than hooking up some auto on/off controls, I'm not going to try and get more efficiency out of these lights.

While I was at Home Depot, I purchased 6, 8 watt, R-20, led light bulbs to replace the six incandescent lights that currently occupied my track lighting in the kitchen. Installed them, and they are perfect. The lighting is a little different, but more than adequate for our use. Each 8 watt bulb is equivilant to a 40 watt incandescent. Pricier, but at an advertised life of 50,000 hours of operation, they should, "should", pay for themselves.

08-01-2010, 12:02 AM	#11
JackAZ Junior Member Join Date: Jul 2010 Posts: 20	I'm with verdesardog, when the cost of LED comes down that is what I will use. Until then I have a stockpile of incandescents to cover me for a little while beyond the ban on them. Why? Because I've found that CFL's trigger horrible headaches (something I already deal with far too often). As a result I can hardly stand to be around them. Traditional fluorescents don't bother my too much, but CFL's immediately irritate my eyes and a headache follows shortly thereafter. Here's to a dramatic drop in the price of LED bulbs for the home. __________________ Members don't see ads in threads. Register your free account today and become a member on Tech Today Online, gaining access to posting privileges, contests, free plug-ins and other downloads, unlimited online storage for your photographs, reviews, free marketplace listings, and much more.

10-28-2010, 05:28 PM	#13
jcjacob Senior Member Join Date: Jul 2010 Location: Doylestown, PA Posts: 159	The warm-up for some CFLs is abyssmal. I had some on the motion detectors and outside floods around my house and changed them to incandescent because in cold weather they still weren't up to full lighting when the timer ran out and they went off. I just purchased some 'instant on' CFLs by Phillips for my garage door openers, and they've been great. They are very bright right away. As a side note, I was just reading last week about some new instant-on bulbs that are just coming out. They have a small halogen bulb as well as CFL. When the light is turned on, the halogen provides full luminence. As the CFL gets brighter, the halogen dims. When the CFL reaches full brightness, the halogen bulb is completely off. It'll be interesting to see what the price of these start out to be. __________________ -John

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10-28-2010, 04:21 PM	#12
harryset Member Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: Bemidji, Minnesota Posts: 45	I have changed most of the lights in the house and the garage to cfl. I still hate the warmup time it takes for them to come up to full lighting, but I'm getting used to it. A few of mine are the ring style fluorescents that screw into a standard bulb socket, they take little, noticeable, warm up. I have a pair of cfl spots on the front of the garage that I installed when the kids were in high school. I leave them on constantly and they are still going. My daughter graduated college in '04.

02-25-2011, 02:23 PM	#14
harryset Member Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: Bemidji, Minnesota Posts: 45	I had changed over a majority of the lights in my house to CFl's, but with my wife having problems with migrain headaches from time to time, I have replaced most of the CFL's with incandescent bulbs. I have been spending some time over the last week researching replacing a couple of my garage security lights, with solar powered lighting. I pretty much nixed the idea for two reasons: (1) Initial outlay can be very expensive, depending on how and what you use. (2) Most of the common lights you find are questionable in reliability. (3) They tend to not work very well for very long, in cold climates. The bulbs on the front side are 23 watt cfl's and I think the two that shine over my parking area are probably 15 watt cfl's. They are double lamp fixtures and run 24/7, because for some reason, I got lazy and didn't install them with the proper controls for dusk to dawn/motion detecting, like I should have. I hooked up to my smaller parking lights to my Killawatt EZ box to see what it was operating at. This is, once again a dual lamp setup, with a pair of 15w cfl's, that is plugged in, not hardwired. I figured my electric rate at $.10 because I couldn't find what the actual was. . . actual cost per kwh is $.0826, I think. 120.4 v 31 watts 50 va .41 amps .13 kwh Cost per: day: .06 week: .47 month: 2.01 year: 24.52 I think that other than hooking up some auto on/off controls, I'm not going to try and get more efficiency out of these lights. While I was at Home Depot, I purchased 6, 8 watt, R-20, led light bulbs to replace the six incandescent lights that currently occupied my track lighting in the kitchen. Installed them, and they are perfect. The lighting is a little different, but more than adequate for our use. Each 8 watt bulb is equivilant to a 40 watt incandescent. Pricier, but at an advertised life of 50,000 hours of operation, they should, "should", pay for themselves.