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silver-eagle

silver-eagle

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Never have been a fan of any of the florescent type lights, just makes me feel I'm living in a office.

Old style "Edison" incandescent bulbs for bedrooms, bar, that type of thing and LEDs for outdoor, basement and other higher output or longer running lights FTW
 
I thought this thread was about the demise of the Canadian Football League.
 
LEDs certainly seem to be superior in all aspects...at least until someone points out some fatal flaw that's going to cause us all to die if we use them.
 
LED technology has gotten much cheaper. In Lowes, they are now selling LED 60W equivalent lights for $2 each in a "warm white" color that is very similar to incandescent. I bought some for my garage door openers as a test and they're great. This is a big improvement from the $10+ LED bulbs that we were seeing just a few years ago.

It should be no surprise to anyone. Roughly 25 years ago, I remember seeing the original, old style CFLs for $20 per bulb, they might have been higher. By 15 years ago, you could buy them for a few bucks a bulb. It was fairly expected that LEDs would follow the same path. I still don't mind CFLs (or florescent lighting in general), but for certain applications. The garage lighting will get "daylight white" florescent tube light fixtures when I get around to that.
 
We converted all the can lights in a house we just bought to LED. Huge difference. The LED adapters are sealed, they don't let air escape into the attic. Not to mention they're cool running and use less electricity.

I think they'll pay for themselves quickly.

I'm surprised more house fires haven't started from recessed can lights. Those suckers get HOT!
 
Good riddance to the corkscrew CFL! I skipped those until nothing else was available except for pricey LEDs. The home I bought last fall had 11 can lights; all are now LED, and the new LED floods for outside are waiting for me to install. LED = great! CFL = yuck!
 
I won't miss them. I used them to save money on electricity since they first came out -- I lived in NYC then, and ConEd's rate are crazy high -- but overall I thought they were a stupid idea.

The supposed intention that drove the push to CFLs was to reduce the production of "greenhouse gases," but it came at the cost of polluting homes and businesses with mercury when they shattered (not to mention that the vast majority of them almost certainly wound up in landfills when they burned out). Dumb idea. They're also horrible for any location where the temperature drops below ~ 60F. The colder it is, the longer they take to warm up and the less light they put out.

Other than plant and reptile lights, I think I have six CFLs left. Four are 100-watt equivalents in the basement, and two are reflector-type "flood lights" in recessed fixtures in the first-floor hallway and the upstairs head. All the rest, indoors and outdoors, are now LED.

The next time I come across 100- or 150-watt equivalent LED floods from a manufacturer I've heard of for $5.00 / each or less, the CFLs in the basement and the recessed fixtures will be retired, as well. Good riddance to them.

Rich
 
I definitely noticed the cost savings with the CFLs vs incandescent in all the homes I had. This was especially true in Ohio where we had a bunch of can lights in areas that would heat the area a bunch, thus requiring a lower AC thermostat temp (on an already undersized AC system) to keep it comfy.

LEDs are better by an order of magnitude, but I never had many grievances with CFLs.
 
I have all the standard stuff replaced with LED at this point, waiting for the globe styles to come down in price and I can do the bathrooms. Would like to see the fluorescent tube LED replacements come down in price also. I've got a hlaf dozen or so 2 tube fixtures in the basement.
 
Re: Bye bye CFL

silver-eagle said:
GE has announced that they are phasing out the manufacturing of compact florescent in favor of new LED technology. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/02/business/energy-environment/ge-to-phase-out-cfl-light-bulbs.html What I couldn't understand was why go from a relatively safe incandescent bulb to a toxic CFL and believe that was better.
Who here ever followed the disposal requirements of CFL? Ludicrous.
Click to expand...

I have taken several dead one's to Lowe's for recycling. They died way before their time since they were store brand and made in China. Not buyin' no more.

David
 
I won't miss them at all. The ones with the exposed element aren't too bad, but the second you use one where the element is enclosed they take forever to come up to full bright. I've got one in a ceiling mount in the walk in closet that is still dim as I leave. And they don't last as long as one would be led to believe. I'm switching to LEDs as needed. I just replaced 6 60 Watt incandescent bulbs in one bathroom with 6 LEDs that draw 10 Watts each. That will be a nice reduction in power for that room.
 
LDJones said:
LEDs certainly seem to be superior in all aspects...at least until someone points out some fatal flaw that's going to cause us all to die if we use them.
Click to expand...

One reason some airports haven't switched to them is they don't throw off enough heat to melt any snow or ice that accumulates on them. So unless someone is gonna go out and clean off the lights on a regular basis they have to install a heating element of some kind as well.

Airports that have report it takes about seven years to break even on the cost to switch.
 
I wonder how long it'll be before I can go into a hotel room and actually have the lights come on when I flip the switch, rather than having to wait an hour for them to warm up.
 
The average CFL has 2.5 mg of murcury in it.

The average CFL saves, over its life, 8 mg of mercury emissions if the CFL is powered by a coal fired powerplant.

Since coal plants produce prox 40% of the power in the US. A CFL saves more Mercury pollution than it produces, even before considering a 25% recycling rate.

The per capita Mercury emissions of coal fired powerplants is 163 mg.

LEDs are indeed a vastly better technology...it's just that CFLs get a somewhat undeserved bad rap. Oh, and all the ones I've bought in the last few years have been instant on, even in 0dF temps.
 
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