Lightbulbs?

[Brannigans Law]

What do y'all use for light bulbs in your homes? Just for the ceiling and such, nothing like decorative or anything. I'm assuming most are now on compact fluorescent, but has anyone switched over to LED bulbs? What's that like? Are they R-word expensive to buy off the hop but worth it long haul?

[BloodFetish]

I have a few of these in my place. They look good, dim nicely, and don't put out much heat. No hum or flickers. I like them a lot.

Everything else in my place is incandescent or halogen. Eventually I'd like to get LEDs for all our fixtures.

CF bulbs to me are sorta like the Windows Vista OS. Buggy as all hell when first released, improved somewhat over time but never really "good". Now that LEDs are here and the prices are coming down I'll do to CF bulbs what I did with Vista - skip them completely!

[bigtmac19]

I think LED are the way to go. My son just replaced all the pot lights in his kitchen with LED bulbs, definitely pricier to start, but worth it I think.

[V]

I don't think LED is economically there yet, but if you like the look you might want to get them for aesthetic reasons. What are the bulbs priced at these days? I heard they were still around 15 bucks a bulb. That's just crazy, if true.

We still use incandescent because CFLs were just never that good. We'll switch to LED when it makes more sense.

[GP_Matt]

I have been switching to LED as my bulbs burn out which isn't actually that fast. I like the LED bulbs but my biggest annoyance with them is they are still in the constant redesign phase. Our kitchen has six pot lights that take 60 watt incandescent bulbs and the first LED that I put in from Phillips has since been discontinued. For the next bulb I put one of the yellow Phillips bulbs in but am going to be rather annoyed if they discontinue that design before I get them all changed out.

[pseudoreality]

I have a few LEDs, but they are really expensive. Everything else is CF. CF does worry me when they break. I dropped one the other days and kicked my pregnant wife out of the house while I cleaned it up. Don't need to expose her to mercury.

[Buff]

I'm slowly switching away from CF bulbs. I didn't know they had mercury in them, and I think I've even cleaned up a broken CF bulb in the past and still didn't know about it, but don't worry, I'm fine.

I'm slowly switching away from CF bulbs. I didn't know they had mercury in them, and I think I've even cleaned up a broken CF bulb in the past and still didn't know about it, but don't worry, I'm fine.

I have been using incandescent again, but I bought a LED to try out. We'll see how it goes, I haven't decided where to try it yet.

[photon]

I've been using LEDs whenever I have to replace some bulbs, been pretty happy with them so far. The only thing I'm concerned about is putting them in fixtures that don't have any ventilation, a lot of our fixtures are the ceiling bubble kind, large, but don't have any ventilation. They eat CFLs like candy because of that. The LEDs I put in my office a while back seem to be going ok, going to try the Cree LEDs in my kid's room next.

[octothorp]

I really like the couple LEDs that I have. I hated the CFLs. Life expectancy never seemed to be what was promised, and then there's the whole rigamarole of disposing of them correctly. Also, I've recently become aware of how crappy using blue spectrum lights in the evening is for your sleep, and it seems like LEDs have a lot more options in the warmer colour ranges than CFLs.

It seems like there's an abundance of relatively cheap, Chinese-made LEDs available online (looking specifically at dx.com), but I'm not sure what the quality is like. Anyone have any preferred places for buying reasonably cheap LEDs, or is it a case that you need to spend to get decent quality.

[Ace]

I've been putting in LEDs as much as possible. The Ikea led bulbs are actually quite good in terms of colour and price (light much like a Normal bulb). There are so many different spectrums of LED bulbs out there you really need to find what you like and then be consistent.

[V]

Originally Posted by octothorp

It seems like there's an abundance of relatively cheap, Chinese-made LEDs available online (looking specifically at dx.com), but I'm not sure what the quality is like. Anyone have any preferred places for buying reasonably cheap LEDs, or is it a case that you need to spend to get decent quality.

I have no experience in residential lighting, really, but from what we've seen in the exterior world, we haven't found an LED manufacturer in China that isn't garbage yet. You'll get what you pay for, that's for sure, but not only in life exectancy. The binning is really weak, so you'll get all kinds of variations in your colour as well.

