More on LED bulbs...

[Daniel Meyer]

Hey, I like that bulb. To every one else though it's just a plain old gothic revival style lamp.

Heh heh...I think any piece of furniture with chains on it should be reclassified

[phil]

I refuse to but CFL's or LED's. Instead I have managed to buy a few collections of bulbs from garage sales from people who have bought into this power saving scheme.
I like the light of incandescent. I also collect radios and the CFL's emit terrible radio frequencies which result as lots of electrical noise.. I find the flicker and the color of light to be annoying and I think they create a stressful environment. I do have them in the kitchen and turn them on when I need more light such as when vacuuming but not when I have visitors about.

They may save power in the summertime but in winter, that extra bit of warmth from the bulbs is not wasted heat at all. The thing that gets me is the suppliers trying to prove to the consumers that they will save so much power while at the same time completely ignoring the fact that those who run bulbs that don't emit heat only transfer that cost to their heating bill. It isn't the free lunch that they lead you to believe. they poison the environment, very few get recycled in fact the gas it would cost me to take them to a recycling facility is as damaging to the environment as throwing them out. by the way the old incandescents could have been made to last 20 years easily and the earlier ones did, but the light bulb manufacturers started using low quality materials a long time ago in order to sell more and towards the end they shortened the life more and more.

now look at the xmas lights. I remember my parents telling me of the lousy christmas light strings they had years ago, where the whole string would go out because one bulb failed. Fast forward to now and we have thousands of consumers who are too frustrated that last years Xmas lights don't work , for the same reason, one bulb takes out the whole string or at least 1/3 or the string. sometimes people will test each bulb but if you do that you soon find the sockets are so cheap that they fail as soon as you try to fix the string.. so we throw out our xmas lights after one or two years because , well they are Chinese junk. I just tossed a set and my neighbor asked me what was up with hers.. I said you are welcome to take my string out of the garbage and try to use the bulbs to fix yours , but alas there are so many different styles, no standardization, both sets in the garbage now.. Yea big savings.

I put two strings of the LED ones out front and plugged them in. I couldn't even tell they were on in the daytime, they don't emit enough light to see your way. Out back I put one string of the old incandescents in a tree by my walkway and it iluminates my whole back yard. They look so much nicer ! the new ones light the bulb but they don't throw any light, that light is nice around this time of year when it is almost always dark and rainy.

I managed to get a big box of industrial high vibration ones at one G sale. Hoping those will last a while.

we'll see what happens but I for one dislike the way these things were forced upon us and I really do think it is more about big business than an environmental change for the better.
If we wanted to make an environmental impact we wouldn't have every tom dick and harry out Christmas shopping and buying big over packaged items in brand new Lincoln Navigators, massive diesel pickups etc. We could make those bulbs last but the manufacturers want to keep making junk so we have to replace them, otherwise they'd reduce their own market and it is all about money, their money , not our money. and not the environment at all.. (end rant)

Phil

[Texas_Ranger]

They may save power in the summertime but in winter, that extra bit of warmth from the bulbs is not wasted heat at all.

Well it's still true that other forms of heating are usually cheaper. Electricity is fairly expensive!

That said I did discover that we pay more for pellets than for electricity... talk about cheap heat!

I bought lots and lots of incandescent bulbs when frosted ones were phased out in 2009 and that stash should last for quite a while. Recently I bought another big load (70 bulbs I think) of 40 and 60 W bulbs when a theatre closed down. If all else fails I can still get rough-service bulbs.

While we have incandescent lights in all rooms where we spend more time we did start using CFLs in the hallways way back in the early 90s (and no, those heavy beasts didn't last 20 years either) and are now switching to LEDs. While I still don't quite like the light of most LEDs they're considerably better than any CFL!

[Daniel Meyer]

I've talked about these LED antique/Edison style filament bulbs...and I've a handful I'm testing...all positive but I've not written it up yet...

Anyway, if you're tempted...they're running a sale till Monday the 13th...coupon code APRIL10
Also good on incandescent Edison style bulbs...

https://www.1000bulbs.com/category/anti ... ent-bulbs/

[mattswabb]

We bought five of these 40 watt equivalent LED Edison bulbs for our living room fixture and so far very happy with them. They look nice and give great light.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00O7W ... pldnSite=1

[Gothichome]

Matt, how about a picture of the light in your fixtures. Still have not changed my Edison incandescents yet.

[mattswabb]

[heartwood]

phil, just wanted to comment on 'Chinese junk'...actually, it's American junk made in china...a manufacturing company or distributor is responsible for the quality of products they choose to sell...American companies employ people in other countries who work at very low wages AND CONFORM TO THE COMPANY'S STANDARDS...if I knowingly hire a person whose work is subpar and below my standards, my name does not go on that product...I will not deliver and install a poorly glazed or painted sash and blame it on my employee...

American manufacturers love that we point the finger at the country of manufacture rather than at them where it belongs...even American flags are made in china and Vietnam...it's only going to get worse with Obama's new trade agreement...

rant over........
...jade

[Gothichome]

Hummmmm, interesting debate, cost vs amortization vs environment. As phill has mentioned there is no free lunch. Switching to low wattage consumers at 30% more money like LED's. Reduces the overal load of the grid. This lowers the demand on the grid, the electric companies do not have to upgrade. Now this, in theory should lower the cost of transmission and in a fair world would lower the cost to the consumer, but I think most of us will agree this would not happen. Taking this one step further, the cost of not upgrading the grid is just being pushed on to the consumer in the cost of the LED's. Now granted the life expectancy of the LED's are far greater than incondesents, there would be a savings over time in replacement costs but over the long haul, would there be a monetary savings, I'm not so sure. As an example: if over the course of the life of three incandescent Edison bulbs at $10 a bulb you replaced 2 LED's at $15. You still have spent $30. Over time, with the disposal of of incondesents you have thrown out a little bit of glass, a little bit of steel, and a misicule amount of tungsten. On throwing out two LED's you have thrown out a little bit of glass, a little bit of steel, some thermal plastic and a little exotic switching material. ( LED's in reality are just a very inifeciant diode whether PNP or NPN they all use this man made silicon or Quartz based material sorry for the tech talk). In smaller quantities this may not be a big deal but if every one was using LED's in the future it may become a big environtal issue, probably not in my life time.
In the end the decision to go LED becomes a personal descision based on either, monitary, social or personal needs or requirements. I see no benefited either monitary or environtal but my person requirement is a bulb that gives off the light I'm looking for with the least amount of heat for my application.

[Gothichome]

Oh, by the way Matt, that lamp looks fantastic.