I'm Hoarding Light Bulbs

[Duke]

Some people just can't take it.

Count me in with those people. It's not that I am a reactionary conservative and a "pry my incandescents from my cold, dead fingers" type.

CFLs, even the best of them, have dismal color rendition and all the other flaws others have mentioned above. But worse than that, I can see them flicker at the 60-hz frequency of the power supply and after an hour or so it starts to give me a serious headache. When it is quiet I can hear them whine and buzz, too. Regular fluorescents are just as bad, but typically in a commercial setting there are enough fixtures and they are up high enough that it doesn't bother me as much. Still, in every office I have ever worked, I have disabled the fluorescent ceiling lights over my desk area, and relied on incandescent task lighting.

If I had to spend my evenings and weekends in a house with only CFLs I would have a headache every night by the time I went to bed. I guess on the flip side, I might lose some weight because of how nauseating they make so many foods look. LEDs are getting better in this regard, but my LED undercabinet lights (supposedly color-neutral) throw some truly odd overtones onto most meats.

 

[t3hgt3ftw1n]

[Insert TV Announcer voice]If you don't like the CFL light bulbs, General Electric has the solution, *just* for you![End voice]

Seriously though, GE's now making energy-saving incandescent light bulbs:

http://www.gelighting.com/LightingWeb/na/consumer/products/highlights/energy-efficient-soft-white/

 

[Jay.]

Happened in the EU a few years ago. Why they didn't just tax them off the market I don't know.

There's no real reason to keep using incandescent bulbs as far as I know, what with improved CFC (?) and LED tech, but it's not a good reason to ban them.

Certain forms of Epilepsy can react to many of the LED/energy saving bulbs. My wife sometimes has this problem.
My problem however... all these new bulbs are a lot more expensive than the incandescents, and the the ones that are tested safe for use by people with epilepsy are nearly twice as much again but only lasts for half as long. Nearly £5 for one bloody light bulb, and I need at least 14 in my house.

Wish I took your route years ago.

 

[Joey D]

I can't stand incandescent bulbs for the most part since I like bright, white light. One of the first things I did when I moved into my new house was start getting rid of that nasty, dingy, yellow light and swapping it out for either 5000K CFL's or where I could, LEDs. As of now I only have a few "standard" bulbs left and those are all halogen bulbs from Ikea.

I don't really see a point in banning them, but it seems like consumers would want to start moving to something that's more efficient to run.

 

[FoolKiller]

but my LED undercabinet lights (supposedly color-neutral) throw some truly odd overtones onto most meats.

Really? Nearly all my food pictures of the last six months have been lit by undercabinet LEDs. Bright and white. What kind of LEDs are they? The tiny diode bulbs or the little chips? Mine are using the high power chips, which create more lumens for the power usage. I even switched some of my spotlights to those because the bulbs were cheaper and created brighter light than the older diode bulbs style lights.

 

[niky]

Cheaper LED bulbs have more variation in color, if you're getting the "warm" colored ones. Realized this a bit too late after buying a batch of cheap ones... but oh well.

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RE: Buzzing: Another reason I like LED. With multiple bulbs in one housing, there's less "buzzing" than with CFLs.

Even with "warm" LEDs and multiple fixtures to minimize buzzing, it's still not quite as easy on the eyes as incandescent here at the house... but if I had this many incandescents on at the same time, my electricity bill would be horrendous.

 

[FoolKiller]

Last night I flipped on the outside light (a CFL, since we may leave it on for extended time periods) to let the dog out. It didn't light for three seconds, then it blinked off and on for another 5-10, and then it came on barely bright enough see anything. The dog did his business and came in before it was fully lit. Just as good, or better, than incandescents?

 

[Grayfox]

Last night I flipped on the outside light (a CFL, since we may leave it on for extended time periods) to let the dog out. It didn't light for three seconds, then it blinked off and on for another 5-10, and then it came on barely bright enough see anything. The dog did his business and came in before it was fully lit. Just as good, or better, than incandescents?

Everything has a pro and a con.

incandescents
Pro: Cheap
Con: waste power

CFL:
Pro: cheaper to run
Con: Slow warm up in colder areas

LED
Pro: last a long time
Con: expensive

 

[Grand Prix]

Everything has a pro and a con.

incandescents
Pro: Cheap
Con: waste power

CFL:
Pro: cheaper to run
Con: Slow warm up in colder areas

LED
Pro: last a long time
Con: expensive

All the more reason to be able to choose between them, then.