It costs us a couple hundred bucks to change a light, and we order quantities in the thousands, so it's important we buy high quality luminaires. There's a lot less risk in residential lighting, though, so it might be worth your while to check out some of these cheap lights. Just don't expect to get anything close to the same quality as you'll get with Cree or Phillips.

[BlackArcher101]

I have a few CF bulbs for accent lights, but in general room lighting I have incandescent. Nothing worse than waiting for a CF bulb to get to full intensity when you only need the light for a few seconds (ie a closet).

[edslunch]

I use mostly halogen bulbs in pots. Have recently switched to LED for outside down lights since I got tired on climbing the ladder to replace every year

CF are a nightmare - I've had several burn up on me, actually called the FD once when couldn't find the source of smoke. Plus they are environmentally bad. Stay away

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by photon

I've been using LEDs whenever I have to replace some bulbs, been pretty happy with them so far. The only thing I'm concerned about is putting them in fixtures that don't have any ventilation, a lot of our fixtures are the ceiling bubble kind, large, but don't have any ventilation. They eat CFLs like candy because of that. The LEDs I put in my office a while back seem to be going ok, going to try the Cree LEDs in my kid's room next.

Has your experience with CFLs changed since you made this post?

Originally Posted by photon

And I've only had one CFL bulb die in 5+ years; you'd need a higher replacement rate to offset the savings.

I find it interesting how the general opinion on CFLs has changed since 2011 and that thread. (Not to pick on you specifically, you mentioned LEDs then as well).

[V]

In our market we've seen drastic improvements in efficacy and CRI for LEDs, while the price has halved or more since 2011. I would expect to see more people turn away from CFL as the technology gets even better.

[Smartcar]

I bought LED bulbs at Costco and changed out all of one room at a time and use the old bulbs in another room until they burn out. I don't buy too many at a time because the price keeps dropping. I love them - I had one pot light that was constantly burning out, I was going to replace it thinking it was defective but once I switched to LED it hasn't burned out at all. I think at current prices the savings in electricity is worth the extra cost. Last time I bought them I think a 3-pack was $50.

[photon]

Originally Posted by bizaro86

Has your experience with CFLs changed since you made this post?

Yup, I'm exaggerating a bit by saying eating like candy, and changing a few switches with dimmers might be contributing (though I am getting CFLs that support dimmers, and CFL friendly dimmer switches), but I've replaced probably 8+ CFLs in the past year, all but one of them in closed light fixtures. My kid's room specifically they just died again, so that would be two more (3rd sent in the past couple of years I think).

On the flip side, a lot of the CFLs I had when I posted that are still going!

Don't now if it's heat, or power has gotten worse, or quality of the bulbs I like has gone done, or what.

[Rathji]

When I bought my house, about 5 years ago now, we switched everything to CFL.

Since then, my kids lights have gone back to incandescent, since the CFL would occasionally flicker when the fan was on, but the bulb was off. Everything else in my house is still CFL, but I am running out of the ones I originally bought, so the colors don't match right.

It annoys me, so I will likley need to replace the bulbs again, one floor at a time with matching colors.

[You Need a Thneed]

I have LED in my kitchen, dining room, Hallway (GU10), and some lamps. CFL's in bedrooms, and halogen's in the bathroom and in the ceiling fan, as those are special bulbs. I also have LEDs in the my outdoor fixtures (Phillips weird yellow looking ones in those - but great light)

I have had no issues with the LED bulbs. The track lighting in the kitchen is nice and bright, and the four bulbs together use about 25 watts. The Halgen fixture in the bathroom uses about 300 watts, sometime I'm going to put a new fixture in just so that I don't have to have power consuming bulbs in there. It would have been done already if I didn't have to paint after putting a new fixture on.

EarthLED.com has a large quantity of different LED bulbs, up to 150 watt equivalent, I think. I've bought from there before, and was happy with their product. They used to sell more of their own branded stuff, but it looks like they now mostly sell other brands.

[Reaper]

I am replacing my bulbs in my house with LED bulbs. I generally go one room at a time in order to maintain colour consitency. I buy my bulbs at Costco so I can return them if they fail (I've had one fail - return was no problem). While the cost of the bulbs can be pricey (~$13/bulb) I managed to drop my power bill by approximately $30/month by replacing the lighting in high traffic areas with LEDs.