 

[Adamgp]

I prefer incandescents, even though half the lights in my house are cfl's. (previous owner put them in, perhaps to help offset power usage of the hot tub)

The front exterior lights by the front door and garage are cfl and amazingly they are surviving the record cold here, and they actually turn on right away. I hate them though, 2 are white and one is yellowish.

They do have a loud buzzing sound, as do the interior cfl's.

 

[Sprite]

I personally have no preference and at home we have CFL bulbs in our lamps and incandescent in the main overhead lights 9 in total, but they don’t get used often and its dark out the lamps go on, its darker yes but I'm not a huge fan of bright light and too much gives me a headache. I'd prefer to have LED but the initial outlay can’t be justified at the moment.
The reason the EU banned them:

From 1 September, an EU directive aimed at reducing the energy use of lighting means that retailers will no longer be allowed to sell 40W and 25W incandescent bulbs. Similar bans came into effect for 60W and 100W incandescent bulbs over the past three years. The restrictions are predicted to save 39 terawatt-hours of electricity across the EU annually by 2020.
Earlier this year, the UK government said the ban would bring an "average annual net benefit" of £108m to the UK between 2010 and 2020 in energy savings.

 

[BobK]

Yes, we get that. The purpose of the ban is to reduce energy consumption. The issue is the government(s) forcing people. Why should a 25W incandescent night light be banned while a 40W fluorescent is okay? If you're serious about reducing energy usage then ban all artificial lights, period. Or do what the government does so well: tax the bejeezus out of energy used for lights. Or anything else, what's so special about lights in particular? Hey, we could even call it a "carbon tax"!

 

[Grayfox]

Yes, we get that. The purpose of the ban is to reduce energy consumption. The issue is the government(s) forcing people. Why should a 25W incandescent night light be banned while a 40W fluorescent is okay? If you're serious about reducing energy usage then ban all artificial lights, period. Or do what the government does so well: tax the bejeezus out of energy used for lights. Or anything else, what's so special about lights in particular? Hey, we could even call it a "carbon tax"!

It is about the lumens output.

A 25w incan would output about 200lumens
A 40w fluro would out put about 3000lumens(similar output compared to a 150w incan)

 

[Jay.]

It is about the lumens output.

A 25w incan would output about 200lumens
A 40w fluro would out put about 3000lumens(similar output compared to a 150w incan)

One of the reasons I struggle to find the right ones, any that are too bright or constant flicker can cause problems with my wifes epilepsy.

 

[Grayfox]

LEDs would be the way then for your wife.

You can make them out of the internals of a CFL if you know how.
problem with flicker is they are not adding any filtering so they save on costs.

 

[FoolKiller]

Did the UK have an energy crisis we didn't hear about in the states?

 

[Grayfox]

No.
Australia did the same thing in 2002.

It is just people in the UK didn't make a big deal about it.

 

[FoolKiller]

No.
Australia did the same thing in 2002.

It is just people in the UK didn't make a big deal about it.

The reasoning quoted was saved energy use. Why was that worth taxpayers money to take time to make a law if it wasn't a national issue? If there was no energy crisis it just uses force to make people save their own energy. Why?

 

[Grayfox]

To save green house gases that the nation emits annually, to save power, to reduce load on substations and power stations.

And not all incandescent bulbs will be banned, some specialized ones will still be sold.

 

[niky]

Banning incandescent is exactly like banning gasoline cars outright and forcing all buyers to buy hybrids.

Yes, hybrids/CFLs/LEDs consume less gasoline/diesel/electricity. But for marginal users, savings in terms of electricity used will not match the extra cost.

That extra cost is not inconsequential. With a tight household budget, I sometimes have to wait to replace dead bulbs for a long while. That's because I save up to buy LEDs over CFLs. People in similar situations will feel hard put-on to even buy the CFLs.

I've said this elsewhere, but if you are spending money, you are causing emissions. Because money paid for manufacture or power is typically proportional to the carbon emissions produced by those processes.

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And, RE: Load... considering most incandescents are used by private citizens instead of businesses... that means they're all on at night... night-time when overall usage is low. Power companies prefer having a steady base-load, so there's little benefit to them if you're switching out these particular lights.

Makes more sense, from the power-generation point of view, to switch out the well-used flourescents and powerful halogen spots in businesses and factories for LED lights, instead.

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The benefits don't matter. You're preaching to the choir. Some of us are LED fanatics, here. But this legislation is simply bandwagon-jumping for the sake of appearing green. If they really wanted to help consumers go green, they'd legislate tax breaks or sales tax deductions for more efficient bulbs, rather than outlawing a class of bulbs arbitrarily, forcing everyone to buy bulbs for much more money.

 

[BobK]

It is about the lumens output.

A 25w incan would output about 200lumens
A 40w fluro would out put about 3000lumens(similar output compared to a 150w incan)

It's about lumens? Lumens?? Gee, and here I thought everyone including the government(s) was saying it's for energy. Sheesh, you learn something every day.

 

[Imari]

It's about lumens? Lumens?? Gee, and here I thought everyone including the government(s) was saying it's for energy. Sheesh, you learn something every day.

Except that a lumen is essentially power per unit area. It's an energy measurement, albeit one that only measures at a defined wavelength in the visible spectrum.

I suspect you know this already and are just being clever, but hey. I'm with you in that they should just charge appropriately for the energy instead of trying to regulate end uses, but it's not really helpful to the discussion to be disingenuous about how the proposed ban works.

 

[BobK]

Well, what do the regulations say? Do they say "no incandescent bulbs" or do they say "no devices with lumen output below a given threshold of lumens per watt of input"?

 

[Beeker1972]

The good thing is the United States citizens are becoming more libertarian than big government progressives that the Republicans, and Democrats cater to. It would be nice to see the United States Libertarian Party become a major political party, but Libertarians are strong individuals that can't stand group mindset.

As of January 1st, 2014, it will be illegal to import and manufacture incandescent 40 and 60 watt light bulbs in the United States. Thanks to Bush, I am now hoarding these bulbs for literally no good reason. Honestly, is there one good reason they decided to outlaw a good or service? Plus, what gives the government the right to outlaw a product? The Healthcare mandate? Honestly, this country is getting worse by the day.

 

[fatkrakr]

Ill just leave this here and you can decide for yourself just how efficient these new bulbs are. http://www.richsoil.com/CFL-fluorescent-light-bulbs.jsp

 

[Beeker1972]

I'm trying to replace all my lights in my house with LEDs, because they last for 20 years or more, and they're cool to the touch ... I really don't understand why some groups think they know better how to live than me. It really dumb way of thinking. When big government people don't like something they ban it, but when small government people don't like it they don't use it. Individual liberty always will be better than group liberty.

 

[Sanji Himura]

You all missed the point on leaded fuel. The technology advanced to where we didn't need the lead in the fuel anymore, well before any government commissioned studies on the impact of greenhouse gasses on the atmosphere. Part of that was caused by the fuel crisis during the 70's that led to more economical cars in the 80's and the 90's.

If the free market was allowed to do its job without government interference, suffice to say that the better light bulb would have a dominate share of the market, and the others would have been phased out. But because government forced a ban on a solution, you are going to get hording.

Thank you Bush!

 

[CAMAROBOY69]

I can't stand incandescent bulbs for the most part since I like bright, white light. One of the first things I did when I moved into my new house was start getting rid of that nasty, dingy, yellow light and swapping it out for either 5000K CFL's or where I could, LEDs. As of now I only have a few "standard" bulbs left and those are all halogen bulbs from Ikea.

I don't really see a point in banning them, but it seems like consumers would want to start moving to something that's more efficient to run.

I agree. ALL the lights in my house are either bright white CFL or LED. I even started converting my outside lights to LED. Amazing how much energy I have saved after the conversion. Some of them have a 20 year warranty!! If I move, I will probably take them with me.

 

[mister dog]

Because i remembered this thread here i wanted to stock up some classic ones, so i went to carrefour (which is one of the biggest supermarket chains in europe), and to my shock they didn't have a single one anymore

I have been using these hallogen ones for a couple of months, which seems to be the only type they are selling now:

But these bastards break in less than a month! Unreliable junk really; so today i went out and bought 14 classic lightbulbs in a small store that still had them, lady behind the counter actually made a mistake (even tough she had the biggest calculator i've ever seen), and only charged me for 7

 

[Sanji Himura]

I wasn't trying to do some research into this, but the information fell into my lap about Australia's ban on incandescents.

When the ban was implemented in 2010, the government boasted that it would save 800,000 metric tons of CO2 per year for the next four years. Sounds great, right?

Consider two things, one, what they left out was that the savings equated to 0.21% of the country's emissions. To put it another way, with an entire country on CFLs, it would reduce world emissions by 0.003%. Increases in other sectors would negate the cut in approximately 5 hours.

Two, no matter how much energy savings the US would see, it would all be negated by China's coal plants. At current pace, by 2020, they would have emitted enough CO2 that it will take 3 billion Ford Expeditions driven 15,000 in one year just to match that output. Granted, it would take Ford 15,000 years just to sell that many.